← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“If you’re not frightened”
00:41:56
Nicolle Wallace discusses the foundations of election subversion that the Trump administration is already setting and the new threats he’s making to send the military to American cities.
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Hey, friends, this is Audie Cornish, host.
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Of CNN THIS Morning and the Assignment. And guess what? Every story you care about, every angle.
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You want unpacked is now streaming on cnn. That means you can catch my show or other CNN programming whenever you want.
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On your favorite device. And a subscription also gets you access to exclusive video series and unlimited articles. So subscribe to CNN@CNN.com subscription.
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Men need a store that has the right thing for their thing, like a Kenneth Cole suit made with Showflex fabric to keep them cool at their cousin in law's third wedding in the middle of July. Whatever the thing, Men's Wearhouse has the clothes for it.
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Love the way you look.
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Men's Wearhouse.
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The president does believe that. He has stated that before.
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I think he stated his concerns voter.
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Fraud and people voting illegally during the campaign. And he continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence that people.
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Have presented to him.
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Exactly what evidence?
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Ryan today said there's no evidence. The national association of Secretaries of State say that they don't agree with the president's assessment. What evidence do you have?
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Mr. As I said, I think the president has believed that for a while.
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Based on studies and information he has. It was a lifetime ago, wasn't it? Hi again, everyone. It's five o' clock in New York. Feels like seven lifetimes ago. Actually, that was then White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, before Dancing with the Stars fame behind the podium on day four of Trump's first term as president. And while we hope you enjoyed that little trip down memory lane, we revisit that moment and the words he chose because they illustrate how Donald Trump has been lying about election fraud for as long as and as easily as the rest of us inhale and exhale. Even then back in 2016, when Donald Trump prevailed in the 2016 election, he was so obsessed with his popular vote defeat that he spread unfounded. You heard it from Sean Spicer. He didn't say there was evidence. He said it's what Donald Trump believes. So based on what he believed, Donald Trump spread dangerous falsehoods that millions of people in our country had voted illegally again, all because he was hurt that he didn't win the popular vote. Of course, a lot has happened since then to the country and to Donald Trump. But Trump's reflexive penchant for lying about elections and the subsequent intentional result of sowing distrust in our election systems and processes with conspiracy theories, as well as his very public maligning of anything that doesn't go his way, has metastasized over the last eight years. In an expansive piece of reporting in the Atlantic, staff writer David Graham explored Donald Trump's years long assault on our election system. Looking ahead to the 2026 midterms and beyond, Graham says our system is reaching a breaking point. From his piece, quote, to understand the threat to democracy and how it might be stopped, I spoke with experts on election administration, constitutional law and law enforcement. Many of them are people I have known to be cautious, sober and not prone to hyperbole. Yet they used words like nightmare and warned that Americans need to be ready for, quote, really wild stuff. The speed of Donald Trump's assault on the Constitution has made forecasting difficult. But the 2026 contests, both the way they work and the results will help determine whether democracy as we know it will survive. Until then, if you are not frightened, Hannah Fried, the executive director of the voter access group All Voting Is Local, told me, quote, you were not paying attention. Graham enumerates the many facets to Donald Trump's plan to subvert elections in his favor. Laying the groundwork, changing the rules which we're seeing with his pressure campaigns to have states redraw their congressional maps. Mid decade intimidation on election day, potentially using the US Military and spreading chaos and confusion after voters have voted, after they have done their part and gone to the polls. If the results are not coming in the way he wants them to. Graham's answer to this quote, the most important defense against losing our democracy is the same thing that makes it a democracy in the first place. The people. An engaged electorate, demanding clean elections and turning out in force has been the strongest and most consistent bulwark against Trump. The power of the people seen in the reaction to Democrats pushback to Texas new congressional map that has netted Republicans five new seats. California, led by its governor Gavin Newsom, is championing a new proposition that would get Democrats five new House seats. That campaign is going so well, we are hearing Newsom say something you never heard from politicians. Stop sending us money. Watch.
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You can't even make this up.
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1.2 million contributions. We've raised $38 million together enough, thank you.
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I never thought I'd ever say that.
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We've raised enough money to win this campaign doesn't mean we've won the campaign, quite the contrary. But we reached our goals, we reached our budget. And I just want to thank you.
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For reaching in your pocket. Please don't send any more money to the yes on 50 campaign.
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But don't think for a second we can run the 90 yard dash this.
