Transcript
Joe (0:00)
The day after the search of the Fulton county elections facility, Tulsi Gabbard facilitated a call between the president and the FBI team working on the investigation. That's according to three people with knowledge of that meeting. The Times writes this the president addressed the agents on speakerphone, asking them questions, as well as praising and thanking them for their work on the inquiry. In a letter to lawmakers who were pressing for more details, Gabbard denied that Trump asked questions or issued directives during the call. The paper also pointed to the unprecedented nature of the meeting. Rather than going to senior department or FBI officials, Trump spoke directly to the frontline agents doing the granular work of a politically sensitive investigation, which he has a large personal stake. A White House spokesperson defended the president's Georgia investigation on the whole, saying he has pledged to secure America's elections. Those 2020 elections were secure, of course, but the Justice Department, the FBI, have declined to comment. Well, and it's worth remembering that at least in a couple of these battleground states, the votes were run by Republicans. Georgia was a Republican run state. Arizona was a Republican run state. And the Republican governors and secretaries of state of those states said, yeah, you lost. And it didn't seem to stop him then. So the idea that some, if Republicans run the election somehow there won't be, you know, fraud in his mind is belied by the fact that Republicans didn't have fraud and did run the elections and he lost. And look, it's really, it's an important thing what he said yesterday because he told my colleagues in the New York Times in recent interview that he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in 2020 in states that he lost. This is a proposal brought to him in the Oval Office by Mike Flynn, his former national security adviser and some others saying he should effectively declare martial law and in some of these states that he lost, seize the voting machines and rerun the elections until he won, basically. And that's what, that's, you know, the fact that he says he now regrets that indicates where his head is at heading into these midterms.
Stephen K. Bannon (2:04)
I'm actually less concerned with the FBI's role in that than I am with ICE.
Joe (2:09)
We've seen what the FBI can do right now.
Stephen K. Bannon (2:13)
They can, after the fact, open an investigation.
Joe (2:18)
I have no idea what their predication is for doing this, but they can.
Stephen K. Bannon (2:23)
Muck things up after the fact. They're an investigative agency. They don't really respond. ICE is now the largest funded law enforcement agency in the history of the world.
