← The Briefing with Jen Psaki
The Briefing with Jen Psaki
Trump's dud election speech BACKFIRES; document dump contradicts his complaint
00:41:23
Jen Psaki looks at how Donald Trump's big speech on election security did not get much media attention, even from his most supporting outlets. And the documents he dramatically unveiled were either not new, had already been debunked, or completely contradicted the threat narrative he was trying to stoke. And of course, while some documents contradicted his conspiracy theories about China, others affirmed that he was supported by Russia.
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- [00:00]
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- [00:59]
Host / Journalist
When a president gives a big speech like a State of the Union address or a primetime address, there is always, and I have managed a lot of these processes, a team of young press aides frantically putting together press clips and tweets and summaries of news coverage just to show their bosses, including the president, of course, how widely and positively the speech was covered. And my bet is last night's speech proved to be a bit more challenging for the crack team over at the White House, because here's what they had to work with. The speech now did make the front page of the Washington Post this morning. You can see it on your screen right there. But really, just barely. And that piece focuses on the fact that Trump didn't offer any evidence to back up his claims. And then there's the rest of the front page, which focuses on Trump's failure to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and about how Trump's approval rating is down in the 30s. Not exactly a framer to blast out to Trump supporters is that front page that you see on your screen right now. The LA Times jammed a mention of Trump's speech to the bottom right corner of the front page. Just saying. You could go to the paper's website if you wanted more info. Hey everyone, we didn't feel like using ink here in our newspaper, but if you feel like you could go hunt around the website and you might find something on there. And the front page of today's New York Times didn't mention Trump's speech at all. And when you look at the coverage of Trump's favorite news source in Trump's favorite news source of all of them, I think that one may have prompted some tantrum throwing by the cable news loving man sitting in the Oval Office. Because after Fox News played all 27 minutes of Trump's speech and they did, letting him make all his outrageous allegations, they quickly brought on a reporter to give this fun little disclaimer. Fox News has not seen that evidence yet, is not in a position to evaluate the accuracy of the President's statements and claims at this time. Okay then. Now to add insult to injury, Fox didn't even keep talking about the speech after that speaker pretty much it. They changed the subject almost immediately. So much for Trump's big splashy subject. Changing narrative, changing speech. And then this morning, Trump's personal favorite show, Fox and Friends, ignored his speech entirely. Now, Fox and Friends is a three hour long show. They have a lot of time for segments on there. They had time this morning for segments about the World cup and country music star Toby Keith and the dating app Hinge and WNBA star Caitlin Clark and the Fast and the Furious franchise, of course, which apparently still warrants a conversation. But they didn't have time for a segment about Trump's presidential address. Now that one's gonna kind of sting. Who knows what he was doing, flipping through the channel, maybe throwing remotes, we don't know. And it wasn't just the media leaving Trump hanging last night because Trump's speech was supposed to be the moment when he finally provided bombshell evidence that our elections were somehow insecure. That was the promise, right? That the 2020 election was stolen and he was gonna show us new evidence that had been withheld from him somehow, even though he had received a briefing on it. He said he was releasing newly unredacted intelligence documents to prove it all. But last night, the Washington Post reported that Trump's own CIA director, John Ratcliffe, was notably absent from Trump's intelligence focused speech. And the minutes after his speech, Trump Radcliffe posted a statement in which he said a whole lot of words. But none of those words actually backed up the allegations that Trump, his boss, made in his speech. And then after the speech, MsNow's own Vaughn Hilliard got one of the members of Trump's own election task force. The guy who is reportedly one, one of the big brain conspiracy machines behind all this. To admit that the intelligence documents Trump released yesterday do not prove that any of our recent elections were rigged.
- [05:12]
Gabriel Sterling
You acknowledge that there were no votes changed in 2020.
- [05:15]
Jeh Johnson
All I can acknowledge is what the intelligence shows.
- [05:17]
Advertisement Voice 3
Right.
- [05:17]
Jeh Johnson
I only know the Intelligence Committee has zero evidence that someone has flipped. That a foreign power flipped a vote in 2020, 22 or 24.
- [05:26]
Host / Journalist
That's pretty clear.
- [05:27]
Gabriel Sterling
There we go.
