Legal Challenges to Election Integrity Plans

OptimarX is driving an industry first transparency model. For plan sponsors, it means a model designed with easy to understand predictable pricing. For consumers, it's clearer experiences that bring cost transparency, affordability, and choice. Learn more at optim. com slash transparency . People are building things here in America again , and this moment calls for the best of America , our people , introducing America's Workforce Academy, built by Meta, a program helping to train the next generation of welders, fiber installers, crew leaders, and more . Paid training, a job, and a path to America's future , because the future is for everyone. Learn more at meta dot com slash America's Workforce Academy . After days of renewed hostilities , the United States and Iran have agreed to end the back and forth fighting around the Strait of Hormuz and resume peace talks to end the five month war . That's according to the Wall Street Journal, citing official s from the U. S. other countries involved in the negotiations. A senior Trump administration official tells MS now that technical talks are on track for the coming days as planned. This potential cooling comes after the two sides traded strikes again late last week and throughout the weekend, stemming from efforts to reopen the strait without Iran's oversight , a multinational maritime body overseen by the U. S. Navy, said it would expand a route near Oman for inbound and outbound traffic . Iran then attacked vessels going through a route near the Omani's side, prompting the U. S. military to retaliate. Tehran later hit back by launching drone and missile attacks targeting U. S. assets in Bahrain and Kuwait, as the country's foreign minister reiterated the claim that Iran alone has the authority to govern the straits. So who's agreeing on what here? Meanwhile, fighting in Lebanon continues to threaten any lasting regional peace deal with Hezbollah's leader saying the group reserves the right to defend our homeland and people and will not stop until Israel withdraws Lebanon. So Richard Hass , is there really a peace deal? Is this over or are we just sort of getting by as things pop up? There is no peace There's not even a robust ceasefire . What you have is a vaguely word worded MOU and the sort of thing you just talked about Mika, the idea that there were several days of violence in the Strait of Hormuz, it'll die down and then it'll pop up. Iran wants to have long term influence over control over the Strait of Hormuz, it's its most potent weapon. And one has to assume that periodically, almost like station identification, Iran is going to pop up and assert it. In Lebanon, you have a deal between Israel and the government of Lebanon that leaves out Hezbollah. So that's not that's not a peace deal and we can go around the region . But no, in order to have peace , you need to have not only a balance, but you have to have a joint willingness, a joint commitment to it. And you don't have it. You don't have either a military balance right now, and you certainly don't have a joint commitment. So stop, start, whatever metaphor you want to use, but the one word we ought not to use is peace. This is not a peace deal. Yeah, and I'm going to get back to you, Richard with more on this, but it's also rinse and repeat over and over again the same story. And I just wonder John Halman looking, at the politics of this as well as the foreign policy. I mean, President Trump accused Iran of violating the ceasefire and says these incredibly extreme statements like the Republic will cease to exist . He said it before, at what point did these threats prove to be not only illegitimate because he doesn't follow through on them, but it shows Iran repeatedly mocking and humili ating anything the president of the United States says Big I think we reached that point a while ago and if you're asking whether the threats have started to ring ho and that most of the most of Iran's actions reflect a sense that they don't believe that the president's threats, the most existential of them are going to come to pass anytime soon and because they understand that the president is operating according to a timetable and under the pressures of the midterm elections. And Richard, I guess that's the question. I wanted to turn back to you, which is, you know, you hear more and more people who are close to this process and people who are watching it with the greatest kind of care that what they imagine happening here is this tenuous ceasefires going not just kind of being in place for the next the rest of the sixty days from the MOU, but being extended kind of indefinitely out into the future to carry both sides through November at a minimum and that then will actually maybe start to see some kind of change in the dynamics of the conflict and that Iran is worried about precisely that in the long run, that what President Trump will do is to start to wage war more in ser aious way , a more aggressive way against them again if once he gets past the midterm election day. What do you hear on that front and how plausible you think some of those kind of long running endless war scenarios are we sit here now . Look, it's quite possible. I've heard that in some ways what we're talking about is almost the difference between a stop start and what you talked about is the intensity of resume warfare. So either way, I think we're not looking at we're not looking at peace. We're not looking at a strong ceasefire. We're looking at intermittent violence. But the question is how high is the violence? The problem for the United States is reclosing the strait even if, it's after the midterms causes enormous economic hardship. Plus, as we saw in the last twenty four hours, strikes against Bahrain and Kuwait show the real vulnerability of the region. That's Iran's Iran has two massive pieces of leverage here. One is straight closure. The other is to hit the energy or water infrastructure of its neighbors . And even though it would make itself vulnerable in the course of doing that , the implications