Second husband Doug Emhoff turned heads again during an MSNBC interview late last week when he did not directly deny a previous report claiming he physically struck an ex-girlfriend, instead calling the story a “distraction.”

Emhoff was asked about reports from DailyMail.com reporting that he hit his ex-girlfriend some years ago, reports that have not been picked up by most other outlets.

“[Trump’s] spreading it about you, saying that tabloid stories about your personal life. He’s saying it should be front and center. He’s saying it about your wife and making incredibly crude and lewd suggestions about her past life. I’m just curious, I know I seem like a very zen, mindful person, but I think I’d be pissed off, and I’m just wondering, how do you all stay centered, how do you stay disciplined and not really go off and not really push back hard at these things?” MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough asked.

“We don’t have time to be p***ed off,” Emhoff responded without denying the report. “We don’t have time to focus on it. It’s all a distraction. It’s designed to try to get us off our game.”

“Does it get you off your game?” Scarborough replied.

“No. All we are doing – all we talk about – is this election,” Emhoff said.

“We understand the stakes, we understand the responsibility,” he added. “Our very country, our future – what kind of future are we going to have, who would you like picking the next three Supreme Court justices? The guy who picked the three who overturned Roe v. Wade and want to take away more freedom?”

Previously, a spokesperson for Emhoff simply called the report “untrue.”

Meanwhile, if Donald Trump manages to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris at the polls following the Nov. 5 election, he will likely face an even tougher opponent in court: her campaign attorney, Marc Elias.

According to RealClearInvestigation’s Paul Sperry, the seasoned Democratic Party attorney has filed more than 60 pre-election lawsuits aimed at preventing Trump from being elected again. His filings target what he describes as Republican “voter suppression” tactics, such as requiring voters to present identification at polling stations. Echoing a common Democratic position, Elias argues that these measures are “racist” strategies designed to make it more difficult for minority voters to cast their ballots.

“At the same time, Elias has been sending letters to election officials in Georgia and other key swing states threatening legal action if they uphold challenges to voter rolls to remove noncitizens and other ineligible registrants,” Sperry writes. “Some Georgia officials complain that his intimidation tactics are interfering with county registrars’ ability to check the qualifications of voters.“If Trump is declared the winner, the hard-charging attorney threatens to overturn his election by deploying an army of more than 75 lawyers to sue for ballot recounts in several swing states,” Sperry noted further. “Trump, in turn, has threatened to lock Elias up for election interference, as ABC News moderator David Muir pointed out in last month’s presidential debate between Trump and Kamala Harris.”

Elias exemplifies the increasing role of “lawfare” in U.S. elections, as both major parties increasingly rely on the courts to gain a competitive advantage, Sperry’s report noted. A recently released Republican National Committee memo reveals t

Additionally, the campaign has enlisted thousands of lawyers to counter what a Trump attorney anticipates will be an “onslaught of litigation” from the Harris campaign challenging the election outcomes. Naturally, this extensive legal team is also prepared to initiate recounts if Trump does not secure a victory, the report said.hat the Trump campaign has filed or joined 123 election-related lawsuits across 26 states, with 82 of these cases in battleground states, aiming to address what they term voter fraud.