- [05:28]
Host / Journalist
That's what we've all been saying for a long time now. The man that Vaughn was questioning there was the once conservative journalist, if you could call him that, turned conspiracy theorist, John Solomon. He is maybe best known for his work trying to downplay the importance of Trump's ties to Russia. But he is now a short term employee at the White House as part of Trump's election task force. And as Emma Snow reported earlier this week, he was one of the main people in charge of declassifying intelligence, because obviously he's qualified to do that, to attempt to prove Trump's allegations about elections. He is supposed to be one of the top people in charge of that. But watch how he literally ran away from Vaughn as Vaughn tried to get him to answer questions last night.
- [06:12]
Gabriel Sterling
And so the 2020 election was in
- [06:15]
Host / Journalist
fact, the results as we, the American public. I'm still researching.
- [06:19]
Jeh Johnson
So let me, let me.
- [06:19]
Gabriel Sterling
This is the first.
- [06:20]
Host / Journalist
But there's no intelligence.
- [06:23]
Gabriel Sterling
There is no intelligence that the election would have said that Donald Trump was
- [06:27]
Jeh Johnson
president, said that tonight.
- [06:30]
Host / Journalist
He's still researching, whatever that means. Now, Trump wanted last night to be his bombshell moment. That's what he wanted it to be. He wanted all the pomp and circumstance and drama of a speech in primetime and document dump that surrounded it as part of the rollout to reignite conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and justify his plans to question the validity of upcoming elections. That's what that whole thing was all. Remember that cartoon character Wile E. Coyote showing him on your screen, just in case you don't remember. Okay. He spent every single episode putting together elaborate plans to chase the Roadrunner, tying himself to rockets to finally catch the Roadrunner, and always blowing himself up in the process. It's kind of what happened to Trump. He tried to make last night's speech stand out from all the other times he has falsely cried election fraud by saying that he was backing up the claims with all the declassified intelligence documents he was having released. Well, not only did those documents not prove Trump's allegations, the documents actually seem to disprove a lot of Trump's points. I mean, for Example, despite Trump's claims about election vulnerabilities, the intelligence community showcased how vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to compromise election results. Okay, that was in the documents. And despite Trump's claims that China carried out, quote, the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China's illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files, Ms. now found that the document showed something considerably smaller that China had previously purchased. And that's a key part of it. 2020 voter data from seven states. Yes, you heard that correctly. It turns out China paid for access to publicly available data just like anybody else. Okay. Like, every candidate running for office in a state buys the voter file. And of course, there were also other documents reiterating the intel community's consensus that Beijing has not deployed influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US Presidential election. Okay, Sort of like Wile E. Coyote painting a tunnel on a rock wall only to run into it himself. Right? Which he certainly has done. He hurt himself on that one. But not only did the documents Trump released debunk his claim that foreign powers were trying to stop him from being elected, the documents Trump released show that the intelligence community believed that at least one foreign power was actively trying to help Trump get elected. Surprise everyone. And this won't be a surprise. Just like in 2016, Russia was trying to help Trump win in 2020, a document shows our intel communities believed that Russian actors were circulating fake narratives linking mail in voting to voter fraud. That document was the National Intelligence Council's assessment of foreign threats to the 2020 election. From August of 2020, Trump himself would have had access to it at the time. And maybe most damning of all of it is that the document says that, quote, President Putin and senior Russian officials are overseeing efforts by proxies to spread claims about former Vice President Biden, specifically claims about President Biden's dealings with Ukraine back when he was Obama's vice president, and about individuals tied to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma claims that proxy actors affiliated with the Russian government were advancing with US Officials. And, gee, I wonder who those officials could be now. If you remember, that allegation was the basis of Trump's first impeachment. Trump pressured Ukrainian President Zelensky to announce an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, while holding up nearly $400 million in military assistance to Ukraine. In other words, Trump certainly seems to fit the description of a US Official advancing that false narrative with Russian government proxies and the documents he himself released show that he should have known Russia was behind that narrative, but he kept pushing it anyway. As much as Trump's speech all blew up in his face last night, as funny as it is to watch him trip into all the traps he set up himself, I think it's important to be clear eyed about how, even though Trump is a buffoon, he is still trying to assault our democracy. And that is still very dangerous. And I don't just mean dangerous in the sense that he could