"A desperate quest to interfere in our elections"

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "A Desperate Quest to Interfere in Our Elections"

Deadline: White House with Nicolle Wallace
Date: June 23, 2026

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Overview

This episode centers on Donald Trump's aggressive, escalating attempts to interfere in the 2026 midterm elections by manipulating election systems, intimidating states, and attacking foundational democratic institutions like the courts and the free press. Nicolle Wallace is joined by voting rights attorney Mark Elias, former FBI special agent Michael Feinberg, and NYU Law Professor Melissa Murray. Together, they break down the Trump administration's brazen efforts—through lawsuits, database schemes, threats to withhold funding, and media intimidation—and assess both the legal and democratic ramifications.

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Key Topics and Insights

1. Judicial Roadblocks to Trump’s Election Interference (01:04–04:08)

• A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from allowing states to use a centralized citizenship database for cross-checking voter rolls, calling out privacy violations and voter suppression.
• A Trump-appointed judge in Maryland also blocked the DOJ's effort to obtain state voter rolls.
• Notable Quote:
  "[T]he federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. This court cannot stand idly by while that happens." (Federal Judge, 02:16)

2. The Strategy and Significance of Legal Losses (04:08–08:53)

• Mark Elias explains Trump's overall strategy: create a centralized voter database to control who receives ballots and who’s eligible to vote.
• Trump's DOJ has sued 31 states and D.C. for voter data. They are 0–9 in lawsuits and are likely to lose more.
• Even Trump-appointed judges are blocking these efforts.
• Notable Quote (Mark Elias, 04:08):
  "For Donald Trump to try to rig the outcome of the 2026 elections, he is counting on building a national voter database...he will tell states who they can send ballots to and who they can't."
• The administration is expected to appeal losses, setting up continued legal fights.

3. Motivation: Chaos and a Grievance Machine (06:32–08:53)

• Trump aims both to remove voters he deems illegitimate and to fuel a narrative of victimhood and stolen elections.
• Lawsuits serve as fodder for misinformation and as “legitimizing acts” even when they lose in court.
• Notable Quote (Mark Elias, 07:07):
  "He is setting up the same grievance structure...loses, goes to court, loses and then turns to violent insurrection...We see him follow this pattern over and over again."

4. Privacy, Data Security, and Republican Hypocrisy (08:53–12:41)

• Federal protections (Privacy Act, Buckley Amendments, HIPAA, tax info laws) exist to safeguard personal data from government overreach.
• The effort to aggregate such sensitive data runs counter to decades of bipartisan consensus about privacy rights.
• Human error in databases makes such centralized, coercive purges deeply problematic.
• Notable Quote (Michael Feinberg, 11:00):
  "That you would use something susceptible to typos and misnomers and mistakes of the pen in order to deprive people of what is arguably the most fundamental right in our country is, once again, lunacy."

5. The Role of Lawsuits in Disinformation (13:51–17:18)

• Lawsuits, even when unwarranted, legitimize baseless claims, launder conspiracy theories, and feed the right-wing disinformation ecosystem.
• Even Trump’s own judges are rejecting these attempts:
  "In those nine cases, five of them were decided by Trump appointed judges...they have unanimously ruled against the Trump administration." (Mark Elias, 16:06)
• Legal experts emphasize the importance of clear, proactive public communication to counter mis- and disinformation.

6. Federal Funding as an Extortion Lever (20:01–26:27)

• Homeland Security grants, critical for counter-terrorism and disaster prep, are now tied to complying with Trump's election security demands.
• States face losing up to 20% of funds if they don’t participate in the voter database scheme.
• Legal and moral concerns abound—this coercion is likely unconstitutional as it exceeds the established purpose of homeland security funds.
• Notable Quote (Alicia Menendez, 23:27):
  "The conditions are incredibly coercive in a way that may actually trigger constitutional law...The point isn't necessarily the lawsuit. It's simply to deter dissent and to scare and cow states into complying with what the president wants."
• Blue states and some red/purple states are fighting back, but red states may comply willingly.

7. The Erosion of Institutional Resistance (24:40–27:02)

• Mark Elias notes the overwhelming legal workload and need for greater support from major law firms and institutional actors.
• Notable Quote (Mark Elias, 25:04):
  "Fighting this in 50 states is a challenge...they are grinding everyone down or at least trying to."

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Attacks on the Free Press and DOJ Overreach

8. Weaponizing DOJ against the Press (28:52–34:30)

• The Trump administration sought to subpoena Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reporters, backing down only after legal challenge.
• This is part of a broader strategy labeling journalism as “fake news” and framing scrutiny as criminality.
• Notable Quote (Rick Stengel, 31:22):
  "The difference with the Trump administration, they seem to feel that journalism itself is a crime. ...this idea of taking journalists to grand juries is pretty extreme."
• Efforts to delegitimize both courts and media are aimed at removing all institutional checks.

