Replay | Voter Fraud, Italian Satellites and... Marla Maples? | Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Daily Show: Ears Edition

Episode: "Replay | Voter Fraud, Italian Satellites and... Marla Maples? | Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy"
Date: August 22, 2025
Host: Jordan Klepper
Guests: Eric Levay (Digital Research Analyst), Josh Shapiro (PA Governor-Elect), Dahlia Lithwick (Supreme Court Expert)

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Overview

This episode of The Daily Show: Ears Edition revisits the most outlandish and influential conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 U.S. presidential election, focusing on "Italygate"—the claim that Italian military satellites altered American votes. Host Jordan Klepper, with his trademark satire and skepticism, unpacks the origins and impact of these conspiracies, discusses their legal ramifications with key experts, and examines their wider consequences on democracy. The episode explores how far fantastical narratives can reach, who benefits, and what is at stake as the U.S. continues navigating the fallout from election denialism.

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

1. Setting the Scene: The Wildest 2020 Election Conspiracies

• Timestamp: 01:36–03:42
  • Jordan Klepper humorously recites several 2020 election conspiracy theories—CIA servers in Frankfurt, Hugo Chavez’s voting software, rogue Italian satellite hackers, and more.
  • Emphasizes the sheer absurdity:

    "These 2020 election conspiracy theories do sound a lot more exciting when we put public domain suspenseful music underneath them." – Jordan Klepper (03:44)

  • Mentions that 61% of Republicans still believe the election was "stolen" (Monmouth poll, Sep 2025).

2. Deep Dive into “Italygate”

Guest: Eric Levay, digital research analyst

• Timestamp: 05:45–22:56
• Origins of the Conspiracy:
  • Emerged in late 2020, possibly from Italian media, amplified by ex-CIA officer Bradley Johnson, Maria Zack (Nations in Action), and Michelle Roosevelt Edwards (Institute of Good Governance).

    "The hardest thing about Italygate is... explaining it." – Eric Levay (09:06)

• The Players:
  • Maria Zack: Conservative activist, former Georgia lobbyist, adept at pushing Italygate’s narrative to well-connected officials.
    • Notable moment: Levay recounts a phone call where Zack pretends to be her own secretary.

      "When I called Maria Zack for comment... the person who answered sounded exactly like her, but told me very quickly it was not her." – Eric Levay (11:15)

  • Michelle Roosevelt Edwards: Used a mansion she did not own to appear more credible during media interviews.

    > "That just killed me." – Eric Levay (08:51)
    

• Conspiracy Claims:
  • Italian defense contractor Leonardo SpA allegedly hacked satellites to switch votes; a suspect, Arturo Delia, supposedly involved, but was not employed by Leonardo SpA at the time of the alleged incident.

  • Affidavit presented as "proof" is unverifiable.

    > "It's just. It looks like someone, like, wrote it on Microsoft Word." – Eric Levay (15:11)
    

• Propagation:

  • Zack was able to get the theory in front of influential Republicans, including Rep. Barry Loudermilk, staff for Devin Nunes, and even Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, allegedly telling Trump personally at Mar-a-Lago.

    > "She got it to Devin Nunes staff... this person pushing a complete, you know, conspiracy theory that's not true is able to reach very high up people." – Eric Levay (14:04)
    

• Red Flags & Absurdity:

  • Conference calls (Jan 2021) included odd figures like Marla Maples and suggestions for private plane funding—a timeshare-esque pitch to keep the base invested.

    > "This sounds like a timeshare situation." – Jordan Klepper (19:32)
    

• Impact & “Stickiness”:

  • The theory’s appeal lies in its cinematic scope. Levay ranks it as the “wildest” 2020 election conspiracy:

    > "Even other conspiracy theorists are like, 'Like... that's how far this one is out there.'" – Eric Levay (20:38)
    

  • Theories become “time sucks” that absorb attention and energy, regardless of feasibility:

    > "Maybe what we're describing is a time suck we've all invested in, a time suck that we will never get back." – Jordan Klepper (20:10)
    

• Lingering Questions:
  • How such theories persist even when debunked—and how quickly promoters and consumers move to the next, equally unsupported claim.