destroy our democratic republic. On top of that, there's also the danger that Trump spreading lies like this puts our nation's election officials in danger. I mean, that's part of it puts them in danger. And when Trump falsely claims our elections are riddled with fraud, he isn't just lying about the abstract concept of elections generally. He's lying about a system made up of people, a system made up of Americans who volunteer their free time and of public officials who have devoted their entire careers to ensuring we have safe and secure elections. Today, Trump's Homeland Security Secretary, Mark Wain Mullen, threatens state and local election officials with prison time if they don't comply with Trump's demands. Now, that is a disgusting threat on its face. But all of this together is Trump and his administration telegraphing to his base that election workers are up to something nefarious, that they are criminals. Again, these are local officials, these are some volunteers. I mean, these are your friends and your neighbors. And Trump is riling up his base against them. And unfortunately, we have been here before. Before the violence around the 2020 election reached its peak on January 6, Trump had turned his base as conspiracy fueled hatred toward our nation's election workers. He. He told his base that the election was being stolen from them. He lied and he made real people suffer because of it. And you might remember that at the time, Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling, a Republican, quite literally begged Trump to stop.
- [12:18]
Gabriel Sterling
My boss, Secretary Raffensberg, his address is out there. They have people doing caravans, running their house. They've had people come onto their property. Trisha, his wife of 40 years, is getting sexualized threats through her cell phone. It has to stop. Straw that broke the camel's back today is again this 20 year old contractor for a voting system company just trying to do his job just there. In fact, I talked to Dominion today and said he's one of the better ones they got. His family's getting harassed. Now there's a New south bear with his name on it. That's not right. Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia. We're investigating. There's always a possibility. I get it. You have the rights to go through the courts. What you don't have the ability to do. And you need to step up and say this is stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone's going to get hurt. Someone's going to get shot. Someone's going to get killed.
- [13:16]
Host / Journalist
Now that Trump is yet again dangerously fanning the flames of election denialism, now that he is yet again threatening state and local election officials, officials, what do we do now? What did we learn six years ago that can help us navigate this moment because the election is just over 100 days away. Joining me now is Gabriel Sterling, the person you just saw in that clip. He's a current special projects manager and the former chief operating officer at the Georgia Secretary of State's office. Thank you so much for being here with me tonight. I think it's so important to hear voices like yours, people who have actually run and overseen elections. Let me ask you, you may have watched the speech last night, you may not have. You've probably seen clips of it. We've been covering in others. What did you think of the speech last night? Give us your reaction.
- [14:06]
Gabriel Sterling
Well, I guess the most surprising part about it was there really wasn't anything new in there outside of the discussion around non citizen voting. A lot of the claims he made were there in the intelligence assessment that we all saw in March of 2021, the unclassified version. And I guess I was at the national association of Secretaries of State this past three days and there was a lot of concern. We didn't know it was going to be in there. But at the end of the day, basically it was sort of like, is that all he's got? Is this his big swing, the big, you know, reveal that his supporters have been waiting for, for years now of the indictable bomb of information. It just wasn't there. So I guess it was more of a the swing and the miss of it was more the surprising part of it.
- [14:51]
Host / Journalist
Yeah. And as I just tried to outline and these documents are public and people can look through them themselves, a lot of the documents he released, one we've already seen before, intelligence officials have already reviewed. I talked with Senator Mark Warner about this last night. Nothing new there. And there's already been had already been assessment back in 2021. The other there was there was some kind of, you know, he floats things out there, as you well know. And a lot of that is dangerous. And I think you're one of the people who has spoken out so forcefully about it. But he's been floating the idea not just that foreign governments are attempting to influence our election, but he also suggests that our system in America has been hacked and compromised in the past. I mean, it' syou know, systems have been hacked, but the whole system, I'm talking voting systems and things like that, and that it may actually be possible for foreign powers to change votes in America. And then today, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Mark Lloyd Newland, took that idea even further, saying that foreign adversaries could change voter registration and votes because they have access to the back of machines. I think when people hear that, they're very freaked out, right? And they think, does my vote count? Should I even vote? Are these machines corrupt? You know these systems so well. Walk us through how challenging that would actually be.