9. The Persistent Pattern of Retaliation (34:30–36:22)

• Trump’s retaliation is consistent—he targets any figure or institution presenting obstacles or reporting reality, from former officials to governors to journalists.
• Notable Quote (Mark Elias, 34:30):
  "We need to all understand that these are not isolated instances. ...This is what Donald Trump wants to do to wear down his opposition."

10. Press Freedom as a Check on Power (37:48–41:20)

• The administration’s attempts to uncover media sources, especially on reporting around national security and the Iran war, pose serious threats to press freedom and transparent dissent.
• The lack of internal checks (i.e., few guardrails or adults in the room in Trump’s second term) intensifies the importance of external accountability via media and courts.
• Notable Quote (Alicia Menendez, 41:20):
  "That means the other external accountability institutions matter even more. And that's why he goes after them. ...because those are the barriers to absolute rule."

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Memorable Moments and Revelations

• Mark Elias’ Legal Tally (16:06): Emphasizing the bipartisan nature of judicial rebukes:
  "Five of them were decided by Trump appointed judges...unanimously ruled against the Trump administration."
• Discussion of DOJ Weaponization (34:30, Mark Elias):
  The same DOJ pursuing political adversaries, governors, and journalists, reflecting the broad and deliberate nature of institutional assault.
• Personal note on legal advocacy (26:27, Mark Elias):
  "60 lawyers to one of these big New York law firms is like nothing. ...It's a whole bunch of others that are just scared..."
• Capitol Hill Breakthrough (43:00):
  Senate passes a bipartisan (though largely symbolic) resolution to end hostilities in Iran—four GOP senators join Democrats—a rare rebuke to the Trump administration’s foreign policy.

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Timestamps for Significant Segments

| Segment Theme | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Opening theme, summary of Trump’s efforts | 01:04–04:08 | | Mark Elias on legal losses and barriers | 04:08–08:53 | | Judges’ language and Republican history on privacy | 08:53–12:41 | | Disinformation and lawsuits as political theater | 13:51–17:18 | | Homeland Security funding as political extortion | 20:01–26:27 | | Legal labor crunch and calls for institutional help | 24:40–27:02 | | DOJ subpoenas and media intimidation | 28:52–34:30 | | Pattern of institutional retaliation | 34:30–36:22 | | Importance of press freedom against unchecked power | 37:48–41:20 | | Breaking news: Senate rebuke on Iran war | 43:00–44:48 |

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Tone and Atmosphere

The hosts and legal experts are urgent but unflinching, drawing on deep historical and legal knowledge. There’s a bipartisan focus and a frank discussion of unprecedented threats to American democracy and institutional resilience. The tone is both analytical and pointed, sprinkled with incredulity and concern about the enduring consequences of these moves for privacy, the right to vote, and the future of democratic norms.

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a comprehensive breakdown of Trump’s mounting efforts to subvert democratic processes—through both direct election interference and brazen attacks on institutional watchdogs. The unanimous consensus: legal victories are vital, but so is countering the normalization of corruption and intimidation. The fight for democracy, in both the courts and the public square, is escalating and will require broad, sustained resistance from legal, civic, and journalistic communities.

Transcript

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[Nicole Wallace]

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Hi there everyone. It's four o' clock in the East. As the midterms inch ever closer, Donald Trump's desperate quest to interfere in our elections becomes more and more audacious and more and more obvious by the day. His moves appear increasingly brazen with every new devastatingly low poll that is released, it's now clear that other than the American people themselves, judges will be our only line of defense against Donald Trump and his administration's attempt at election interference. Yesterday, in a scathing rebuke, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from allowing states to use its centralized citizenship database to cross check the immigration status of their voters. In her decision, the judge wrote that states are, quote, actively removing US Citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information. All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. This court cannot stand idly by while that happens. It comes on the heels of a decision by another federal judge, this one a Trump appointed one in Maryland who blocked DOJ's efforts to obtain the state's voter rolls. As we brought you yesterday, she wrote this quote, thus far, courts have dismissed eight of these lawsuits on motions similar to the one pending before this court. No court has ruled in favor of the US to date. She added this quote, the motion to compel will be denied. The dismissal of the claim will be with prejudice. Now, despite that stunning, unbroken losing streak, Donald Trump is undaunted and shows no signs of slowing down his quest to seize control of our elections, even if that quest imperils our national security. Our on that CNN reports this quote, the Trump administration is threatening to withhold tens of millions of dollars in federal homeland security funds from states unless they adopt a sweeping set of election changes. Under new rules governing several homeland Security grant programs, states must take a number of steps, including phasing out certain electronic voting systems and moving to hand marked paper ballots. They must also run their voter rolls through a controversial Department of Homeland Security citizenship verification database. The Judiciary. Blocking Donald Trump at every turn as he tries every trick in the book to rig the midterms and take control of our elections is where we begin today with some of our most favorite experts and friends. Voting rights attorney, founder of democracy docket, Mark Elias is back. Also joining us, former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI director and national security and intelligence analyst Michael Feinberg's back. Also back, NYU law professor, our legal analyst, Melissa Murray. Mark Elias, I know you're on the, you are the tip of the spear in these lawsuits. So just take me through the significance of these two defeats for the Trump efforts.