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Election is not over.
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So let's do everything in our power to focus on getting out the vote.
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But you stepped up and you stepped.
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In mad respect to all of you. Thank you.
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The power of the people defending our democracy is where we start the hour with some of our favorite experts and friends. Staff writer for the Atlantic, the aforementioned David Graham is here. He's bylined on that piece I just read from. Also joining us, our friend, voting rights attorney, founder of Democracy Docket, Mark Elias is here. It's the kind of piece you read once to get through all of it and see what the smartest people in this space are saying and what you are writing about it. And then you read it again to see how screwed we are. David, take me through it.
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A
Yeah, I mean, this is a case where I felt like I was fairly accustomed to kinds of threats that they were facing and pretty clear eyed about it. And as I spoke to a bunch of experts, including Mark, I realized that I was underestimating some of them and that the danger is really great. And I think it's that there's so many avenues that Trump could use to try to interfere with the elections. Many of them may not work, many of them may not be tried. But you don't need that much to interfere with an election like this. In a close House election, which is what we expect, you can, you can fiddle with a few seats and you can just mess on the margins in ways that do affect the freeness and fairness of the election. We see that happening already, you know, with attempts to intimidate opponents, whether that's arresting or charging people like James Comey or Letitia James, whether it's pressuring the media, you know, we've seen pressure even on this network from the president, from the administration. So first you start tilting the playing field then, then you move on to suppressing votes, try to change the rules by redistricting, and then you try to get votes thrown out or get tallies thrown out after the election. So there's just so many places that have to be protected.
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Marco elias, There have been definitive pieces like this written with sort of the democracy and the elections at their center. I think David's former colleague Bart Gelman wrote one before the election about how the election system is flashing red. Jim Rutenberg and Nick Corsani wrote a piece around the time of the conventions for the New York Times. And I went back and looked at them and just about everything that was warned about came to pass. So if everything that is warned about in what David's Written, which is this definitive piece on this moment comes to pass. What are the protections in the system against them?
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Yeah, so first of all, I thought the piece was excellent, and I was happy to talk to David to help him with my thoughts on this. The fact is that what's happening over time is that the safeguards are also getting weaker and weaker. Right. So. So a few things are happening simultaneously. Number one, Donald Trump is getting bolder and bolder. The Republican Party's voter suppression war machine is getting more and more efficient and more and more effective. Their outside allies are gaining more and more sort of rigor and feel like they have the wind at their back. And at the same time, the people who are standing up against it are, you know, becoming fewer and fewer. Now, look, you know, I tallied this up just before we came on the air. My, my law firm and I, we are not just involved in 60 lawsuits trying to protect free and fair elections. That's literally just 60 lawsuits about elections in, in 30 states. We're now litigating 11 redistricting cases. And it's 2025. It's the middle of the election cycle. So, so the legal system is going to be one of the big checks because it is one of the few places where, you know, you have lawyers, you have law firms that are, will fight. But, you know, if you think about, you know, the amount of reliance, for example, we put on the fact that Bill Barr and the Department of Justice wouldn't go along with the worst instincts of Donald Trump in 2020, well, that's gone. If we think about the fact that there were people in the White House who wouldn't go along with Donald Trump in 2020, that's gone. If we think about the election deniers who at that point in 2024 were kind of in retreat, well, those people have all been pardoned. Those people are all being celebrated. Those people are all now being feted. And so, you know, there are fewer guardrails and less strong guardrails.
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B
David, let me read you the piece that the part of it that made me sort of stand up because it has an allusion, obviously, to the terrorist attacks of 9, 11 at the stage of this election in 2019, no one expected a crowd of Trump supporters to storm the U.S. capitol on January 6, 2021. No one expected the president himself to explicitly lend his support to their efforts to stop the steal Certain. No one expected that there would be calls to hang the vice president for his refusal to subvert the democratic process. If anything, when it comes to 2026. I worry more about the limits of my imagination than about the hazards of speculation. This failure to imagine is what keeps Americans either paralyzed or blind to the threat. Do you think that's still the case even after all those things you list there, or are people thinking about what comes after an insurrection?