3. Real-World Consequences: Voter Fraud Claims in Pennsylvania

Guest: Josh Shapiro, then-PA Attorney General, now Governor-elect

• Timestamp: 25:30–40:49
• Fending Off Legal Attacks:
  • Shapiro details beating Trump in court 43 times over Pennsylvania’s vote:

    "We went to court 43 times against the former president and his enablers, and we beat him every time." – Josh Shapiro (26:04)

• Why the Myths Endure:
  • Shapiro faults political leaders, not misled voters, for propagating lies:

    "I blame the leaders who've been lying to them for the better part of the last two and a half years... it's hard to blame the public. I blame the leaders." – Josh Shapiro (26:44)

• Responding to Election Deniers:
  • Cited face-to-face conversations at rural hunt clubs, stressing how actual voter fraud findings were rare and never outcome-changing.

    "We had about a handful of cases of election fraud in 2020... each... was trying to cast one extra single vote for their candidate for president, by the way, for Donald Trump, not for Joe Biden." – Josh Shapiro (32:06)

• On the Future:
  • Warns that democratic repair is ongoing; defeating deniers is just step one:

    "Just because we beat these election deniers doesn't mean that it's rid from our system. We have to now do the hard work..." – Josh Shapiro (33:07)

• Advice for Other Democrats:
  • Meet voters where they are. Never cede ground to misinformation.
• Metrics of Success:
  • His broad margin of victory required cross-party support:

    "We got a whole lot of Republicans and independents cross party lines to support us." – Josh Shapiro (39:34)

• Shapiro on Presidential Speculation:
  • Politely declines:

    "I'm just so excited to be governor. I haven't even been sworn in yet. I got a lot of work to do." – Josh Shapiro (40:37)

4. The Supreme Court and the Future of Election Law

Guest: Dahlia Lithwick, Slate/Amicus

• Timestamp: 42:29–61:41
• Moore v. Harper Case – The “Independent State Legislature Theory”:
  • Analyzes the danger in giving state legislatures unchecked authority over federal election rules.

    "It's both the most serious and least serious case of my career. It's serious because the implications are vast... It's not something that's rooted in constitutional history. It's not something that's rooted in tradition." – Dahlia Lithwick (45:08)

  • The theory is rooted in a “Rehnquist fever dream” (Bush v. Gore concurrence) with little legal precedent.
• Potential Outcomes:
  • If adopted, could allow red state legislatures to rewrite election laws without state court review—fostering “minority rule.”

    "One way to sort of lock in minority rule for time immemorial is to just make it impossible for majority will to be represented at the ballot box." – Dahlia Lithwick (52:43)

• Current Supreme Court Leanings:
  • At least four conservative Justices support the theory; outcome may rest with Amy Coney Barrett.

    "There might be five votes already going in." – Dahlia Lithwick (50:09)

• Broader Political Context:
  • The push for the Court to consider such a radical doctrine illustrates the "YOLO Court" dynamic—no breaks, unchecked power.

    "...they used to have some solicitude and sensitivity for what the public could tolerate. And I Think now they're like, directly in opposition to what the public can tolerate." – Dahlia Lithwick (57:39)

• What Comes Next:
  • Predicts red/blue state polarization will increase if unchecked. Still, the 2022 midterm results (defeat of many prominent election deniers) signal that faith in democracy remains strong among voters:

    "I'm pretty happy about the fact that the Stop the Steelers got absolutely shellacked in the midterms because it tells me it was not as salient as they thought it was." – Dahlia Lithwick (59:15)

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Notable Quotes

• On Italygate’s Absurdity:

  "Even other conspiracy theorists are like, 'That's how far this one is out there.'"
  — Eric Levay (20:38)

• On Leaders’ Responsibility for Misinformation:

  "When you have leaders who you trust... and then they lie to you over and over and over again, it's hard to blame the public. I blame the leaders."
  — Josh Shapiro (26:44)

• On the Supreme Court’s Ideology:

  "This is just a... hashtag yolocourt. They used to have some solicitude and sensitivity for what the public could tolerate. And I think now they're... directly in opposition to what the public can tolerate."
  — Dahlia Lithwick (57:39)

• On Fighting Back:

  "You got to fight back against it... When they say that something was stolen, challenge them on it. Put the facts out there."
  — Josh Shapiro (36:19)

• On Voter Fraud Claims:

  "Complete and utter bullshit, that's what they were."
  — Josh Shapiro, on Mastriano’s claims (29:19)

• On the Allure of Wild Conspiracies:

  "There's intrigue, there's sexiness to this... I'd have to put it up there as well."
  — Jordan Klepper on Italygate (21:09)