[Mark Elias]

Yeah, it's really a big day yesterday when we got both of these. So first, for Donald Trump to try to rig the outcome of the 2026 elections, he is counting on building a national voter database. And once he has that, he will tell states who they can send ballots to and who they can't, who's eligible to vote and who's not. So in other words, he wants to create a list of all of the potential voters, remove the people he doesn't want to be able to vote, and then insist that only the people who remain on his list are able to vote. So the first part of that strategy requires him to get access to state's voter files because it turns out the federal government doesn't have such a list to begin with. It's never needed one. It still doesn't need one. So Donald Trump is trying to gain access to every state's complete voter file, which includes personal sensitive information like Social Security numbers, date of birth, and partisan information, the like. Well, they sued 31 states and the including the District of Columbia, and they are so far, 0 for 9. My law firm and I, we intervened on behalf of voters to fight these lawsuits in all those states and we are undefeated. The Department of Justice is without a single win. And I can tell you as someone who is tracking all of the cases, both the ones that have been decided and the ones that have not, Donald Trump's Department of Justice is not going to see a victory anytime soon. Most of the hearings where we're waiting on final decisions did not go well for the Department of Justice. So I expect that that loss, that their losses will increase and our victories will increase. The other case though, is trying to tackle it or is tackling it at the other end. And in this inst instance, what a federal judge in Washington D.C. said was that actually the federal government can't use the save database, this big database that comes with Social Security information, like can't use that to screen out people and to run state voter rolls against it. Citing the Privacy act so far, based on yesterday's results, the Department of Justice has been thwarted in getting the data and also using the existing databases towards this effort. But look, we know that they're not going to give up. We know that they are not one to necessarily comply with every court order. So we're going to keep fighting.

[Nicole Wallace]

I mean, Mark, they're 0 and 9, right? So they've lost every single case that they've brought. But I wonder if it is far fetched to wonder if Bill Pulte's practice of going into people's mortgages in his housing role and being thrust into this ODNI post. I mean, are they, is it your sense that they want access to the information whether a judge permits them to use it or not to sow chaos or what is your sense of what their operation is about if every judge is blocking them?

[Mark Elias]

Yeah. So a couple of things. First is you are exactly right, they are over nine. I predict that before long they will be over 15. You know, like I said, just based on the court, how the courts have sort of teed these up, they are appealing these. So there are a number of these now in the courts of appeals. So that's something to watch in terms of your question though. So I think we need to understand that Donald Trump has two purposes here. The first is, as you say, it is to misuse this data to sow chaos. It is to remove people from the rolls and to lie that he's removing people from the rolls because they were fraudulently on. I mean, this is a who is right now lying about there having been a vandalism attack on the liner of the, of the reflecting pool. And if he's willing to lie about that, you can only imagine what kind of lies he will tell about what's in this data. So he'll tell lies about there being illegal voters and the like. But the second part of this is that he is setting up the same grievance structure that you and I have been talking about now really for, for, for, for six years, seven years. And that is this. You know, he announces something, he loses, he goes to court, he loses and then he turns to, you know, in the case of 2020, he then turned to violent insurrection in the nation's capital. We see him follow this pattern over and over again. So right now they are in the losing in court phase, and I'm glad to be part of that effort. But he's not gonna end with that right. He's next gonna turn to the aggrievement phase in which he inspires his supporters, or he gives a permission structure to Bill Pulte or to Todd Blanch to do even more extreme things, seize ballots.

