Eight months before January 6, a very similar mob stormed a different government building. Armed men, furious about an extension of COVID lockdowns, stormed the state Capitol building in Lansing, Michigan. 

It was a precursor to the march on the Capitol in Washington DC, with chants, signs and even protesters in common. But among some of the men in Michigan that day, a plot was brewing that was more sinister. It shows just how insidious and dangerous the lies spreading among Donald Trump’s supporters can be. 

If he wins, Trump has vowed to pardon those people convicted of crimes on January 6—what signal could such immunity send?

We've released this episode of America's Last Election early, so you can listen before election day. The video of this podcast episode will be released on Saturday morning as usual. 

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With only days until the election both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are zigzagging across the United States holding rallies to shore up support. At a Trump rally in the suburbs of Detroit, Matt Bevan chatted to a whole lot of fans waiting in line about why they're voting for Trump and what happens if the election doesn't go his way. He and Insiders host David Speers debriefed in the car ride back to the city.

If You're Listening's Hello America bonus episodes are produced by Kara Jensen Mackinnon and Jess O'Callaghan. Episode 4 of America's Last Election will drop early on Tuesday morning AEDT.

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It’s Halloween in America, and with the countdown on to election day, things are getting spooky. In downtown Detroit, Matt Bevan meets early voters, trick-or-treaters, and samples local delicacies — thanks to everyone who emailed with tips. Keep them coming, Washington DC is next: [email protected]

And as mentioned in the episode, if you have a question about the US election or our series America’s Last Election, email it through in the next few days. Matt will be kicking off election week by answering your questions in a live blog on ABC News Monday November 4, from 7AM AEDT.

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In the United States, presidential elections rely on thousands of actual people coming together to scrutinise and then certify the results. That’s what will happen next week, when polls close on the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. So what would happen if they just refused to certify a result, for political reasons? 

In 2020, exactly this scenario played out, in an extraordinarily tense meeting room in Detroit, Michigan. In the four years since, Trump’s supporters have worked hard to try and replicate this roadblock around the country.

In this third episode of America’s Last Election, If You’re Listening looks at what that could mean for election day 2024, and the weeks that follow.

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On the road in Michigan, Matt Bevan heads to the state's political capital of Lansing. There, he meets a swing voter named David who is all in on Trump, navigates the labyrinth that is the state Capitol building, and samples local delicacies on the I-96. 

Former top Trump advisor Steve Bannon is out of prison, and vowing to do what he can to help the Trump campaign win days out from the election, but the car radio is abuzz with a different story — the impact of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's jokes on Puerto Rican voters in key swing states.

Episode 3 of America's Last Election will drop on Thursday morning. 

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Matt Bevan is on the ground in Michigan, Detroit, a key swing state in next week’s US presidential election. There are some things you just don’t get when you’re telling a story from your basement in Newcastle: candid chats with Republican voters on the plane, for one. Vice presidential motorcades screaming past you on the highway for another. Follow Matt as he travels through America in the lead up to election day, and hear from the people he meets along the way.  

Episode 3 of America's Last Election will drop on Thursday morning. 

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After the 2020 election, Donald Trump searched desperately for any theory that would allow him to retain control of the White House. On Christmas Eve, his team called a constitutional lawyer named John Eastman, who gave them something to work with. Eastman’s theory relied on Vice President Mike Pence playing along. 

In this second episode of America’s Last Election, If You’re Listening looks at the theory the riot on January 6 was based on, and why Trump’s supporters thought it might work.

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Donald Trump did not win the 2020 presidential election. But if you watched his speech on election night, you wouldn’t come away with that understanding. ‘Frankly,’ he said ‘We did win this election.’

In the months that followed, the story backing up that claim warped and changed, but at its core was a big lie about a supercomputer called ‘The Hammer’, an imaginary software called ‘Scorecard’, and a man with a long history of fooling the US government.

And now Donald Trump is on the ballot again. Over five episodes, If You’re Listening looks at the transition period after the 2020 election, and what it tells us about the plan in 2024. 

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Within months of becoming US president in 2017, Donald Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury”. Soon afterwards, he would tear up a nuclear deal with Iran and bring the US to the brink of war. And yet that war never came. This is the story of how Donald Trump resisted temptation and kept the peace.

This is a repeat episode, it was first broadcast on September 21, 2020. You can hear the rest of that series on our website or in our podcast feed: America, If You’re Listening.

News audio used in this episode comes from: Arirang News, Inside Edition, CNN, ABC America, Democracy Now, Fox News, CBS, ABC News, and France 24. 

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The world's most famous artificial intelligence company, OpenAI — the creator of ChatGPT — was set up to create a superintelligent AI, while at the same time safeguarding humanity from an omnipotent robot overlord which could enslave us all. 

So is an AI apocalypse possible, and with wunderkind CEO Sam Altman in charge, will OpenAI be able to protect us from its own robots?

This is a repeat episode. It was first broadcast on November 30, 2023. You can watch this episode now on YouTube. 

We'll be back with new episodes from October 17.

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-vew1rfrG6k?si=GFuWe7-uTaZiq_Gb