- [16:03]
Gabriel Sterling
Well, the reality is no machines in any part of the systems in America are really hooked up to the Internet. You cannot access them. There's a ton of physical security around these. One of the great things we do in Georgia and nearly every other state is we partner with the Department of Homeland Security to look at the physical locations of the election management systems, which are the computers, which are the heart of these. There's not one central one in each state. They're down to every little county, every municipality. I mean, there are states that have thousands of polling locations and jurisdictions that oversee these elections. One of the great security apparatus we have is the diffused nature of our system itself. We don't have a centralized system with one key point that could be hit to cause something like this to happen. Are there vulnerabilities in every electronic system in America and in the world? Of course there are. We all know them. The main thing I was happy with from the speech last night is I was glad to see that the federal government of the White House has caught up to the issues that elections officials have been dealing with for 10, 15, 20 years. Every day, we are always working to secure our elections. So it's very difficult to do something that could have a cascading effect and be systemic inside a state or even inside of a county.
- [17:16]
Host / Journalist
I'm also going to talk to the former Secretary of Homeland Security about this a little bit later, because I think it's so important for people to understand that it scares people when they hear that, which I think is the purpose of. Let me ask you about this. I talked about this just a little bit. Is these threats against election workers? I mean, you have. I played the clip of you speaking out against what we saw in 2020. It feels in some ways like we're seeing a replay. I hope not. But certainly seeing a replay of threats against public officials, state officials, election workers. What should people understand about how damaging that is? And what can people out there who are watching and they support democracy do to kind of local election workers and support these systems and all the people who are working so hard to make sure our elections are safe and secure?
- [18:05]
Gabriel Sterling
The people who run elections in this country at the local level, at the state level, are American patriots who love their neighbors and they work hard every day, every week, every month, every year to make sure we have a great system. And it's some of these threats and the discussions around it are intended to intimidate. That's the goal. Because the one thing I get worried about with these kind of situations is the local elections officials being so stressed out and worried about these sort of false narratives that they take their eye off the ball of the important stuff. The blocking and tackling, the recruitment of poll workers, the training, the logic and accuracy testing on your machines, making sure ballots are all built correctly and assigned to the right individual voters. That's the things that are important to make sure the elections are running. In Georgia, we have early voting starting in, I think, a little over 80 days. I'm thinking the election day itself is like 102, 103 days out from now. We're deep into the work of a lot of this all over the country and they need to be focused on doing that blocking and tackling, because if they aren't, that's where you have the human errors that then get conflated into, aha. There's the fraud. There was the problem. No, you had a stressed out, tired person who'd been working 20 hour days and they made a mistake. And that is, that does not fraud make. And that's one of the big issues is the threat. And the stress can cause some of these human errors that then get conflated into fraud. And they say, see, we told you all along it was fraudulent.
- [19:27]
Host / Journalist
It's so important for people to understand this and hear it. And I just want to thank you so much for being here. You spoke out when other people weren't. It's not easy to do that. It's so important to hear voices like yours. So thank you again, Gabriel Sterling, for being here with us tonight. Thank you.
- [19:43]
Gabriel Sterling
Thanks a lot. Have a good night.
- [19:45]
Host / Journalist
Okay, coming up, Donald Trump's newest brazen plan to make money and lots of it. That's always his plan, isn't it? Off of his time in the White House. You can't make this step up. I'm going to talk about it with Congressman Jamie Raskin, who's going to join me. I'm sure he's going to have some choice words about this when we come back. Stay with us.