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Major Takeaways

• The continual propagation of election conspiracies like Italygate isn’t just a fringe internet phenomenon; these ideas have gained extraordinary traction, reaching the highest levels of government and shaping political discourse.
• Despite overwhelming debunking, leaders’ willingness to amplify false claims has a more lasting impact than most direct evidence or corrective efforts.
• The legal battlegrounds—especially in state-level and Supreme Court disputes—are now as consequential as information and media warfare when defending democratic norms.
• The defeat of prominent election deniers in 2022 suggests limits to the practical political power of these narratives, but systemic efforts to restrict or manipulate voting remain a real and urgent challenge.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:36 – 03:42: Introduction to 2020 election conspiracies
• 05:45 – 22:56: Interview with Eric Levay, breakdown of “Italygate”
• 25:30 – 40:49: Josh Shapiro on fighting voter fraud claims in PA
• 42:29 – 61:41: Discussion with Dahlia Lithwick on Supreme Court and Moore v. Harper

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Conclusion

With incisive humor and sharp analysis, Jordan Klepper and guests dissect how election conspiracies start, why they spread, and their tangible impacts on American democracy. The episode underscores that, while truth and law have ultimately prevailed in key battlegrounds, the cultural, legal, and political battles over election legitimacy are far from over—and demand vigilant resistance, clear communication, and continued public engagement.

Transcript

[Kristen Bell]

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[Kristen Bell]

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[Eric Levay]

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[Kristen Bell]

Sell your car with Carvana today. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this, Adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't. From swimming lessons to piano classes, us parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids lives. But are we investing in their future financial success? With Greenlight, you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving and investing. And this investment costs less than that. After school treat start prioritizing their financial education and future. Today with a risk free trial at greenlight.com Spotify greenlight.com Spotify Martha listens to.

[Josh Shapiro]

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[Jordan Klepper]

Sort of.

[Eric Levay]

You were made to scream from the front row.

[Josh Shapiro]

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[Eric Levay]

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[Josh Shapiro]

Savings vary and subject to availability.

[Eric Levay]

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[Josh Shapiro]

You're listening to Comedy Central.

[Jordan Klepper]

In the days after the 2020 presidential election, CIA Director Gina Haspel flies to Frankfurt, Germany on a secret mission to secure computer servers that contain evidence that the election has been manipulated. These servers, owned by a bankrupt Spanish company called Skytle, could prove that the election was rigged for Joe Biden. Haspel and a team of special forces troops descend on Frankfurt to destroy the evidence. But in the raid, five troops and a CIA official are killed. Haspel herself is injured, flown to Guantanamo Bay and given a tribunal for treason. In 2009, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez creates a voting system that could change votes in elections in any country using this advanced technology. One of the technology companies that uses it is called Smartmatic, which supplies voting equipment to a single US county in in the 2020 election. The scheme between Smart Manic and Hugo Chavez is a secret and successful effort to rig the election for Joe Biden, even though Chavez has been dead for seven years. Pescara, Italy. A rogue employee at the defense and aerospace company Leonardo Spa hacks into military satellites to change the margin of victory in US States where Trump has beaten Biden. It's a variable coup d' etat, and it would go down as the most extraordinary effort in history to overturn a presidential election. Oh, you know what? That one actually sounds pretty fun. Italian military satellites. Mamma mia. These sound great. Oh, and forgetting one, how could I not mention the Hungarian vector? There's been so many bizarre stories going on through the media, you can have some pretty far fetched ideas on both sides, and what we're doing is simply proving or disproving as many of those as we can. Speaking of somebody on the outside, this feels like it's just feeding into conspiratorial thinking.

[Eric Levay]

We're Mythbusters.

[Jordan Klepper]

Great. Okay. We're doing things we think are foolish, but people believe it's real. If we validate that something they think might have happened didn't happen, then we're.

[Eric Levay]

Not throwing fuel on the fire.