for the region and the world would be calamous, far worse, actually than anything we've seen today. So the resumption of significant hostilities after November, I'll be honest with you, John, I don't see where it gets us anyplace better . I just don't see the logic. If more military force would have worked, we would have done it already . And everything we've done hasn't brought us to success. So I don't see where doing it after November changes any of the changes the bottom line here . All right, we're going to get back to this. We have a lot of news to cover this morning the death toll is growing in Venezuela this morning following two back to back earthquakes last week, officials say nearly fifteen hundred people are dead, more than three thousand injured, and up to fifty thousand people are registered as missing. The earthquakes were centered around a coastal city about twenty five miles north of Venezuela's capital of Caracas and destroyed dozens of buildings. Acting President Delsie Rodriguez said yesterday that rescue and recovery efforts remain ongoing. While the first seventy two hours after an earthquake are the most critical for finding survivors, there are still rescues happening throughout the weekend. U. S. rescue crews help pull this man from the rubble. Meanwhile, some Venezuelans are expressing frustration with what they say is the country's inadequate and disorganized response. Many international rescue crews were held up for hours by airport authorities , while one Spanish crew disbanded after waiting for two days at the airport . And volunteers who were praised for their help were also prevented access to some sites due to the government limiting street access . School classes remain suspended for one more week while electricity supply has only been restored to seventy five percent of the area. A senior U. S. official announced yesterday that a financial package to help Venezuela could be announced early this week. We'll turn now to politics here at home after his endorsed candidates swept their Democratic congressional primaries. New York City mayor Zoran Mamdani says his democratic socialist positions can win over voters nationally . Can a Democratic Socialist get elected president? I think a Democratic Socialist can get elected anywhere across this country for any position. What I think we need to bring is a focus on working people. And that's the direction that the party should go in terms of electing a candidate for twenty twenty eight. I think the direction that the party should go in is how best to fight for working people. I think we need to have a platform and a vision that doesn't sound as if it was cooked up by consultants, but instead one that you would say in response to someone who's asking, why can't I afford my rent? Why can't I afford my groceries? Why can't I afford my childcare? We need to make clear who we stand for , how we're going to stand for them, and that we're actually willing to fight for them when the going gets tough. Okay , so those comments come after thirty two year old Democratic Socialist Darieliza Avila Chevalier beat incumbent congressman Adriano Espayat , but Chevalier has been facing scrutiny over previously articulated stances and numerous social media posts that she has since deleted and her appearance at a rally the day after Hamas's attack on Israel on october seventh, twenty twenty three, where attendees reportedly suggested the attack was justified . In the now deleted social media post between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty two multiple posts, Chevalier also used expletives to refer to former Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic National Committee and express support for abolishing police , prisons and borders , as well as seizing private property and calling into question Israel's right to exist . Other reports noted she called former President Joe Biden a ra,p ist , and disparaged white people in some of her posts . Chevalier has said she regrets the posts, adding that she has, quote, grown considerably since writing them . Some Democrats have pushed back against her past comments, while others, like Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut , appeared to dodge these concerns . Yeah, well, I mean, I'm not super familiar with that race . All I'm saying is that this party has to have a real contest of ideas . And I just don't think that our defense of incrementalism has worked . So I don't mind a contest of ideas and I just don't know that we have had it to the extent that voters have been satisfied. Listen, it's no secret. Voters aren't super happy with establishment , Democrats or establishment Republicans these days. I will say though, what binds together , I think every Democratic candidate that is running, including the ones in New York, is that they are standing up to protect American democracy . And right now the biggest threat to this country is are not a handful of House candidates in New York . So Joe reacted to that response posting on X quote, yeah, well, I mean I'm not super familiar with that race. This is what frightened Republicans do when confronted with the horrid things Donald Trump has said. Now Democratic senators are saying this about a congressional candidate who accused Joe Biden of rape . Stop now . His memo to Democrats call out crazy even when it's on your side , especially when it's on your side. Voters will reward you for being better than Republicans . I have to say J Mart , this is going to be an interesting issue actually for candidates on both sides of the aisle because now many of them are old enough to have past tweets and ridiculous statements. And voters are going to have to decide what the line is. What's the deal breaker? In this case, I think it's pretty clear . Some of these statements are complete deal breakers and it's not hard to say. It's just not hard to say. And one of the most frustrating thing about Trump's first presidency and his second and folks who chose to vote for Trump the first time and then vote for him a second time and then act shocked about