- [20:08]
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- [21:07]
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- [21:32]
Host / Journalist
So last night, during Trump's big flop of an address, someone very important was missing. A trusted person in Trump's circle who is usually present for all of his speeches, but easy to miss because it's sort of the nature of his job to go unnoticed. And I'm talking, of course, about Trump's personal teleprompter operator, a guy named Gabriel Perez, who Trump reportedly found in 2016 after someone on his campaign Googled the word teleprompters. I'm like, really not kidding on that now. The reason why Mr. Perez was not the one scrolling through Trump's scripted remarks is because he is currently under investigation. Forget this allegedly making more than $100,000 placing bets on the Kelshi prediction market, specifically on what Trump would say in his speeches. Speeches that a teleprompter operator would most certainly have early access to. Now, we try our best on the show to track and call out the corruption in Trump's orbit, but I gotta say, we didn't have the White House teleprompter guy allegedly cashing in this way on our list of people to just pay close attention to. Now, who this shouldn't surprise, however, is Donald Trump himself, because one of his latest business ventures is taking is profiting off of insider information to new heights. This was the headline in the Financial Times today. Trump media pitched $100,000 monthly fee for fast feed of President's posts. Donald Trump's social media company has reportedly discussed charging traders and investors a whopping $100,000 a month for faster access to posts from top Truth Social account. Those from Trump, the very posts where he announces his latest decisions on everything from the Iran war to global trade to how he's feeling about any particular issue. Information that Trump Media describes as having the ability to move financial markets. And if you're thinking, how the hell is this legal? How can the President sell priority access to decisions so consequential to the American people and the world? Well, I'm not even the slightest bit sure, but I do have the perfect person to ask. Joining me now is Democratic Congressman and constitutional scholar Jamie Raskin. Okay, Congressman, I just wanna start with this Financial Times reporting. I mean, Donald Trump holds a majority stake in Trump Media, which means he personally could profit from selling this special access, which we know doesn't bother him a bit. I should add. We're talking about milliseconds here, but this feels like a huge deal in the financial world. Is this legal? How, what can be done about it?
- [24:05]
Jamie Raskin
Well, it's obviously misuse of government resources and it is against the law also to run a business from government property, government offices. And that's exactly what he's doing. The whole trade of the Trump administration is insider trading. That's what their business is. The whole government under them is a massive profit making enterprise. And what they trade on is their power and their insider knowledge. And now they want to form a that by saying if you give them, I can't remember what the numbers were, was it $100,000 a month? Then you would get the presidential word first so you can make the same early inside stock investments that the President's going to make in order to exploit his soon to come statements about those companies and about how they're such a great investment and indeed he'll be channeling government resources towards them too. I mean, that is the name of the game. They've converted the whole government into a for profit enterprise and it shows. They're interested in waking up every day and saying, how are we going to get health care to the American people? Or how are we going to solve the climate catastrophe that is bearing down on us? So we're breathing unbreathable air? No, they're looking at more ways that they can rip off the public.
- [25:22]
Host / Journalist
That seems to be their top priority on their everyday to do list. Let's turn to the speech last night, because I haven't talked to you about this yet. I mean, clearly we know his goal is to sow doubt in our election systems and while the overall response was an eye roll, unsurprisingly, did gin up parts of his base who already believe his election lies and who now claim the speech provides a basis for Trump to enact the Insurrection Act. What's your overall reaction to the speech and is that something that we should all be preparing for and thinking about?
- [25:55]
Jamie Raskin
I mean, the people who believe that nonsense or who are prepared to believe that nonsense are a set finite minority of the American people. So it's like a religious cult leader who decides to go on national TV to spare out some wild conspiracy theories or theological fantasies, and nobody's buying it and everybody rolls their eyes and the people who want to hear it, you know, they've already gotten it. So it was complete Dolesville for America last night. It was an especially bad speech. The President has done much better work than this. But this really hits a rock bottom, I would say. And I'm hearing some funny submissions for names for this speech, including the Pettyburg address. And some people are saying, I have a scheme. You know, I'm thinking more. He's taken Roosevelt's first inaugural address where he said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself, and just turning it into we have nothing but fear. And that's all he's spreading here, but it's boring at this time. We know exactly what he's up to and we are mobilized all over the country at every level of government to counter their attempts to, to steal the election or derail the election.
- [27:10]
Host / Journalist
We also know he either didn't read or didn't understand the documents that he was releasing that he announced he was releasing. Cuz, as I just did, an overview of at the top of the show, a Lot of them contradicted things that he actually said in the speech. And I want to ask you about some of that because you were a ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee during the Russia investigation. I'm sure you saw that one of the documents that Trump declassified and released yesterday as part of a so called smoking gun for Chinese meddling actually showed that in 2020 it was Russia who tried to the most to penetrate American election systems the most in an effort to defeat Joe Biden. What'd you make of that?