[Nicole Wallace]

I want to read a little bit more from the judge's decision just so that before the disinformation floods the right wing media ecosystem, it's, it's clear how illegal this is and how blatantly unconstitutional the judge found it. The case. This is from the judge's decision, quote, the case implicates two fundamental rights that protect Americans from their government from government overreach. The right to privacy and the right to vote. In the past year, several federal agencies have joined forces to create a centralized federal database that contains the private information of US Citizens, including Social Security numbers, citizenship status, and other sensitive data. But decades ago, Congress put protections in place to prevent precisely this type of centralized data bank. And the record in this case shows that the federal agencies that created this database knew that the database violates the statutory protections. Michael Feinberg I would put money on the fact that Republicans were on the side of creating the statutory protections in the first place. Republicans used to care a whole lot. And Republicans used to loathe more than just about anything the federal government having all of the personal data of every voter in the country. Now Republicans are the advocates for the state seizing all this personal data. And if, if the Republican base were awake and receiving accurate information, it would be absolutely furious if it had any of the traditional sensibilities that Republicans have had for either of our lifetimes.

Well, I've said this before to you. The Republican Party exists in name only. At this point, it is functionally just a wing of a personalist regime that is completely unmoored and untethered to anything that most historical conservatives in the United States over the past hundred years would recognize as anything regarding a neutral principle. And it's important to note in that judge's opinion, several references are made to protections of information that the government has on its citizens. And it's not just one law. It is an interwoven web of multiple laws. There are protections for general personally identifiable information in the Privacy Act. There is protection for student information in the Buckley Amendments. There is protection for health information in hipaa. There is a litany of protection for tax information, which makes it difficult even for people like I used to be in the FBI to obtain that data. And the notion that the Department of Homeland Security, one of the most patchwork and newest governmental departments that we deal with, would have the sophistication or the wherewithal to, on the fly, create some sort of master database that complies with all those laws is lunacy. And there's one other important factor which the judge didn't mention, but everybody should know. You know, I worked with government databases my entire adult life, and they all have one thing in common. They are maintained by human beings, and they are based upon information furnished by human beings. And with those two variables comes human error. That you would use something susceptible to typos and misnomers and mistakes of the pen in order to deprive people of what is arguably the most fundamental right in our country is, once again, lunacy.

I mean, Melissa, the Trump administration over nine, as Mark Elias predicts, likely to go over 13. On this front, I'll read some of what federal judges have said about the Trump administration, quote, shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear. Fundamental to this case, and indeed to our constitutional system, is the principle that the will of the president does not supersede that of Congress. Disingenuous, squalid, dishonorable, terrorizing Americans into quiescence, irrational, imprudent, and precipitated nationwide crisis. I fear Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for and defend our most precious constitutional values. This is just sort of a mash up of the rebukes that Trump and his Justice Department have received from federal judges in a variety of cases, immigration cases and others. But the bet seems to be that if Trump can just lose, lose, lose, appeal, appeal, appeal, that the Supreme Court will bail him out. How do you evaluate that bet?

[Alicia Menendez]

I actually think there's something different going on here, Nicole. And I want to go back to something that Mark said and when he was talking about the grievance structure that is being generated here and that will ultimately underwrite an insurrection on January 6th. I think that's exactly right. Lawsuits serve an important purpose in that you read earlier from the District of the District of Columbia lawsuit that was filed by the League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups, along with Mark's law firm against the government. The other lawsuit that you mentioned, the one out of Maryland was actually brought by the federal government against Jared Demaranis, who is the state Administrator of Elections for the state of Maryland. I want to just focus on that one for a minute. That's the Trump administration suing the states. And it's one of 30 similar lawsuits all against states, trying to compel them to release their information to the federal government to compile in this multi state, nationwide database that Mark was referring to. A lawsuit by itself is a means of laundering the most ridiculous claims and making them somehow legitimate. The fact that a court has to wrestle with them, has to treat these arguments as worthy of its time, by itself is a kind of legitimizing act. And it's really important for us to understand that every time the Trump administration files a lawsuit, every time the President files a lawsuit in his personal capacity against a media entity, he is legitimizing this idea that there is a wrong that has been done to him, to the federal government and normalizing it for his base. So he may have lost, but in just filing the lawsuit, that's a victory, too.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah. I mean, Mark, to Melissa's point, it's also the fodder for the disinformation pipeline.

[Alicia Menendez]

Right.

[Nicole Wallace]

Because then they can cover it as a horse race or a sporting event. We're up, we're down, we're waiting for the decision. It is something that Trump pioneered with his bogus attacks against President Obama, frankly. And I remember on the right they would cover, you know, waiting for the release of this or that birth certificate. The whole thing was a farce. But they created some theatrics around something that was totally bogus and in bad faith. How do you guard against that in terms of what his supporters will consume?