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I think people still are a little bit blase about it, and I don't think that's true within the election administration sphere. You know, election officials, local, state, these people are aware of these things and they're preparing for them. They're preparing for things like the possibility of the military being in the streets or armed law enforcement showing up at polling places. But I think the general populace may still be a little bit, you know, not aware of the threats. 2020 was such a tumultuous election, but in 2024, partly because the presidential election was not that close, we didn't see the same kinds of things. And I think there's a tendency to think that everything is okay again, we're going back to normal. And I think that's dangerous. I think we're not back to normal. I think these threats are very real and the only way to defeat them is to be prepared for them. So I hope that people do take heart. And I would say, you know, I don't think this is a hopeless case. I think that as 2020 also shows when people are paying attention, when they are voting, we can protect the system, but we have to do it. It's an active thing.
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I want to go back with you, Mark Elias, to the arena where Donald Trump is the biggest loser, and that's the courts. Let me read you this from David's piece. We can take some comfort next year in the fact that messing with 468 separate elections for House and Senate seats is more complicated than interfering with a presidential race. There will be more opportunities for shenanigans, but it will also be harder to change the overall outcome if one party leads by more than 10 or so seats. It's also worth remembering that courts have not looked favorably on recent challenges to elections. Scores of pro Trump suits failed in 2020. And although the Supreme Court has sanctioned many of Trump's executive power grabs, most election cases are decided in lower courts, where Trump has far poorly thus far in his second term. That is largely because you keep beating him. But what is different? What will be different than in 16 in this midterm? I'm sorry, 20, 20, 20.
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I mean, yeah, look, I worry less about the composition of the courts for the reasons that David laid out. I mean the fact is we had, we had great success in the courts obviously in the aftermath of the 2020 election when I was representing President Biden along with a team of lawyers and we more than 60 times in court and we had a lot of success in 2022. People forget, but Republicans tried to prevent the certification of the elections in counties in Pennsylvania and Arizona in 2022. And we sued and we won there and we were prepared. We brought a lot of litigation in 2024 and were successful and we're prepared there and are prepared now. I think what has really changed is like I said that the, the non court related structures are just weaker. So for example, the federal government, Donald under defunded or maybe reduced funding, David could probably tell you exactly which it is. The amount of money that is going to prevent foreign cyber attacks on elections. You know, that's, that's like, that's not something that litigation is going to solve. You know, we have a Department of justice that has flipped sides, right. They've literally changed uniforms from being pro voting to anti voting. And that puts a lot of stress and strain on the system because it means that not only do private lawyers like me have to pick up the slack, it means that there's an entire infrastructure right now, for example, that is trying to coerce states to turn over full voter files, literally confidential voting data on every American to them. So those are the things that are worse. I do want to add one quick thing though to what David said, which is, you know, it is a failure of imagination. I mean, you know, the fact is there were those of us who in 2019 and 2020 were warning about Donald Trump. Most of us had been affiliated frankly with the Clinton campaign and we knew what he was capable of, but we were largely discounted. And you know, I fear that in 2026 people are more open to hearing it. But there is still a key, a deep desire even among very well meaning people, among Democrats to say, well, you know, we're on the verge of a crisis. You know, this could be a problem. No, no, no, no, no. We're in the middle of a crisis. This is a problem. Like I'm here to tell you, this is not. We're not on the verge of anything. We're in the middle of it. So we need to not only have the ability to imagine, but the ability to accept what the reality is that we are in.
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Yeah, I mean we live in a post firing of Chris Krebs America. Right. And the person who fired him is now, the president, I wonder, David, what you're reporting around just the traditional sort of structural making sure that American elections are only. The only people that participate them are Americans. What happens to the actual election infrastructure that used to be the job of every administration to protect.
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That's right. So there have been many cuts. So combined through efforts of DOGE and other cuts by the administration, the csi, which oversees cybersecurity and other infrastructural issues, has been cut, its staff has cut by a third, its budget is cut, it's cutting grants that it makes to local offices, local elections offices for things. And so that creates a lot of problems. If you're in a big county, you may have the capacity to deal with your own sort of security, your own cybersecurity. If you're in a small county, you don't have that. And CISA did all of these things for local authorities that we don't see. You know, they did walk through where they checked to make sure are your doors locking? Do you have a stable electricity supply? What happens if there's an outage? Do you have a generator? All these things that just make sure on election day everything goes smoothly. But those capacities are gone now. So these people are fending for themselves. You also have at the Department of Homeland Security, election deniers in critical places. There's a woman named Heather Honey who was involved in sort of Stop the steal efforts in 2020. She's now overseeing supposedly election integrity at DOJ. And I would also say, you know, Chris Krebs firing is not just bad because Chris Krebs was a serious professional who, you know, cared a lot about cybersecurity and who spoke out when and, you know, said that the 2020 elections were conducted safely. But also firing Krebs and then putting him under criminal investigation, which the Trump administration did earlier this year, is a signal to anyone else who might be tempted to say that the elections are safe or to stand up against the administration, that they are going to be subject to retaliation.
