Election Integrity and Future Midterm Risks

Donald Trump has actually been sabotaging his own legislative agenda and now his own nominees to pass a bill that, as you point out Republicans in the Senate, it's not just they can't pass it, but they actually don't even have a majority to pass it. Like there are Republicans who don't wantan to pass it I'm Jane Coston, and this is Weddayay The show deeply inspired by this heartwarming tale of true love between President Donald Trump and Egyptian president, Abdel Fata Al Sisi He was in a hotel And I met him And we fell in love, deeply in love. Touching On today's show, we talk about Trump's continued attacks on the right to vote with democracy Docket founder, Mark Elias Before we get into all that Here's what we're following today. Wednesday, june seventeenth And the one president I did not want to be was the late great Herbert Hser I didn't want that. but who knows what would have happened? During a speech at the G seven summit in France today, Trump pondered hypotheticals, like which presidents he would and would not want to be You know I love a presidential hypothetical trivia time, but Maybe not here And while I wish I could play all of the nonsensical comments Trump made Al instead, let him give you an update on the U. S Iran deal that's supposedly set to be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday Maybe. The deal we reached with Iran on Sunday will be signed shortly toomorrow, maybe the next day. think you Sject deals. my whole life is all about deals. That's all I ever did is make deals. And crazy things happen with deals What Wondering if the deal will actually be signed is not the only confusing thing about it Exactly what the U. S. Iran deal entails has also been up in the air But after days of secrecy, senior U S. officials dictated the memorandum of understanding with Iran to journalists today The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to read the draft, which Iran has not released. According to the officials, the draft agreement includes provisions to ensure Lebanon's quote territorial integrity after Israel's latest attacks against Hezbllah in Lebanese territory In return, the U. S. will move to terminate wide ranging sanctions against Iran. The official said the U.S. draft of the agreement also secures toll free passage of the Strait of Hormz for sixty days, but it does not preclude fees in the future Welcome to how much money does it take for Republicans to overlook a Trump endorsement On Tuesday, we found out At least for one Georgia race that is. The answer More than one hundred million dollars. That's what Rick Jackson's campaign sp meant to defeat Trump endorsed Bertt Jones in the Republican runoff for Georgia Governor It was another rare example of the president's choice falling short in a primary battle Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, personally supplied most of the money his campaign spent to persuade Republican voters to overlook Trump's advice Trump endorsed Lieutenant Governor Bert Jones last year. Rising Jones', quote courage and wisdom in a true social post I guess courageian wisdom isn't as sexy as one hundred million dollars Jackson will now face Democrat Keisha Lance Bots the former mayor of Atlanta in November The World Cup started last week and the underdogs are looking good. Four matches on Monday ended in ties That might sound anticlimactic, but it was the most in a single day of men's World Cup playays since nineteen fifty eight But all of them could technically be considered upsets These sixty first, sixty seventh, and eighty fifth ranked teams in FIFA's worldld rankings were all underdogs in their first matches of the World Cup And while none of them won on Monday, none of them lost. The biggest win that wasn't a win, saw Cape Ferd hold Spain Nil Nil in what easily has been the biggest shocker of the tournament to this point In case you didn't know Cape Berd is making its World Cup debut. Spain is ranked number two and favored to win the whole thing And that's the news Let's talk about voting and how President Trump is willing to risk national security to make it harder for you to do it Trump has been trying to get his Save America Act passed for months The bill would require not just ID, but proof of citizenship to vote effectively disenfranchising Americans who don't happen to have their passport or birth certificate handy which is Millions of Americans Trump is so deeply committed to this terrible bill that today he pressured Senate Republicans into delaying the confirmation hearing for his director of National Intelligence nominee Clayton And on trrue Social, he said he'd refused to sign any legislation reauthorizing a major intelligence security law unless that legislation is attached to The Save America Act So what does Trump's determination to get this bill passed mean for November To find out, I spoke with Mark Elias, founder of Democracy Docket Mark, welcome back to W Day Thanks for having me back thwarted his own director of National intntelligence nominees confirmation to pressure Congress into passing his Save America A. which has run