[Mark Elias]

Yeah, look, that's the reason why I'm trying to be so proactive about this in saying that they've lost nine cases, but they're going to lose another six easily. I mean, they could lose all 31, by the way, but just based on how this is going for them, they are going to lose. But here's a statistic that maybe will help in this analysis. In those nine cases, five of them were decided by Trump appointed judges. That's right. More than half the opinions that have been written have been by Trump appointed judges and they have unanimously ruled against the Trump administration. So, look, I mean, I can't. If I had an answer to how to stop right wing disinformation, I would have shared it before now.

[Nicole Wallace]

None of us would be here.

[Mark Elias]

All I can do is, number one, be in court and defeat him. And number two, not go by what too many lawyers do. Right? Lawyers who say we're gonna let our briefs do the talking. Well, frankly, very few people then are listening. And so we need to share this information to prevent exactly what Melissa just said from happening, which is that there is a legitimization of this by there being an argument that there are two sides to what is in fact not really a two sided issue.

[Nicole Wallace]

Right. Just ask Trump's own hand picked judges. I want to turn to the other half of this story, which is really an extortion plot tying the Homeland Security funds to this extortion, extortionist plot to get this information. We'll deal with that on the other side of the break. Also ahead for us, the Trump administration's clampdown, crackdown against a free press and the media is escalating again as it targets leaks and what it perceives as coverage it doesn't like. The latest extraordinary step targeting journalists from the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. And the truth is a story that is still ahead for us. Also ahead, the former head of the nation's intelligence agencies, Tulsi Gabbard reportedly was guided throughout her life and her career by a quote unquote guru, an eccentric leader of a religious group. Now new questions are emerging about how much influence that group had on her while she was working in the top and most secretive ranks of the federal government. And later in the broadcast, Donald Trump's inability to admit he made a mistake. An absolutely bananas excuse for why the reflecting pool looks the way it does right now. Just the latest in his DC Vanity makeover that's failing so badly he's absolutely scrambling to explain it. We'll have all those stories and much more. And Desmond Whitehouse continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. Today,

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[Nicole Wallace]

We're back with Mark, Michael and Melissa. Michael Feinberg, cnn, adds this reporting on the other piece of this extorting states by withholding homeland security quote. These grants, expected to total more than $1 billion in the current fiscal year, are one of Washington's main vehicles for helping state and local governments prevent terrorism, protect infrastructure and prepare for major disasters. The new guidelines, which CNN obtained and are expected to go out to states later this month, impose a set of mandatory reforms and steep penalties for non compliance. States that refused would lose 20% of the grant money, potentially millions of dollars in security funds. This is akin to the extortion that judges have weighed in on around immigration enforcement, but this one focused at our elections.

Yeah, look, this is morally reprehensible in that it is using the safety of American citizens, wherever they may live, as a bargaining chip to advance Trump's legislative priorities, and many of which those priorities have already been declined, signed by members of his own party in Congress. But while it's reprehensible, it's also not remarkable in the sense that this is just what this administration does. We have in a number of occasions, both involving foreign policy and domestic politics, where the president is willing to ignore the best advice of his intelligence community and his law enforcement leaders and do things simply because he thinks it will help him with his approval ratings. We went to a war in Iran despite the fact that the director of national intelligence claimed they were no closer to developing a bomb at this point in time than they were previously. Now we're apparently making peace with Iran and allowing them to sell oil directly to the United States as a means of lowering gas prices. I mean, come on, something is either a threat or it's not. And as the president, you have to deal with it as a threat, not as a lever to enhance your position vis a vis your political opponents. We've known he does this. We've known it since he threatened to let the Russians steamroll Ukraine if they didn't help him dig up dirt on his rival's children. I mean, this is such an Abdication of duty, that it's impossible to imagine any president before him, including even somebody like Nixon, from engaging in this sort of behavior.

Yeah. And I mean, Melissa, we'll cover the friction, right? Like, we'll know about the states that don't comply because they will go to court to adjudicate their resistance. But. But I wonder what happens to all of the politically aligned states that acquiesce and say, you're going to tie terrorism funding to whether or not I comply. Fine. Here, take it. I mean, those are American citizens with the same rights to both privacy and voting no.

[Alicia Menendez]

It's a great question, Nicole. I mean, and again, there are likely to be litigants in those states who could file a plausible suit against their states for releasing that data in violation of their rights. I will also say the conditions are incredibly coercive in a way that may actually trigger constitutional law and maybe, in fact, a constitutional violation. Those funds were already appropriated by Congress for use for homeland security. DHS is supposed to distribute them. Now DHS is imposing certain conditions which may actually appear to be unrelated to the purpose of homeland security. The election and the idea of election integrity may be far afield from either dealing with disasters or fighting terrorism. Then they are incredibly coercive. 20% of those funds is massive for states and will be a huge line item on state budgets. And so I think, you know, if there is a lawsuit, and I'm sure there will be, there's a very good argument to be made here that the administration has gone too far. But the point isn't necessarily the lawsuit. It's simply to deter dissent and to scare and cow states into complying with what the president wants.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah. I mean, Mark, it is sort of the oldest story of the second Trump term. Right. Something we've all been talking about since day one. It is the intimidation that I never utter this phrase, but in Trump's defense has been so effective that why not keep deploying it? It leads to capitulation 99% of the time, really. Until and unless he is in court against someone like you.