[Jordan Klepper]

Are you looking into the Hungarian vector? I didn't know about that one Hungarian vector. It's a bullshit thing I just made up. That sounds cool. And a little bit spooky. This is Jordan Klepper Figures the conspiracy. And yes, those 2020 election conspiracy theories do sound a lot more exciting when we put public domain suspenseful music underneath them. You may have heard a few of those theories, partly because the White House and Republicans in Congress were publicizing them in the weeks after the election to convince Americans that the election was stolen. And it worked to an extent. 61% of Republicans still believe the election was stolen, according to a Monmouth University poll from September of this very year. Today we're going to talk to someone who has had the most legal success against Trump's efforts in court to overturn the election. And we're also going to talk to a Supreme Court expert about the cases in front of the court now that could determine how future elections here are conducted. But before we get there, I really want to go back to the Italian military satellites. This is what became known as Italygate, and it's filled with more juicy content than a piping hot Cal zone. And the craziest part of this conspiracy theory is, is that Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was emailing details of it to the Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen, to try to get him to do something or anything about it. I can't unpack Italy Gate alone. So let's introduce Eric lavey. He's a digital research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and a former investigative journalist who wrote extensively about the Italy Gate conspiracy Theory, or as I like to call it, lasagna Ghazi. There's gonna be a lot of these, Eric, so I hope you're ready. Thank you for being here. Let's start at the very beginning of this conspiracy theory, which comes from an organization called nations in Action, a group apparently based in Sarasota, Florida, which published a press release titled senior IT Expert at Global Defense Contractor Testifies in Italian Federal Court. He and others switched votes throughout America in the US Presidential race. Can you explain some of this for us?

[Eric Levay]

Yeah, definitely. So it emerged sort of in late 2020, and it's still a little bit murky about where it came from. The Washington Post did a really good article on it, but it possibly was. It had sort of origins in a. An article in Italian media, and then a. An ex CIA station chief named Bradley Johnson put out a video. But the ones who really pushed it forward, to answer your question, were Maria Zach from Nations in Action and a woman named Michelle Roosevelt Edwards.

[Jordan Klepper]

Let's start with. Let's. Let's break down. Talk to me a little bit about Maria Stroller, Zach. You've talked to her, correct?

[Eric Levay]

I talked to. I called her number, and an identical voice answered the phone who said it wasn't her.

[Jordan Klepper]

So, yeah, theoretically talked to somebody who may have been herself pretending to be somebody else.

[Eric Levay]

That's why I'm reporting. Like, that's why I hate phone calls. And I like emails.

[Jordan Klepper]

Yeah, the era of zoom works for you because you can see what that person looks like as opposed to distrusting. But. But who is this person? Who is Maria Strollo, Zach?

[Eric Levay]

So she's a conservative activist and an ex Georgia lobbyist who I guess was pretty successful. And I think she ran for office a few times herself, just on the local level, just at some point got very involved in this Italy gate conspiracy and pushed it very far.

[Jordan Klepper]

I feel like if you're in this world, you're talking about Italian satellites, those things flip, and you're probably a character. Is she a character? I'm guessing.

[Eric Levay]

It's interesting because when I watched the videos, like, she's clearly like a very intelligent person. That's what's also like. So there's a little bit of a, you know, you have this conspiracy theory, obviously, which isn't. Which is false, but then you have a person who's like, you know, she's laying it out with confidence.

[Jordan Klepper]

Tell us a little bit about Michelle Roosevelt Edwards.

[Eric Levay]

So she runs another organization called the Institute of Good Governance, and she sort of worked closely with Maria Zak On. On Italygate. So the Washington Post had a big article that at some point, an Icelandic film crew went to interview Michelle Roosevelt Edwards. I don't know what that was for. But in the house, I guess there was. You remember the movie the Game, where there's, like, there was something weird in, like, the house, and she really, like, in Michael Douglas, it's like, no, like, this isn't a real house. The film crew was in there, and they're like, is this your house? Because it's something. And she's like, yeah, it's my house. Anyway, it turns out that it wasn't her house. It was some other woman's mansion. And she's just a realtor, like, in the area, and it's not her house. And the poor woman, her husband died. She didn't even know. She's like, why is this woman in my house?

[Jordan Klepper]

That woman in the house at the time, she's like, oh, dear Lord. Oh, dear Lord. Who's this conspiracy theorist interview in my living room?

[Eric Levay]

She was somewhere else or something, but it was like I felt. I felt bad for her. No, it was like she was just using this house for, like, I don't know, business.

[Jordan Klepper]

You're telling me this person who put up an entire false front to show that she's more successful than she is, she's somehow connected to this whole Trump world? I don't buy it. I don't buy it. It just doesn't. It doesn't sit well with me.

[Eric Levay]

Yeah, it's tough to believe. That was like a. That was. That just. That killed me.

[Jordan Klepper]

Okay. And I want. I want to dig into sort of their roles within this. But this. This initial thought was sort of revolving around an employee. Arturo Delia, Correct?