- [27:47]
Jamie Raskin
Well, of course, Remember back in 2016, Russia had conducted not just an influence campaign, which means the propaganda and disinformation and attempt to influence the public, but also an actual interference campaign by, you know, breaking into the DNC's emails and Hillary Clinton's emails. And it was far more aggressive in 2020. They seemed to stick to the influence campaign and that was well documented. They were the major player and it was all on Donald Trump's behalf. They were out there for him because of Donald Trump's well known love and subservience and to Vladimir Putin and the Russian position on everything from NATO to Ukraine to, you name it. So Russia was on his side. The intelligence community assessment that was released in March of 2021 also showed that in addition to Russia, Iran was out there, not on Joe Biden's behalf, but just against Trump saying negative stuff about Trump. That's in there too. But there was, there was a conclusive finding by the intelligence community that neither Russia nor Iran nor China or anybody else actually got to the point of technical interference, meaning interfering with people's ability to vote or the counting of ballots or the processing of ballots or the release of results. It just didn't happen. And Donald Trump had nothing to alter that conclusion last night.
- [29:20]
Host / Journalist
No, he did not. Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you as always. Coming up, Trump may be doing his best to change our collective sense of what is normal. But when his cabinet secretary threatens to send state election officials to jail, that's the kind of thing that can still make you sit up and take notice. I can't wait to hear what former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson has to say about it. He's gonna join me next.
- [29:47]
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- [30:16]
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- [30:47]
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- [31:06]
Host / Journalist
for nearly 30 years.
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- [31:23]
Host / Journalist
In the course of roughly 25 minutes of conspiracy theorizing last night, Donald Trump made sure to sow doubt about two election machines and state voter rolls. He called voting machines vulnerable and easily compromised, and he never gave any actual evidence of altered votes coming from compromise machines. Now, as for voter rolls, he pointed to the announcement that his Homeland Security secretary, Mark Wayne Mullen, made yesterday that the department had somehow found over 250,000 non citizens registered to vote in four states. How Trump's DHS got to that number, we don't know because they haven't released any evidence showing their work. We do know is that they likely didn't get that tally from those states actual unredacted voter rolls because the administration has tried and so far failed to force 30 states to turn them over, losing yet again another and they losing yet another case again today. Now, Trump ended his ramblings last night by urging Republicans in Congress to pass his voter restriction bill, the SAVE act, which still looks as though dead as it ever has. However, in remarks this morning, DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen took things a step further. He not only threatened to withhold election funding from states that don't comply with his agency, he threatened election officials personally, if DHS subsequently finds any voting issues,
- [32:43]
Mark Wayne Mullen
if the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time.
- [33:01]
Host / Journalist
Joining me now is the former Homeland Security secretary under President Barack Obama. I think did the job quite differently. JEH Johnson, let me start by asking. It's great to see you. Let me start by asking you this. I mean, let's put aside, and you may have thoughts on this, too, the morality and the management style of making those threats to election workers, which is an important part of it. But is it even legal to threaten that he will withhold election funding if they don't turn over these voter rolls or the information they're requesting?
- [33:37]
Jeh Johnson
Jen, first of all, thanks for having me. It strikes me that we're in this legal wonderland. It's all bizarre. I don't know what crime he's talking about that could lead to possible jail time for an election official. Of course, it's highly inappropriate to withhold needed necessary funding for election security. This was. You were communications director at the time at the White House. Jen this priority really started in the Obama administration toward the very end when I declared election infrastructure to be critical infrastructure in this country. Since then, state election officials have really taken this seriously and I think have done a lot of good work to harden the election infrastructure across all these states. And it is the case, just like Congressman Raskin just noted, that there is not one documented case of a vote being altered, changed or not reported by a foreign power over the last 10 years for as long as I can remember. And so it's important, important to continue to stress that when it comes to the security of our democracy, I think
- [34:55]
Host / Journalist
it's so important for people to hear and understand this. And you not only were you overseeing this and helping them harden the systems, you were working with leaders, Republicans and Democrats in every single state at the time because of the threats. So you know exactly what it means to be under them, what the role of the federal government is and the state governments as well. I wanted to play, and I was talking with Gabriel Sterling about this a little earlier in the show because I think one of the concerns I have is when people hear things and they get concerned and then they don't want to participate in the process. And I wanted to play you what Secretary Mullen said about voting machines during his press conference today. You already alluded to this, but I want to hear you and what Your thoughts are on this? Let's play it first.