[Mark Elias]

Yeah, look, I think you've touched on both of the problems here. The first is he will impose these on blue states. Blue states will win and fight, and they will win in some purple states and maybe even some red states, people like me will fight and we win. But here's the problem. It's the second part. There are some number of red states that will use this as an excuse to do the thing that Donald Trump wants them to do. Right. So, like, do we really think Greg Abbott or Ron DeSantis is going to do anything other than, oh, great, we get to use this as an excuse to do something that we probably want to do anyway, and we get to please Donald Trump. And so fighting this, you know, in 50 states is a challenge. I mean, right now, you know, my law firm of 60 lawyers, we are in 83 lawsuits in 41 states. And the prospect of adding, like, another, I don't know, what, 20, 30 lawsuits in 20, 30 states. At some point, like, they are grinding everyone down or at least trying to. And as usual, you know, the large, big law firms are sitting on the sidelines figuring out how they can cut deals with the Trump administration to work

[Nicole Wallace]

for Boris at the Commerce Department. Would it be helpful if some of the. Would it be helpful if some of those big law firms helped with these cases?

[Mark Elias]

Yeah, of course it would be helpful. I mean, look, the fact is, you know, I talk about, you know, what we are able to achieve with 60 lawyers, and it's pretty remarkable. But, you know, 60 lawyers to one of these big New York law firms is like. Is like nothing. I mean, they wouldn't even notice 60 lawyers. And so the amount of ground that used to get covered in this area by big law, you know, is one of the sort of underappreciated stories. And it's not just the ones that have capitulated. It's a whole bunch of others that are just scared who just don't want to show up on the other side of a courtroom from the Trump administration.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, hopefully it's getting easier and easier to contemplate that as he plunges lower and lower in the polls. We'll stay on top of that. Michael Feinberg, thank you for starting us off. Mark and Melissa, stick around a little longer after the break. An extraordinary step, even for Donald Trump's Department of Justice to compel testimony from journalists before abruptly reversing course. Another attempt in the White House's war against the free press. That's next.

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[Alicia Menendez]

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[Alicia Menendez]

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[Nicole Wallace]

Donald Trump has for years waged a relentless un American campaign against the First Amendment and the tradition of a free and fair press as president. But his latest escalation crosses a new and, as far as we know, unprecedented line. He sought to use the courts to try to compel reporters to take the witness stand. Washington Post today is reporting this, quote, the Justice Department took the extraordinary step of seeking to force reporters for the Washington, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal to testify before a federal grand jury, but withdrew the subpoenas earlier this month after they were challenged by the news organizations. That is according to a Justice Department official familiar with this matter. The Washington Post subpoena was to veteran national security journalist Ellen Nakashima. Her reporting this year has been essential to the public's understanding of Donald Trump's deeply unpopular war in Iran, as the Washington Post reports, quote, while the journalists are no longer scheduled to appear before grand jury, the Justice Department's action reflected a new front in the Trump administration's aggressive tactics toward the media as it attempts to crack down on government leaks to the press and content that the administration officials think is unfair to the president. A spokesperson for the Washington Post defended Nakashima's reporting, calling the Justice Department's moves, quote, another sign of the government seeking to compel journalists to become instruments of its investigations. I want to bring in political analyst Rick Stengel. He's also the former managing editor of Time magazine. Mark and Melissa are here with us as well. Rick Stengel just explained to folks how norm busting seems like such a lame word in the time of Trump 2.0. But, but just explain sort of the line that presidents of both parties have respected when it comes to the First Amendment protections typically afforded to journalists in the press.

[Rick Stengel]

Yes, Nicole, and you've been on both sides of this issue. I've been on both sides of this issue. No administration likes leakers. And some administrations go after the messenger, that is, the person who has used the leak and published it in the New York Times or the Washington Post. And the difference with the Trump administration, they seem to feel that journalism itself is a crime. They don't like leakers. They want to go after leakers, but they're also kind of promiscuous in going after reporters in all kinds of areas. And this goes back to Trump calling the news business fake news. Goes back to his famous statement to Lesley Stahl when he said, you know, if I get, if I lower the opinion of you that people have, they're not going to believe what you say about me. So this is something that they've been doing since day one. And this idea of taking journalists to grand juries is pretty extreme. But there is. And my compatriots here can talk about it more than I can. But there is a famous precedent for that, Bransburg versus Hayes from 1972 that did compel reporters to testify about a crime to a grand jury. So there is some precedent for this aspect of it.