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It's an extraordinary moment. Marc Elias, your thoughts on actually, I need to get a break. And then I want to turn it over to you on the state by state effort. Right? The picture that you only see from being on the ground in individual states where the battles are being waged. Also ahead for us, Donald Trump is leaning further and further into his maybe natural autocratic instincts. He's now saying he might not stop at the National Guard and he could send all the branches of the military into American cities if he wants to. That along with the extrajudicial killings of suspected drug runners, is making us weaker in the eyes of our Democratic allies. How to stop the backslide toward authoritarianism under Trump and renew American leadership on the world stage will be our conversation later in the hour. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
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Men's Wearhouse There's a big change coming.
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To this network, but I'll still be here asking the kinds of questions that I used to face. Only our name is changing. Same mission, same place, new name MSNBC.
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Becomes Ms. Now November 15th subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access, ad free listening and bonus content to all of MSNBC's original podcasts, including the chart topping series the Best People with Nicole Wallace, why Is this Happening? Main justice and more. Plus new episodes of all your favorite MSNBC shows ad free and ad free listening to all of Rachel Maddows original series, Ultra Bagman and Deja News. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.
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Democracy is on ballot November 4th. Republicans want to steal enough seats in.
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Congress to rig the next election and.
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Wield unchecked power for two more years.
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With Prop 50, you can stop Republicans in their tracks. Prop 50 puts our elections back on a level playing field, preserves independent redistricting.
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Over the long term, and lets the people decide. Return your ballot today.
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Vote yes on 50.
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B
We're back with David and Mark. So Mark, that was President Obama's message to California as I played you Gavin Newsom's message about fundraising. But I want to put up a split screen. On Friday, the New York Times reported that the Justice Department will monitor elections in California and New Jersey. Times wrote it like this. The Trump administration said on Friday that the Justice Department will monitor polling sites in California and New Jersey ahead of the Nov. 4 election, amid requests by Republican Party officials in those states. Although election monitoring by the Justice Department is not uncommon, it will likely heighten tensions as voters weigh in on some of the nation's most closely watched races. You know why I don't believe that the Republicans did that? Because Politico reported this, quote, republicans appear to have all but abandoned their efforts to defeat a Democratic gerrymander of California's House districts one week before it goes before voters as Democrats pummel the state with yes on 50 advertising, the Republican side of the battle has gone quiet. Major GOP donors and party leaders have effectively vanished from the front lines. I mean, did they vanish from the front lines because Trump's over calling in the military? Or I mean, what do you make of those two pieces of reporting?
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D
So look, I agree with the first part of what the New York Times wrote and not the second part. The second part is the throat clearing that we too oftentimes get, which is, well, but monitor, you know, monitors are not that unusual, but critics are concerned. It's the same stuff we've gotten, frankly, about some of the indictments. This Department of Justice is not interested in protecting minority voting rights, which is the only reason why monitors are historically sent. Okay, so we need to stop saying, well, it's not unusual in this respect and it's unusual in that respect. This is totally a put up by Donald Trump, who controls this Department of Justice. Remember, Donald Trump has said he can control the Department of Justice. Pam Bondi, who is the attorney general, is a sycophant. All of the loyalists of Donald Trump run the place. And as they say, the people who invited them in were not the citizen groups, were not the minority communities, but were the Republican Party. So we need to understand that there is nothing normal about this. This is just dangerous. And here is why. They're doing it for two reasons. Number one, because Donald Trump is, is a vain man with a very fragile ego and he's going to need to explain why it is that California successfully passed this ballot initiative and why it is that his buddy in New Jersey lost to Mikey Sherrill. And so if you notice, they're not sending people into Virginia. That's a race in which a Republican has the governorship and the Republican candidate for, for governor has no chance of winning. So number one, they're being sent in so that he can lie and lie and lie and then lie some more about what happened in the election. As sure as I sit here on Wednesday and Thursday of next week, you and I will be talking, you can play the tape back that he, that he is claiming there was widespread fraud in California and widespread fraud in New Jersey. And the fact that these monitors are on the ground, they will give some credence in some quarters because he'll be able to say, well, we had monitors on the ground. This is what they said. Whether that's what they said or not. The second reason he has the Monitors on the ground is to normalize this while he tests the fence to find vulnerabilities in 2025 for the Big show in 2026.