into a lot of problems in the Senate. Mly because Republicans think it's unpassable. What is in this bill that Trump is so obsessed with? Yeah, I'm glad you you framed it the way you did because As you say, Donald Trump has actually been sabotaging his own legislative agenda and now his own nominees to pass a bill that, as you point out Republicans in the senate, it's not just they can't pass it, but they actually don't even have a majority to pass it. Like there are Republicans who don't want to pass it. Now why is that? What the Save America Act would do is number one It would make it much harder for people to register to vote, partarticularly, we've heard a lot about married women who change their last names, and that's because you'd have to prove proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. And what that means in short is to register to vote, you'd either have to have an unexpired passport or a original birth certificate. And a lot of people don't have either of those documents. Real IDs wouldn't do the trick. No other document would do the trick, just one of those two things. And as you know, as well as I do Donald Trump's not so good on the whole birth certificate proving citizenship Like after all I're notoriously terrible at that Correct, right? So like it's all kind of a trap anyway that ultimately, the only people who will be able to register to vote are people who have unexpired passports and the people who Donald Trump believes their birth certificate is real So that's one part of the SV Act, But SAe Act gets worse from there, right? Because it's been larded up with a bunch of other provisions when it moved from being the SAV Act to the Save America A And this would, for example, cripple voting by mail, right? It would require not just ID to vote in person, but ID to vote by mail go ahead and try and figure out how the hell you do that, right? So so it's a it's a bad voting bill that, you know, like I said, doesn't even have fifty votes in the U. S. Senate, no less a filibruster appof majority. And Donald Trump knows that, but he is setting up a permission structure when This November, Republicans lose control of the Senate and the House He's going to say there was massive voter fraud. He's already saying that about California in the primaries. And he's going to say that's part of the reason why's massive voter f. fraud is because Democrats blocked the SA Act We'll get back to my conversation with Mark Elias in a moment because that's what I voted for But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five star review on Spotify and Apple podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. 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Get your tickets today at Cayolaexperience dot com d Let's get back to my conversation with Mark Elias I'm glad you mentioned California because Trump has been claiming that California's primary election was quote, rigged. And a U. S attorney in California says his office has multiple Election fraud investigations in progress Now One. What do you think it says about Donald Trump that he thinks a Republican finishing third in the LA mayoral election is suspicious And two, what do we know about these investigations? I'm tempted to use air quotes and yet I won't because I suspect that there are actually people getting doors knocked on by members of the CEO federal government. Absolutely. I mean, look Donald Trump said after the twenty sixteen elections This is an election he won. Before twenty twenty, he said after the twenty sixteen election that he believes he lost California because of fraud. They like literally said that he would have won California if there had not been illegal votes He lost by millions of ballots, right? Like I once suggested in the run up to the twenty twenty four election rather than asking Donald Trump, you know, whether You know, why he says he won elections that he didn't that the legacy media should just ask him what state he agrees he did lose. What is the state that he lost That wasn't a result of fraud? becausecause Donald Trump has regularly claimed there was fraud everywhere that he lost Now, so that is like the baseline going into this I'd also note that if you were trying to engage in fraudulent outcomes, why would you count slowly and transparently over time, right? Like if fact were California is trying to do the thing that Donald Trump says, wouldn't you do it in the dark of night On election night when there's like a lot of other things being attentioned to, whyy would you do it throughrow a methodical, transparent vote count over time So it's all just made up, it's all nonsense, it's all lies, and it's efforts to discredit California vote counting because Donald Trump's only chance of holding control of the house is to claim that there was massive vote fraud And therefore, people who won elections shouldn't be seated. Well, you know, maybe you could do that in Rhode Island and affect one seat. Maybe you could do it in New Jersey and aect, what, two seats He's going to California because it for the same reason Williey Sutton robbed banks. It's where the seats are, right? He