[Nicole Wallace]

I mean, Melissa, I guess that would require, though, the country to trust Trump to tell us what the definition of a crime is.

[Alicia Menendez]

Yeah, I mean, certainly. I mean, this is the whole point of these actions and these efforts with the media companies, with the courts, this exercise of filing lawsuits, losing lawsuits, delegitimizing the courts that issue those rulings against him, delegitimizing the press that would dissent or would criticize him or otherwise be skeptical of him. This is the whole point, as Rick says, like, there's his truth. And when he advances that truth, if it's met with dissent, if it's met with criticism or objections, then the ultimate goal is to delegitimize or undermine that truth with a different truth, his own truth. And so this is just, you know, part of what is happening. The assaults on the journalists, I mean, and, and the courts, I mean, they really ought to be understood in tandem. These are assaults on institutions that are the most potent checks on this presidency that we have right now. And the point of delegitimizing them is to remove those sources of authority as checks.

[Nicole Wallace]

Mark Elias, this is also a Todd Blanche story. This is like the desire that Donald Trump has deeply held and nurtured since 2017 to indict Comey. I think the first New York Times story about Trump wanting to, I think Jeff Sessions was his attorney general then came out in 2017. So indicting Comey wasn't really a Trump story. It was about all of the attorneys general who said no. Sessions and then Whitaker and then Barr and then Bondi tried but failed. Todd Blanche said Yes. This is CNN's reporting on Todd Blanche's role in the extraordinary subpoena for journalists. CNN reports that Trump's DOJ withdrew subpoenas targeting Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reporters. Officials familiar with the matter told CNN that Trump personally pushed Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch to issue these subpoenas. The president delivered the message with the word treason written in Sharpie on a stack of printed articles he handed to Todd Blanch.

[Mark Elias]

D. Yeah, look, I think that what we are seeing here with the journalists is just the latest iteration of something we have seen through his entire administration, which is the systematic abuse and weaponization of the Department of Justice against his political opponents. And I think we are doing a real disservice if we don't realize that when he goes after James Comey for taking a picture of seashells on the beach, a whole bunch of former FBI agents are outraged. And when he tries to indict a bunch of U.S. senators and members of Congress for telling members of the military that they took an oath of office, a whole bunch of Democratic elected officials get outraged. When they subpoenaed the governor of Minnesota, a whole bunch of people in Minnesota got outraged. And now they are going after these members of the media. And people in the media are outraged. What we need to do is all understand that the outrage in each and every one of these is the same, same. The same Department of Justice that is prosecuting James Comey over a picture of seashells is the same Department of Justice that tried to prosecute Tish James. It is the same Department of Justice that tried to subpoena Tim Walls. It is the same Department of Justice that seized ballots in Fulton County. It is the same Department of Justice that just hours ago Donald Trump said he called up the U.S. attorney in California and told him to change the results of the primary election. And it worked. Like, this is all the same Department of just. And we need to all understand that these are not isolated instances. This is what Donald Trump wants to do to wear down his opposition. Obviously, the media plays a large role in that movement. And this is an affront to everything about democracy.

[Nicole Wallace]

Right. And it's also not a bunch of different stories. It is the same story. This is everywhere that he finds friction, everywhere that the mirror that gets held up isn't a painting that the court jester made of what he thinks he looks like. Every time he sees a glimpse of reality, he lashes out at whoever is standing in the way, whether it's law enforcement, whether it's these judges ruling against him, whether it's a journalist covering reality. It is all part of the same story. No one's going anywhere. I want to bring into the conversation the substance of Ellen Nakashima's reporting, because it's certainly relevant here. We'll do that on the other side. Side, don't go anywhere.

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As you probably know, we didn't talk about the first one for an hour. Then somebody leaked something which will hopefully find that leaker. We're looking very hard to find that leaker and talked about there's somebody missing. They basically said that we have one and there's somebody missing. Well, they didn't know there was somebody missing until this leaker gave the information. So whoever it is, we think we'll be able to find it out because we're going to go to the media company that released it and we're going to say national security, give it up or go to jail.