- [35:37]
Mark Wayne Mullen
We know, talking about our machines, we know for sure that our foreign adversaries, not our allies, foreign adversaries have parts that are vital pieces in our voting machines. We know that they can access what they consider the key to the back of these machines. We know that they can change voter registration and your vote. We know it's possible. There's not a question, it's not even for debate. One thing that I love about numbers and I love about facts is they don't lie.
- [36:23]
Host / Journalist
Now, that feels to me like the intention is to make people feel like their vote does not count and it could be changed. The voting machines are not attached to foreign adversaries. That is not something that is not a fact at all. But, but you are so familiar with these systems. What is possible and not just untangle that for us, for people out there who heard that and freaked them out.
- [36:45]
Jeh Johnson
Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. Your prior guest noted that, you know, voting machines are not hooked to the Internet, for example. And I've become convinced, frankly, that the biggest threat to our democracy right now are irresponsible high level government officials who try to cast doubt, suspicion on the integrity of our process. If you're a Republican or a Democrat, if you're part of Donald Trump's base and you hear things like that, you're probably thinking, well, I may as well stay home because my privacy is at risk, my safety is at risk. And so statements like that are actually undercutting the process and it is actually probably suppressing the vote, including the vote. Republican voters who are part of Donald Trump's base, who tend to listen to him. And so I would think that a lot of Republicans are wringing their hands about this right now. And we need to stress over and over again our election infrastructure is as secure as it's ever been. The statements from Secretary Mullen are, if he has any evidence whatsoever to support that very exaggerated claim, he needs to produce it.
- [38:09]
Host / Journalist
Jeh Johnson, I could not agree with you more. I think one of the things we've tried to do today and last night is really make clear to people fact and fiction. Their vote is safe, the system is secure, and untangle the things that are meant to confuse them. And you did a great job helping me do that. Thank you again for being here.
- [38:27]
Jeh Johnson
Thank you.
- [38:29]
Host / Journalist
Okay, coming up, the Trump backed candidate for Georgia's U.S. senate seat, Mike Collins, was publicly linked this week to an avowed white nationalist known for spewing vile rhetoric on social media. And this is a person he is closely linked to because it is his son in law. Political commentator and podcast host Suzanne Lambert joins me next to discuss what Republicans aren't doing about it. After a while, quite quick break,
- [39:06]
Suzanne Lambert
A
- [39:06]
Host / Journalist
quick warning to viewers. What you are about to see is highly offensive and also patently untrue.
- [39:14]
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- [39:18]
Advertisement Voice 2
behind feminism, they're behind the trans rights,
- [39:22]
Host / Journalist
they're behind porn, you name it. That's not just a random guy on the Internet. I mean those were the vile anti Semitic and conspiracy laden rantings of Alan Scheer ii, a far right social media influencer who also happens to be the son in law of Georgia's Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins. Now CNN recently dug into Scheer's social media history and found numerous examples of outrageous and bigoted content. He's told his followers that there is nothing wrong with white nationalism and he's even claimed that his w Mike Collins daughter has helped him create some of his disgusting content like this chart purporting to provide proof that quote, Jews control our government. CNN also found that Scheer features prominently in Collins Senate campaign material. And they found property records that suggest Scheer actually lives and votes in a house owned by Mike Collins that is adjacent to Collins own estate. But despite all of this, Mike Collins made zero effort to distance himself from his son in law. His campaign responded to the report simply by saying that quote, Congressman Collins lifelong support for Israel is unquestioned. And maybe that's to be expected given that Collins has his own history of bigoted comments, all of which he has defended. But what's truly outrageous is the way that the national Republican Party has responded with a collective shrug. Just today after all that news broke, both the Trump campaign and national Republican Senate Campaign Committee promoted Mike Collins campaign on social media. And if you were to go to the White House's official webpage right now, one of the first images you'll see is Donald Trump with Mike Collins. Joining me now is Suzanne Lambert, comedian and host of the Mean But True podcast and her tour, the Outside Tour. You can find tickets on Suzanne lambert.com is launching soon. It's great to see you.