can claim vote fraud in California and it's dozens of seats. Now he ought of all of a sudden puts in play. So that's the Trump piece of this. With respect to the U.S attorney's office, look, this has been a shameful display You have the federal the chief federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, the U.S attorney announcing fraud investigations Uh, which, you know, like Federal prosecutors are not supposed to announce anything. L they' not they're not supposed to announce publicly that they're investigating things. Number one, it's not good if they're actually investigating things to tip people off. But number two, they're not supposed to put themselves in the middle of a political process Even worse than that though The guy from New York. You know, Jake Clayton, the guy who's now up for Odie and I He went on CNBC. and told Joe Kernan that he was worried about the opportunity for fraud in California elections. And when that happened, honestly, I went on TV and some podcasts and I was like, why the hell is the top federal prosecutor in New York City opining on election vote counting in California? And then like he got his job offer. And it hurts to me He hadn't proved himself to be a made man election denier. Like he'd never had the chance to deny the outcome of elections before. So he was taking this chance to get this promotion. We're going to see a lot more of this. We're already seeing raids in Ohio of voter registration groups. We've seen the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center. We tend to pay a lot of attention to the weaponization of government when it involves people like James Comey or Tish James But we need to understand that the weaponization of government is also these efforts to intimidate voters and voting organizations to not do their work. Yeah, and it was crazy living in California. how quickly I started hearing claims that the California primary was rigged. like Trump said Democrats cheated on june third One day after the election What does this mean for the November midterms in California and beyond? As to your point, like Democrats are probably going to do well in the midtermss, and Trump is going to argue all of that is fraudulent And they're going to do well in California in the right terms. L rememember, it was California that passed by popular referendum the ballot measure thated that changed the composition of the district so that Democrats are likely to gain five more seats. So it's like not a surprise that he is targeting California, but I think that this is a sign of what's to come. Like this is a leading indicator of what What Donald Trump and the Republicans plans are, which is they're going to make it harder for people to vote. and when that doesn't succeed, they're going to try to cheat And so they need to make it harder for you to vote and easier for them to cheat. And this is part of the easier to cheat part of that formula And we all need to just understand that that's what's happening And if I can again call out the legacy media here, you know, The New York Times put out an editorial that basically criticized California's vote counting process and how long it took. And you know, And like first of all, I don't know why the New York Times is like wading into, again, like the arcane question of like how quickly elections are tallied, but they're just doing Donald Trump's bidd. And I pointed out you know, in democracy docket that the effect of this is not just to give aid and comfort to Republicans in California, but you know, let's just go back to twenty twenty Nevada didn't tally its votes for eight days Pnsylvania Rember Pennsylania called? Pennsyvania wasn'tntillil Saturday after the Tuesday Arizona Fox News called Arizona, but AP and the rest of them. Arizona was still vote counting into early the next week. Georgia took several days to vote. Donald Trump's position is stop the count on election night And there are very few states who are going to be able to do that. But that's what Donald Trump wants And I worry that it is not just going to be to undermine the results in California, but as you say in other states Mark As always, thank you so much for joining me Thank you for having me, and I hope I'll able I hope I'll be invited back. You will be Don't worry. G That was my conversation with Mar Eias, founder of Democracy Docket Before we go Guys Crooked Con twenty twenty six is happening November fifth or seventh in Washington, D.C, it's going to be even bigger than last year And I'll be there There will be exciting panels across bigger stages, candidate forums, live shows, interviews, organizing events, intense but cathartic moments between prominent media figures who have yelled at each other on the internet Friends of the pod subscribers get an exclusive discount for the all dayay event on november seventh In addition to many other perks, we can't wait to tell you about Go to crooutcon. com to get your tickets. We can't wait to see you there That's all for today. If you like this show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review. 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