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B
David, I'm wrapping this around your thought about failure of imagination. I mean, what if this is what we have to imagine, that the presence of federal agents and troops that Trump keeps talking about deploying and Steve Bannon has been talking about for months now, that is the play, and that normalizing them there, ostensibly around immigration raids, is about a whole range of projects and efforts all serving sort of this MAGA movement by normalizing troops in the streets.
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A
Yeah, I think that's exactly the question to ask. And I think we see it happening already. There's this very specific federal law that says that you cannot send federal law enforcement or armed troops to polling places. But if you put people in the streets of cities, if you put the armed forces or the National Guard or ICE in the streets of cities now well ahead of elections, then it's not because it's not at the polling places. It's not because the elections, you get people used to it. If you put monitors out, you get people used to it. So I think it is part of a long running plan, you know, and when Mark says the crisis is not, we're on the brink of a crisis, the crisis is happening now. I think this is a good example of what that looks like. These things are already happening. This isn't a hypothetical that happens in 2026 or happens in, you know, September, October or November of 2026. It's something that's already going on.
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B
Mark, take me inside the state by state effort. We've talked about California, but I saw that Maryland is going to sit this one out. What's going on there?
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D
Yeah, look, I hope the Democrats in Maryland reconsider this. We've, we've heard from one legislative leader in Maryland who said that they're going to sit it out. But honestly, there's no reason for Maryland to sit it out. There is no reason why Maryland cannot redraw its ma and do what is necessary to protect democracy. So on a state by state basis, the way to think about this is Republicans have gerrymandered or further gerrymandered maps. In Texas, in Missouri and in North Carolina, some of the most grotesque extreme gerrymanders became even worse. And all three of those states got sued almost immediately by me and my law firm and in some cases by others. And so those cases are playing themselves out. In the meantime, you have California about on the precipice. Of passing a new map that will add five Democratic seats. Virginia is also in the process of doing that. Earlier today, the legislature took the first big step there. Republicans went to court to try to block it, and they failed this morning. I'm also proud of my law firm's role there in preventing Republicans from stopping that process from moving forward. And now we move to kind of the next level. We see what do Republicans do in Ohio and Florida and Kansas and Indiana and Nebraska and New Hampshire. And then what do Democrats do in the states that they control? What happens in Washington and Oregon and Colorado and Illinois and, and Maryland? You know, I have been a, I have been saying for months that Democrats need to, in every one of these states, look at what's, what tools are available to them and, and, and take it seriously. You know, everyone was saying that it was impossible to do anything in Virginia, and now Virginia found a way to do something. People said it was impossible to do something in California, and Gavin Newsom found a way, people said it was impossible to do something in New York. And then guess what, my law firm, we sued New York. And now all of a sudden everyone is saying, well, maybe there is something could be done in New York via litigation that we brought to vindicate the right of minority voters. So I think we just need more imagination, to use the word of the day, and creativity and urgency to this.
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B
David Graham, your piece brings it all into focus. And so if there is more urgency or understanding of what's going on, it will be thanks in part to what you've written here. Thank you so much for joining us to talk about it. Mark Elias, thank you for being on the front lines and for talking to us about it regularly. When we come back, how Donald Trump's use and misuse of the United States military, both here at home and abroad, is eroding our democracy in the eyes of world leaders. That's next.
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MSNBC presents the chart topping original podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace.
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C
Each week, Nicole speaks with some of.
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D
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B
Donald Trump can't seem to pass up A single opportunity to prove right all those people who laid out the very worst nightmare scenarios for his second term as president. Because what used to be dire warnings about his use of the military as commander in chief are now reality for those of us living in the United States. Listen to what he said aboard Air Force One early this morning last night when you said you were prepared to send more than the National Guard into American cities.
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E
Sure, I would. I would do that if it was necessary.
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D
You know, I.
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E
If it was necessary, I'd do that. But it hasn't been necessary. We're doing a great job without that.