the cruelty of the mass deportations or to act shocked about the tariff s or to say , well, I haven't been watching the news. I don't know about that one. That is like the most gaslighting experience one can ever ever see throughout this entire political cycle or cycles because pretending you haven't seen it is impossible . It's an out. And now to see a Democrat doing it and I like we both love Chris Murphy. We think he's a great guy and serves our country . But don't gaslight people. I mean, this story's out there . And what is, Jay Mar, what is the line of past tweets being deal breakers? Well by the way, thirty two years old . Well, and that's key here. So you're talking about somebody who was in their early to mid twenties not terribly long ago who probably lives online like everybody that generation does and is, you know, growing politically maturing and saying things that they would probably cringe at now but when they were twenty one, twenty two , maybe it didn't seem as crazy in the heat of the moment. But of course it does now. When you're a candidate for the U. S. Congress . Look, I think both parties would rather focus on the excesses of the other than do accountability or policing on their side. Chris Murphy wants to talk about the decline of the establishment of both parties, how his party has not been able to meet the moment politically . And so that's what he wants to focus on. When you put in his face a candidate who wants to ban borders and prisons and calls Biden a rapist, it's kind of embarrassing . And you know what? It's the same as Republicans. It's embarrassing for them when they're told that Trump is talking about the reflecting pool or calling somebody horseface or whatever, it's just humiliating for them and they'd rather focus on the other because that's the order of the day in American politics now. It's tribalism and it's about the excesses of the other real and perceived. And if you're not talking about that , boy, you don't want to stay on it. You want to focus on the other guys and how they're crazy, not pulling on your own side , but make your right, you got to do accountability on your own side because if you don't guess what? If you don't guess what, it's not going away and the other party is going to jam you and your fellow colleagues over it by throwing those comments against you and targeting your entire party. Look at last week. You have candidates saying I mean I don't know about Trump, but I can't support a party that's for banning prisons and borders. But Democ theratic Party is not for banning prisons and borders, but of course that comment is going to be thrown in the face of other candidates down the road if you don't have some kind of internal policing . Okay and Jim Van Dei , Chevalier might have told the Times a few weeks ago that she wouldn't jail murderers, but you know, I'm not following I don't know about that because I haven't been following it at all. So therefore I can just throw it away. And we don't have to talk about it. Instead of saying you can't say that. That is ridiculous statement, that's not what I support. Let's talk about affordability. Yeah . I mean, let's be honest, like why the Senator says that and why most Democ theratic lead ers are saying what they say. Like they're extremely unpopular. People do not like the Democratic Party any more than they like. Donald Trump. And I'd be really worried if I were a Democratic leader. This is not just a Mandami thing. This is not just a couple of races in New York. Look at DC, look at Seattle, look at Minneapolis, watch that race in Wisconsin, watch the races in Colorado. They are having their tea party moment. They are having their Trump moment. You have this base of very well organized people who are just ticked off. They feel like the Democratic leadership is just bad, that they're weak, that they don't lead them where they want to be led. And when that happens, you can fill the void with people who often have really wacky ideas. That's not new to politics. It might be new to Democrats and that they're now seeing the socialists getting elected. I think this is the beginning of a movement . this Not isn't just a moment in time. Look at those polls. Look at the number of people, not just young, it used to be young people. Now it's young and old who are Democrats who like socialism more than capitalism. We can debate whether they can tell you exactly what socialism is, but they like it. They like the energy, they like the sort of rage against a democratic machine. And I think this is going to be a defining topic going into twenty twenty eight. And if you think that they won't elect a socialist, you're not paying attention to what's happening in Americ a and what's happening on the ground at the base level of the Democratic Party. There's a lot more to talk about here because that in itself is a debate . Still ahead we'll come back to it still. It' ashead on morning , Joe, House Speaker Mike Johnson tries to sell the president's controversial elections bill with falsehoods. While Vice President JD Vance looks to defend Trump's false and repeated voter fraud claims will show you those remarks and what they might mean for the midterms. And as we go to break a quick look at the travelers forecast this morning from Accuweathers Bernie Reyno, Bernie, how's it looking . Micah, we have a heat wave this week. The core of the heat today in the Midwest. Take a look at Chicago well in the nineties . Beautiful day across the Northeast, although the humidity will be rising as we go through the afternoon hours across the southeast. The heats here as well add the humidity nothing more than a few spotty thunderstorms across the southeast. If you're doing any traveling, maybe a delay in Atlanta. Other than that, it's smooth flying. