Ken Block founded the Rhode Island Moderate Party in 2010 and ran for governor of Rhode Island as the Moderate candidate. He then left that party in 2014 to run for governor as a Republican.
In the wake of the 2020 election, he was hired by the Trump campaign to search for election fraud. After telling the Trump team that he did not find evidence of widespread fraud, he wrote “Disproven: My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data that Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections.”
He spoke with our political reporter Ian Donnis about the current state of U.S. politics, the integrity of our elections and more.
Interview Highlights:
What should be done to reduce the threat of political violence in the U.S.?
I think the only way to reduce the threat is to dial the heat down on the outrage and the partisanship, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen anytime soon.
Did President Trump’s pardon for those charged and/or convicted in the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol send a message in support of political violence?
Block: It certainly sent a message that, with President Trump in power, the political violence was excused. And I think that sends the wrong message in terms of simmering things down and trying to bridge the divide that we’re in right now. It looks like everybody’s more interested in sharpening the divide than trying to close it.
How do you see the outlook for free speech in the current moment after ABC walked back its suspension of Jimmy Kimmel?
Block: It’s one thing to go after it’s another to go after successfully. The act of going after somebody for exercising their legitimate First Amendment rights to free speech is an attempt to tamp down free speech. I don’t believe that the courts are going to start determining that what amounts to allowed free speech is all of a sudden not allowed anymore. I believe that there are a lot of originalists on the Supreme Court and I don’t see them undoing probably the biggest original piece of our Constitution that we have, which is the right to free speech. First Amendment, number one. So, I think that we’re seeing some attempts at repression of speech. I always get in trouble when I say this, but I don’t think those attempts are going to become legally successful.
How do you assess President Trump’s overall economic program, his tariffs and his most recent decision to charge $100,000 for H1-B visas?
Block: I am very much against the tariffs. We are starting to see the impact of tariffs on the economy. Long-term economic trends take a while to come out. So I’m very worried about what’s going to happen to us economically as the tariffs fight harder. We have seen a dramatic change in the stature of the United States on the global stage. And I think that a lot of world leaders not only look at the United States differently, I think that they understand Trump better and they’re not afraid to stand up to him. So, I think generally speaking, I think we are on a fairly disastrous course in terms of that.
As far as the H1-B visas, that’s my industry. A lot of those visas went to very young, inexperienced foreign workers who came in and they were being paid well under what relatively young new U.S. tech workers were being paid and it was hurting our entire tech industry. Because the only way you get seasoned software engineers is if you bring up junior ones and you get them the training that they need. And that was a very difficult marketplace while we were being flooded with young, inexperienced foreign workers. (We) were being paid a pittance relative to US workers.
What is the state of election integrity for the 2026 midterms?
Block: So the one positive from all of the false claims about voter fraud is by and large, most states have tightened up their election data and they have taken steps to make likely areas of fraud less likely. I think that that’s probably the only positive that’s come out of asking those questions. Georgia has some of the squeakiest clean data in the country now, based on the ringer they were put through for four years over the claims of fraud that happened there. We didn’t have excessive amounts of voter fraud. Certainly nothing to overturn a federal election from what I’ve been able to determine. There’s even less now, based on how things have been cleaned up. I think there’s a lot more that we can do. We have a very odd election system and infrastructure and as one of the most technologically competent and advanced societies on the earth, how we do our elections and the issues that we have with them still are pretty mind-blowing and they really shouldn’t be there.
Should people be concerned about President Trump using executive power to disallow mail-in ballots?
Block: That won’t stand up. The Constitution says very clearly that the states are responsible for the conduct of elections. The executive power of the president’s office does not have that power. It’s one thing to issue the executive order; it’s another thing to enforce it. It’s not enforceable. President Trump has issued several different executive orders that have no force of law behind them and, and they’re just sitting there and they’re not affecting policy changes.
Does President Trump’s use of the National Guard in some American cities. raise a specter of efforts to discourage certain voting blocs in the midterm elections?
Block: I don’t know. Is it possible that the deployments of the National Guard to certain cities now (are) a trial balloon? Sure. I suppose that could be the case. Can and will the National Guard insert itself between voters in the voting booths? Very difficult to see that. You have to remember that the National Guard members, even the members of the military, they’re U.S. citizens first and foremost. And I think putting them into unacceptable conflicts will eventually cause big problems, I think, between the executive office and the different military branches.