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D
But, yeah, it was necessary. As you know, I'm allowed to do that. You know, if I want to enact.
- [28:13]
E
A certain act, I'm allowed to do it routinely.
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D
And other.
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E
About 50% of residents have used that, as you know. And I'd be allowed to do whatever I want. But we haven't chosen to do that because we're very well.
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D
We're doing very well without it.
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E
But I'd be allowed to do that, you understand? The courts wouldn't get involved. Nobody would get involved. And I could send the Army, Navy every.
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D
I can send anybody I wanted. But I haven't done that because we're.
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E
Doing so well without it.
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B
This is like nonsense. If you want it to make sense, it doesn't. 50% of presidents have not done that. And if you're so obsessed with what you're allowed to do, joining us to make sense of it. Retired U.S. army Lt. Gen. Mark Kirtling is back. He's the author of the forthcoming book if I Don't Return. A Father's Wartime Journal goes on pre sale next week. And with me at the table, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, MSNBC international affairs analyst Ambassador Michael McFaul is here. His new book is about something we've been talking about for years now, Autocrats versus China, Russia, America and the New Global Disorder. It's out now. I've had a galley and I've made my way through it. And I feel like there's some deja vu and some of the conversations we've been having for a long time.
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C
Yes.
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B
But being an admitted ugly American, I skipped right to what's happening here in America. And I wonder how you see, like, who would you say is up and who's down in the war between autocrats and Democrats in America?
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C
Well, it's a fight. It's a struggle you're fighting every single night, I hear. Thank you for doing that. It's not going to just be Handed to us democratic institutions, pieces of paper like constitutions we know from other countries. If you don't fight for them, they don't mean anything. I look at what's happening in a comparative perspective. I think, about the early Putin years and this era, and there's some parallels, right? Pulling people off of media shows that you don't like. Comedians, Jimmy Fallon. That happened in Putin's Russia two years after he became president. Using the rule by law instead of rule of law to go after people you don't like. That's right out of Putin's playbook. But I'm cautiously optimistic.
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B
Well, what hasn't he done?
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C
Well, he's threatened things like you just played, right? I can do that. You know, I can do that. You know what he hasn't done that Putin did is he hasn't put in jail yet. His biggest critics. So when that happened in Russia, that was 2003, so three years in. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, he was an oligarch, by the way. The buying of the oligarchs, that's another right out of Putin's playbook. Everybody line up and if you be with me, I'll cut your taxes, I'll make you rich, but you can't criticize me. That should sound familiar to us, too. But then there was one who defected, Khardorkovsky, and he put him in jail in 2003, and he was there for a decade. That hasn't happened yet.
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B
Yet. Do you think it will?
- [31:15]
C
I'm cautiously optimistic it won't, because we have two things that the Russians didn't have. Russian civil society, opposition back in those early Putin years. Number one, we do have more independent institutions. The media, opposition party, Democratic Party should be stronger, in my view. But it's out there. We have governors, and not all oligarchs, not all business people support Putin. That's a good thing. The parliament these days, that's another parallel. They just became subservient to Putin. That feels like that's happening here, but we have way more checks and balances on executive power compared to Putin. And the other thing we have that the Russians didn't have in 2000 is we have a couple hundred years of no kings movements. Right. The fact that the protest was called that echoes something that happened 250 years ago. The Russians had only had democracy for a few years. And I think the president and his team might be underestimating the values of the American people. They care about freedom, they care about democracy. I've been on the road with this book and the best applause lines are always when I say, don't most Americans want to be on the side of the Democrats in the fight between autocrats and Democrats? I think most Americans want to be on that side.
- [32:31]
B
The use of the military is, it's double edged for him. It's where he has perhaps the most compliant cabinet member. And it's a race to the bottom. But I think I'm on safe ground saying that about Pete Hegseth. It's also an institution that is pretty opaque to people outside of the military. But the political peril on the other side seems to be that it is one traditionally held in very high esteem and regard by the American people. And let me just play for you what General John Kelly said about Donald Trump's desires to rule like a dictator.
- [33:07]
C
Do you think he's a fascist?
- [33:10]
D
Well, I'm looking at the definition of fascism. It's a far right authoritarian, ultra nationalist.
- [33:18]
C
Political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized hypocrisy, militarism, forcible suppression.
- [33:27]
D
Of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy.
- [33:34]
C
So certainly in my experience, those are.
- [33:39]
D
The kind of things that he thinks.