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the Acadia Weather app today Introducing America's Workforce Academy, built by Meta, paid training, a job and a path to America's future, because the future is for everyone. Learn more at meta dot com slash America's Workforce Academy . At Amica Insurance , we know it's not just what's inside your home that matters . It's who you share it with . That's why we work even harder to protect it. And as a mutual insurance company, we're built for our customers. We prioritize your needs and are here for you when you need us . Amika, empathy is our best policy . Visit amika dot com and get a quote today More people, more devices , more AI . The way we live today takes a lot of energy. Wind and solar are powerful , but not always available. That's where natural gas comes in, with reliable energy whenever it's needed. Companies like Energy Transfer work behind the scenes, safely transporting these resources to facilities across the country through a network of underground pipelines. Learn more at energy. com . Here's my deal breaker for your side. Okay . Okay. Under Trump , you guys have two outcomes and an election can be . Either we win or they cheated . That has to stop . I'm the person who look, I don't think that we should not concede elections, but I don't think that's what's going on. I think that if you go back, if you go back to the president's core argument, he was making an argument about problems that exist in twenty twenty. And here's the problem that I'm most focused on. The President I've talked a lot about this. And I think we share a perspective here, but set to decide the stuff that really gets you and your audience very angry about whether the count was legitimate in Georgia or Pennsylvania or any of these other states . Is it true large technology companies , some of whom have financial interests that exist outside the United States of America, were they censoring information in the run up to an election? And set to the side the st againuff, the Georgia stuff, but it is that was litigated, dominion, the Fox Newspiters I'm actually I'm trying to make the more the more middle ground argument here. The biggest criticism I had of the twenty twenty election is that you had technology companies that were quite literally censoring negative information about the left and promoting negative information about the right. So in a fundamental sense, like if the First Amendment says that we have a free and open debate and then the American people judge based on that free and open debate, the sense in which I think the election in twenty twenty was rigged, I'm sorry, is that you had technology companies that were putting their thumb on the scale in a way that completely obliterated the real open exchange of ideas. Now, by the way, it didn't happen in twenty twenty four, but it happened in twenty twenty and it was a problem. Uh huh, Vice President JD Vance on real time on Friday essentially proving Bill Mar's point about the Republican Party. Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson continues to push the president's voting bill. Here's how we tried to sell the legislation yesterday on Fox News . Election integrity is critical. It's central. You know, we talk about preserving the republic, you got to have free and fair elections in order to do that. And we can't allow big blue states and crooked Democrat governors to try to steal elections away from us. And this is a very important measure, a common sense one, again, that the American people believe in and encourage and support . Speaker Johnson implying election fraud without any evidence. Joe reacted to that performance, writing on social media, quote, stop lying, Mike. You're embarrassing yourself. You were fine becoming speaker with the help of California Congressmen elected the same way. Will you surrender the speaker's gavel and not allow California Republicans to be seated in January ? I didn't think so. John Hellman , can we talk about the Save America Act and how it saves America? Could you just explain because it's exciting? Save America. I would think that sounds like good news. Tell us about it . It's very exciting news, Mika. It saves America. And it saves America from a non existent problem. I mean, that's starting there, right? We've already discussed this like a thousand times , a million times over the course of the last ten years, which is that there is everyone has looked for years and years , especially since twenty sixteen, twenty twenty. We've had conservative athletes, liberal outfits, centrist outfits, every outfit in the world try to find examples, proven examples of voter fraud and we cannot find them. No one no one can attest to anything like a statistically significant amount of voter fraud that's ever been discovered in the United States. But the problem with the Save Act may get it worse than that that it's not just trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist , but the problem is that it is commonly referred to as a voter ID bill, but it's really not a voter ID bill. It's much more of a voter suppression bill than that. And I'll tell you what it does, right? It says that if you're a first time registrant to vote, you can't just roll in and register to vote with a driver's license, which has been the kind of standard documentation that people have had in the past because driver's licenses do not prove national citizenship. And that's the thing that the SAVE Act wants you to have to do. So you'd have to walk in with one of the following things, a U. S. passport, a birth certificate , a naturalization certificate, or some combination of those documents. I'd like to know how many people currently involved on our panel right now have access to any of those documents. Many people don't have access to birth certificate their original birth certificate. They don't have access to they don't have a passport. We many of us do have passports, but a lot of people don't. So that's one set of problems. It also has created a series of concerns around married women who've changed their names who would have a double problem here might have a birth certificate with their maiden name but now have changed their name legally to their husband's name. That would be a problem for them . And then finally, the last thing on the list here , which is the thing that people are trying to focus on