- [41:10]
Suzanne Lambert
So great to see you again.
- [41:11]
Host / Journalist
Let me start by just getting your reaction to the Mike Collins news that I just tried to outline there. What do you make of all of it?
- [41:19]
Suzanne Lambert
I think that the people of Georgia deserve answers. I think what I find incredibly concerning beyond the fact that this Is a pattern with Mike Collins, his anti Semitic comments, racist comments? Is that when Andy Kaczynski, the journalist who broke the story, reached out to their campaign for comment asking, has Shear worked for your campaign in any capacity? Does he live on your property? Have you used him in promotional materials? Because they found recordings where Shir appeared to be giving voiceover for the campaign. They didn't answer any of those questions and instead responded with the statement that you just outlined about Israel. And I think the people of Georgia deserve more transparency than that. It shouldn't be so hard to denounce white nationalism. That should actually be pretty easy.
- [42:05]
Host / Journalist
It's an easy one, right?
- [42:06]
Suzanne Lambert
I would say that's a softball.
- [42:08]
Host / Journalist
I mean, come on.
- [42:09]
Suzanne Lambert
Even for Mike Collins, that would be an easy one.
- [42:12]
Host / Journalist
We're giving him free advice out there, right? There is this narrative out there that drives me crazy. And I know it drives you crazy too, cuz I'm a follower of yours, of course, as everybody should be, that Democrats are nominating candidates who are with extreme views. You kind of hear that thrown out there. But there has not been this similar narrative out there about Republicans. And it's not just Mike Collins. I mean, Victor Marks in Colorado who says he killed people as a child and Mike Lindell may be soon nominated in Minnesota. Why is the bar lower for Republicans? What can Democrats do to better point this out? Highlight it, call it out, what have you.
- [42:52]
Suzanne Lambert
I think that we have to be really specific. I think that when we use broad terms to describe it, it's easier to drown it out. I think it's a lot harder to say, to defend. When you say, hey, Scheer said in a video that he wants to retake the country for white Christian men. What is your response to that? I think we have to be more specific and keep hammering the point home that this is not just one off events. This is a substantiated pattern that they need to answer for and we can't let it go.
- [43:24]
Host / Journalist
You know, the kind of ecosystem out there. I mean, you are such. You are a great poster, great creator on TikTok, on Instagram, everywhere. And plus you're very funny.
- [43:35]
Suzanne Lambert
I'm stay here all night.
- [43:36]
Host / Journalist
You are.
- [43:36]
Suzanne Lambert
Do you have plans after this?
- [43:37]
Host / Journalist
What are you. Yeah, maybe. What are people talking about in all of your feeds that people in the national media are missing? What are the political conversations that people on TV are missing?
- [43:49]
Suzanne Lambert
I think that a lot of it is that we want candidates who are actually progressive. We don't want to see progressive voices stifled either by people in the establishment. I think people are ready for some change. I think they're ready for directness and transparency. They don't want politicians who are bought by foreign lobbies or corporate interests. I think that more people are dialed in more than ever, not just about the issues, but also who's funding you, what, what are your interests? Actually, and I still think that we miss the buck on that quite frequently.
- [44:24]
Host / Journalist
People are smarter on TikTok and Instagram than I think people, than a lot of people who aren't on those platforms think they are. And they want real authentic conversations. Suzanne Lambert, okay, okay. The outside tour tickets are on sale now. Suzanne lambert.com Everybody go there. It's going to be super fun. Come up here tonight on Last Word what Republicans in one state are doing to try to stop Democrats from voting and how Democrats are fighting back. We love that. That's ahead here tonight. Stay with us. That does it for me tonight. You can catch the show Tuesday through Friday at 9pm Eastern on Ms. Now. And don't forget to follow the show on Blue Sky, Instagram and Tick Tock.
- [45:06]
Mark Wayne Mullen
Yeah.
- [45:07]
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