- [33:41]
C
Would work better in terms of running America. But certainly the former president is in the far right area. Certainly an authoritarian.
- [33:58]
D
Admires people who are dictators. He has said that. So he certainly falls into the, into.
- [34:05]
C
The general definition of fascist. For sure.
- [34:10]
B
General John Kelly said that exactly one year ago, as we sort of take in a book about autocrats versus Democrats, at least in his view, Donald Trump was, was clearly an authoritarian.
- [34:25]
E
Yeah. And I think others have said the same thing, others who worn the uniform. Nicole, let me just add one thing to what you were just talking with Ambassador McFaul about. I'd put the military in one of those institutions that it is also very different than what's in Russia. You know, having served in Europe and asked other nations what they swear allegiance to, you will get responses like the president or the king or the motherland or the fatherland. We are one of the very few nations that our military officers swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, a set of ideas, ideologies, values. It may be bending and there may be indicators that there are some in the military, at the various rallies that the president has that may seem to be going toward him. But I would say that's more young people who have not really understood their professionalism, even though they have been taught about maintaining the values and the nonpartisan approach to politics and not to get involved with, with cheering certain things that a politician says, But I gotta tell you, Nicole, I still stand by the fact that the officers in the military will abide by their oath. And one other thing I'd point out, too. When the oath is taken, it's different for an officer's oath than it is for an enlisted oath. An officer vows to support and defend the Constitution. An enlisted person vows to obey the orders of the president and the officers appointed over them. That means that the relationship there is that officers, by obeying the Constitution, will keep their soldiers, their troopers, straight. And that's what I believe we will still depend on as part of the society that the ambassador just talked about.
- [36:21]
B
I want to press you on that. I have to sneak in a quick break first. We'll ask you about your book as well. Don't go anywhere. Well, I'll be right back. We're back with General Hertling and Ambassador McFaul. Let me show you something that Mark Esper warned about in terms of what Donald Trump wanted done to protesters. I'll read it to you. We're having some technical difficulties. Oh, here it is. Here it is. Specifically, was he suggesting that the US Military should do to these protesters?
- [36:56]
C
He says, can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something? And he's suggesting that that's what we should do, that we should bring in the troops and shoot the protesters.
- [37:06]
B
The commander in chief was suggesting that the US Military shoot protesters.
- [37:12]
C
Yes.
- [37:12]
D
In the straits of our nation's capital.
- [37:15]
C
That's right. Shocking.
- [37:19]
B
General, I played that after your description just now of what officers swear on oath to and the oath taken. Enlisted men and women. Donald Trump has done a lot of the same things in the second term, but turbocharged. If he were to issue this order. And again, let me quote Mark Esper. Correct, quote, can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something? If he were to do that now, what do you think would happen?
- [37:47]
E
He wouldn't succeed. Nicole. I think I know soldiers pretty well. I served with them for 40 years. Soldiers would not do that. And that's the difference. When you have a Secretary Esper who's saying in the Oval Office and even got fired for doing it, no, we're not going to do that. And it's because the commanders of those forces won't do it. They know it's illegal. It's an illegal order. It's shooting at your own citizens that would create a civil war. And officers would disobey that. And soldiers who were facing their fellow citizens, especially National Guard soldiers, soldiers who come from the state where they are serving, when they're deployed in those kind of states. And that's part of the reason, I think, why the president wanted to move National Guard from one state to another to conduct operations. It's to separate the citizens from the soldier. Soldiers won't do that. I'm convinced of that. And very few people could talk me out of that idea.
- [38:46]
B
One of the pieces that people track, right, in tracking a country's social democracy, slide towards something autocratic. Are these institutions that we're talking about, the Department of Justice, the military, the media, the way critics and those who hold or bring a light to the leader. Where do you see our slide in those categories specifically? And are you optimistic?
- [39:17]
C
Well, I'm most worried about the collusion between business and the Republican Party and President Trump. I know a lot of Republicans, just like you do. I know a lot of business people. I live in the Silicon Valley. I know what they say when they're chatting with me. And that they won't say that publicly. That worries me. That worries me that they're separating. And when push comes to shove, they're just going to get out of the way. That's my biggest concern. My biggest hope is, you know, I was set to know King.
- [39:44]
B
Why do you think they do that? I mean, I'm from Northern California, too, and I. I can't.