intensely because of the statements of the U. S. postmaster is that the safe act would get rid of almost all online and vote by mail, which is the one of which we all know is one of Donald Trump's hobby horses. So to describe this bill as a voter ID bill, whatever it's, whatever you think of its other merits, it's not a voter ID bill in the traditional sense of what that is, which has always in the past basically been you need to show up with your driver's license and people thought that in some respects was too odorous . This goes way beyond that and could have impacts not just on Democratic voters but on Republican voters who have some of the same issues related to their documentation that Republican that Democrats do. Let's bring in we'll get to the Mailin voting issue in just a mom ent. We want to bring in MS Now contributor and very happy Red Sox fan this morning, Mike Barnacle . Mike, your thoughts on Republicans and the SAVE Act and also resetting the table on unfair elections , seemingly just in time for the midterms. You know, Mika, I think my thoughts on this issue are not as important as Richard Hass's thoughts on this issue because Richard has worked for Republican administrations. He's been off counsel for certain Democrats for decades, given his knowledge and his wide breadth of experience. And Richard , I want to know what you think of what we just heard JD Vance saying to Bill Maher, who is very insightful in his own way. Bill Marr is, about JD Vance injecting a healthy dose , further dose of cynicism into the American electorate. That's exactly those are the two right words, injecting and cynicism, Mike . The only reason there's confidence, there's a lack of confidence in voting integrity is because of comments like that. This is, you know, the bill is a solution in search of a problem and to the extent there's a problem , it's not voter fraud, as John Highland said, it's the allegations of it. And what this is a cynical erosion of trust in American and American politics. The only thing I say different than maybe some Democrats is the idea that because this has now become something of an issue , maybe the position ought not to be opposition full stop to identification of citizenship , maybe you'd say, okay, what would be a realistic timeframe? Two years, four years, five years, whatever it is for people to get the documents to make sure that documents are easily attainable, whether it's a passport or these other documents , I don't think it helps for Democrats to be against the idea of proving citizenship. I think that's a little bit of a loser. So even though there's not a problem, I think that somehow puts them on the defensive. So I would say here's where implementation matters. We've got to set up a mechanism where this isn't essentially a voter suppression act. This does become we're going to solve the problem that Republicans have created. The problem isn't fraud, the problem is a lack of confidence. Okay. And coming up on morning Joe, the cost of blind loyalty, Jim Van Dehi goes behind the curtain of the GOP's fealty to President Trump. That conversation is straight ahead on Morning Joe. 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We made a lot of promises to the voters and we're fulfilling those every single day of this Congress. And this is a big part of that because it will increase the availability, the access to more housing, bring down cost, cut regulations, do the things that we know are very important for that market. The President talked about an Dhey , on the other side of this story is the Republican Party who marched like lemmings into the sea following, you know, oh the twenty twenty election was back. I can't find a Republican who is afraid is courageous enough to admit, no, the election wasn't bagged. What is wrong here ? Yeah, I mean, listen, you get habituated to this stuff. Like Donald Trump expected everyone to be obedient . Everyone was obedient. And because they're always obedient, President Trump assumes that they're going to keep doing that. And they've got themselves in a real bind now because when you talk to these Republicans, especially in the Senate, but a lot of them in the House, they think most of the bills that they're being forced to deal with, they think they're dumb. They don't think that this is something that they should be dealing with. Some of them agree on the merits, but very few of them do. And I think there's a real frustration. I don't think they're going to break with President Trump. You see it with the speaker on Fox News. You see it with most members still voting with the president. They worry a lot about the base of the party turning on them, but they know that they're now being put in this very uncomfortable position of having to take positions on things that just aren't popular anymore. If you look at the Trump brand, it again's not a political statement, just look at the polls. Like people don't like him, they don't like what he's doing. They don't like most of his policies. Hell, even the policies where he was popular , people don't like him on him anymore. Things like immigration where he was really winning because of his border policies. Now they don't like him because they watch what he's doing on deportation. And little by little, Republicans are going to start having to think about their own survival. This probably moves into next year before they really act upon that. But what's happening beneath the surface is real? Coming up more on the president's push to influence the midterm elections, particularly when it comes to voting by mail , we'll talk about that when Morning Joe comes right back The perception is actually not the reality, particularly when it comes to the claims of election fraud. In fact, it was the Conservative Heritage Foundation that did an exhaustive study on this going back all the way to the nineteen eighties and pointed out that there's only one hundred total instances of non citizens voting. Again and again, part of the problem with election integrity is that President Trump keeps accusing election systems of not