[Nicole Wallace]

Rick Sangle the problem with that is that it's not a standard to which he holds. Pete Hegseth, who want to signal chat, brought in a journalist from the Atlantic and shared operational information about an ongoing an imminent military operation. It's not a standard he holds himself to. He is known among journalists as one of the most prolific. I guess it's not a leak if it comes from him, but disseminators of national security information. And so I wonder what you make of statements like that.

[Rick Stengel]

Well, Nicole, he obviously doesn't recognize reportorial privilege that the Supreme Court has acknowledge that reporters have a special privilege to withhold information based on their sources because of a chilling effect that it would have on the press. But it's a larger point, and I take Mark's earlier point about the weaponization of the Justice Department and he's doing heroic work to combat that. But this is a particular animus against the First Amendment and that poor idea of American democracy that that the First Amendment protects the press so the press can protect the republic, so the press can report on abuses of power. That's what he wants to restrict. That's what he's against. And when it happens with national security issues, they feel justified. But it's this very, very kind of ominous threat against the press doing its job, which is different than any other previous administration.

[Nicole Wallace]

And it's one, Melissa, that other Presidents, even when they have load the coverage they garner, have sort of understood, and even when they don't like it, they haven't crossed the lines that Trump has crossed. I promise to bring into the conversation some of the important stories that Ellen Nakashima has reported, especially around Iran. These are some of the headlines on her stories. Quote, US Intelligence says Iran can outlast Trump's Hormuz blockade for months. Clearing the Strait of Hormuz of mines could take six months. Pentagon tells Congress Trump threats against civilian targets put the military in legal and moral quandary. Pete Hegseth's boastful claims about Iran war contradict reality. Officials say U.S. intelligence says Iran's regime is consolidating power. White House rationale for war keeps shifting. Other than the last, which I think even Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly could have surmised, every other piece of reporting relied in one way or another from US national security agencies, institutions, sources, or people expert with them, either current or former officials. And the idea that Trump is so weak and unpopular and such a bully that these concerns, frankly, about the ineffectiveness of the blockade, the minesweeping, which I think Trump posted overnight one night, could happen in the morning, the threats which would amount to war crimes to, quote, wipe out an entire civilization, that those stories surfaced in the press is really the last remaining check against his worst impulses. And I wonder if you could just sort of flesh out the stakes of this battle, why it affects everyone. It's not just a media story.

[Alicia Menendez]

Yeah, it's a really important point about the accountability. I mean, I think Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman talked about this last night on Ms. Now in that interview with Lawrence o', Donnell, like, this is a president that's very different from his first term. In that first term, he didn't know his way around government very well. That was frequently seen, like they just didn't do things the right way. And there were grownups in the room that frequently would call out the president and check, check those worst impulses. Now, in the second term, with no constitutional hope of a third term on the horizon, he's really unfettered. And he, you know, has zero left in the tank in terms of restraint, and there's no one around him that would serve as a check. Last week, we talked about the fact that when the president sought to rescind habeas corpus, to suspend habeas corpus, there was someone who's like, wait a minute, there's a whole Constitution here and we can't do that. The courts will say no. So that was sort of the rare example. What Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan are reporting is that for the most part, there are people here who believe he's almost mythological in his standing and his desire to be a great man. They believe that he is a great man and they're willing to bolster him and to basically be sycophants and to just second to be yes men to all of this. And that means the other external accountability institutions matter even more. And that's why he goes after them. That's why he is going after those lower federal courts. It is why he's going after the media, because those are the barriers to absolute rule.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, it's a, it's a, it makes the stories all the more harrowing. Rick Stengel, thank you so much for joining us on this. Mark Elias and Melissa, thank you for spending the hour with us. Coming up, finally on the 10th attempt, get Republicans on the record on Trump's costly and deeply unpopular war. We've got some breaking news to tell you about from Capitol Hill. Don't go anywhere. A rare rejection of a Donald Trump policy from A typically compliant U.S. senate. Today, when it comes to his deeply unpopular war with Iran, The Senate voted 50 to 48 in favor of, of a resolution directing an end hostilities with Iran. Four Republicans, we'll name them Senators Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski joined most Democrats in voting for that resolution. Senator John Fetterman was the only Democrat who voted against it. The resolution had previously passed the House, where once again, four Republicans joined Democrats in voting to curb Donald Trump's power to wage war. While the measure does not become law, it is a symbolic bipartisan rebuke of Donald Trump's war with Iran. The vote comes just a day before Donald Trump heads up to Capitol Hill. And any day now, the administration is expected to seek tens of billions of dollars to pay for the deeply unpopular war with Iran. After a break, a wave of firings from the new acting director of national intelligence. As we're learning much more disturbing detail about the former director of National Intelligence and how big of a risk she may have been to our national security. The next hour of deadline. White House starts after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

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