- [39:48]
C
Money. I think it's just money.
- [39:50]
B
Don't they have enough money? I mean, this country has given them. Country's giving them everything.
- [39:55]
C
It's all a big power game between them. Who's going to get as much they can. And I remember being at some dinner right after President Trump was reelected, who was going to go, who wasn't going to go. And it was all a competition between them because they want to win the game, especially the AI race, who's going to use the power of the government to enrich themselves. And I'm disturbed by that. I wish they would think a little more long term. And I'm generalizing. There are some that are not part of that. I worry about that. When I see hope is. I see hope about what the general is just talking about. I didn't know that about those two different oaths. That's interesting to me, by the way, I have my oath that I took to the Constitution framed on my desk, at worst, to remind me of that fact. A lot of people are fighting back. Lisa Cook, you know, Trump said, you got to get out of the way, you got to go home. I went to school with Lisa. She Said, I'm not going home. I'm not leaving the Fed. I dare you to remove me. Comey. I've got a lot of complicated feelings about what he did in our history over the years, but he said he's fighting. And then, you know, the no Kings demonstrations, I went and looked, and there were people of all sorts in Palo Alto, all over the country, millions of people. That should give the president pause when he wants to overreach and do these more sinister things.
- [41:18]
B
Shouldn't it give companies pause, too? I mean, 19% of Americans support destroying the East Wing of the White House, the place you and I spent a lot of time, and companies, including this one, our parent company, paid for that.
- [41:29]
C
Yes. That's just disappointing. That's rallying corporate America because they think it's in their interest. And I think that's overreach. You know, that is when you can see the destruction. And he thinks, well, I can do it. It's hard to pull back. That's true. But more than any other symbolic event, I think that's really captured the attention of the American people. And, you know, I was touring, you know, I used to work for President Obama. We were at the Kremlin one time. We're touring around, and they have these big halls with all the gold and everything. And the president said at one point, I think you won't mind if I say this. He said, you know, these are pretty nice digs compared to my little Oval Office. And I said, yes, but Mr. President, you know, because they did all this, there was a revolution. And that caught his attention. And that's right. And I think if you overreach too far and you get out of step with the American people, there'll be a pushback.
- [42:21]
B
Right. Especially in the week when food stamps are about to run out.
- [42:24]
C
Right.
- [42:24]
B
The book is so important.
- [42:26]
C
Thank you.
- [42:27]
B
And the whole thing is important. I didn't mean to race ahead to our story here at home. All of it is important, and we're happy to have you here to talk about it. Thanks for having me bringing to the table. Ambassador McFaul, General Mark Kirtling. Thank you both so much for this conversation. One more break for us. We'll be right back. Donald Trump's ongoing assault on blue cities and states and the targeting of certain groups of people has proven politically toxic, even among those who helped put him in office. For Illinois Governor J.B. pritzker, the historic parallels of Donald Trump's actions are deeply alarming.
- [43:01]
D
I think we all ought to go reread Martin Niemoller's poem First They Came is the name of it. And you know, because it's, it's right. I mean, you can substitute different names.
- [43:13]
C
In there for, you know, for socialists.
- [43:14]
D
Or Jews or, you know, trade unionists.
- [43:18]
C
And it all applies today.
- [43:19]
D
You know, it happens that what the Nazis did was they went after immigrants first, just so happens, you know, and then they, and then they categorized people who were German citizens but weren't maybe multi generational German citizens as immigrants after they had demonized immigrants. Right now you're put in a demonized category and so on. So I think we, you know, again, you can recognize all this. And yeah, it's deeply concerning.
- [43:50]
B
You can hear much more my conversation with Governor Pritzker on the Best People podcast. Just scan the QR code on your screen to watch the whole thing on YouTube or download the Best People wherever you get your podcasts. One more break. We'll be right back. Thank you for keep letting us into your homes. You can see my brain's moved on already. We're grateful to all of you. We want to let you know that we will have special coverage next Tuesday night, election night. There are a lot of big races, including the governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as the mayor's race right here in New York City and that region districting Prop 50 in California that we covered today. We hope you'll join us Tuesday.
- [44:27]
A
Change is coming to this network, but.
- [44:29]
C
We'Re still going to be having conversations.
- [44:31]
A
About the issues that define us as a country. The only thing changing is our name. Same mission, new name.
- [44:37]
D
MSNBC becomes Ms. Now. November 15th.