While many GOP lawmakers across the country are pushing for voting restrictions, Republicans in Kentucky are taking a different approach.
Last week, the state House passed with near unanimous support a bill to allow for early voting on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before Election Day. Although this period is much shorter than the three weeks of early voting allowed during last year's pandemic-era election, making early voting a permanent fixture in Kentucky is still a significant expansion.
Following the 2020 election, in which most states adapted their voting rules and procedures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, legislators are now considering whether to make these voting expansions permanent or to roll back access to the ballot box. Republicans are generally in favor of more restrictive measures because they erroneously claim their proposals will protect against mail voting fraud, but opponents see such moves as efforts to suppress left-leaning voters.
The legislation now goes to the Senate, which had proposed its own version of the bill. Since the election changes received such broad, bipartisan support in the state House, it is likely to also pass through the Senate and head to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear's desk once the differences have been resolved.
In addition to the early voting change, the House bill would also establish centers where any voter in the county may cast a ballot regardless of precinct. Each county would also be required to provide at least one secure drop box for absentee ballots.
If the bill is enacted, election officials will need to notify voters of any signature matching issues with their ballot and to give them the opportunity to fix it. This ballot "curing" process has not previously been available to voters in Kentucky.
However, the bill would not expand absentee voting eligibility. Currently, only Kentuckians with certain excuses (such as age, illness, disability or temporary residence outside of the state) can vote absentee. Voting by mail was temporarily expanded to all eligible voters last year due to Covid-19.
The online portal that was created last year for requesting absentee ballots will remain in use, though.
The bill also includes provisions more typical of Republican efforts. So-called "ballot harvesting" by third-party entities would be prohibited, allowing only for family members, housemates or caregivers to return ballots for voters who cannot do so themselves. The state would also be required to remove from the voter rolls anyone who registers in another state.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.