[Eric Levay]

Yeah, there's. I was thinking about this last night. This is the hardest thing about Italy. Gate is. I mean, to state the obvious is, like, explaining it. The short version is Italian satellites based in Piscara, Italy, altered the votes, giving Joe Biden enough votes from Donald Trump to win. That's the short version.

[Jordan Klepper]

Italy, Italian satellites, they're the bad guys.

[Eric Levay]

Well, there's a lot of players in this. The CIA, former President Barack Obama, the hacker that you just referenced, and a lawyer who put out an affidavit. There's, like, those four.

[Jordan Klepper]

Those are the four. And so the hacker, he worked for something called Leonardo Spa.

[Eric Levay]

Yeah, he worked there. They said he left in 2017, which is another problem, because he. When he was indicted for a separate. I think it was, like, data theft. He didn't even work At Leonardo.

[Jordan Klepper]

What is Leonardo Spa? I mean, it sounds like a massage parlor and like a cheap one just outside Rome that like, you, you splurge because you're on vacation, but you don't have enough money, so you're sort of like, what's a cheaper one? Like, come to Leonardo Spa. It's right next to Michelangelo Nails.

[Eric Levay]

That was a very specific.

[Jordan Klepper]

Not that this is a hypothetical. I've not had that experience. I, I imagine if you're pouring in Italy and just had had a hard time on a long plane because those seats, there's not a lot of space and you're a tall person, hypothetically, you're going to be looking for a Leonardo Spa. This is not that kind of spa.

[Eric Levay]

Exactly. No, it's a somewhat more boring military. You know, like a military. They make military equipment and satellites, stuff like that. Like a Boeing.

[Jordan Klepper]

Okay, so a Boeing. And this is this Arturo Delia Delia. Does he actually work for Leonardo Spa?

[Eric Levay]

My understanding is at some point he did work there, but he was gone by 2017.

[Jordan Klepper]

Okay, and is there any information that says that he had access to these Italian satellites in a way that could alter an election?

[Eric Levay]

Zero. No.

[Jordan Klepper]

Zero. Okay. Okay, okay. But so walk us through this. So the head of nations in action, this group person named Maria Strollo Zach, who you've spoken with in your reporting, what she. What's she like?

[Eric Levay]

Well, and to be clear, I was telling your producer that was, that was a funny story because when I called Maria Zach for comment, obviously being a phone, I can't, I don't know for a fact, I can say that the person who answered sounded exactly like her, but told me very quickly it was not her and actually said it was her secretary and could she. The phrase was, could she return? And I was, I was telling Matt, I was like, it's. This is a cell phone. But anyway, I was like, you know, sir, of course.

[Jordan Klepper]

Wait, so did you. Did that person then pretend to hang up, put on a gruff voice, and then attempt to then answer the phone?

[Eric Levay]

It was the same voice, but they were just like, you know, can she return? And I was like, you know, when you're a reporter, like, it's. Things like that happen. So, yeah, sure, of course. No comment.

[Jordan Klepper]

And just to be. If you're also like a public figure and somebody calls you and you pretend to be you, your own assistant, just because you think it gives you status, that doesn't make you weird. That's just a savvy media person thing to do. And if my parents or my Friends think that's a desperate attempt or that I'm not in a good place. Well, that's more on them. Can you verify that?

[Eric Levay]

Yeah. What, what jumped out at me, I'll always remember about that was how quick it was. It was very. I mean, you know, you're a comedian, you're an improviser. It was real quick. There was no pause like, like that had happened before. Maybe that's, you know, that's.

[Jordan Klepper]

I mean, that's an interesting way of looking at it as opposed to just somebody who's quick on the. On the go. All right, so you had a quick interaction with this Maria Strollo, Zach. But again, so what is our understanding of this story? So she is head of nations in Action. What is nations in Action?

[Eric Levay]

If you go on their webpage, there's a lot of sort of conspiracy theories. And I think they say that their statement is, you know, good government, bringing transparency. Obviously, whether that's true is up to.

[Jordan Klepper]

To be determined. And so. But she was able to get this conspiracy and this idea in front of important people. Can you walk us through some of that?

[Eric Levay]

Yeah. So she, she used to be a lobbyist in Georgia. So she's got, like, close relationships with, as I reported on Congressman Barry Loudermilk.

[Jordan Klepper]

One of the, one of the top five names in all of Congress. Like, if you are going to, you know, if you're going to articulate what it feels like to hear a Southern Republican droll on Louder Milk feels right. It feels. Feels obnoxious and white, which is kind of spot on.

[Eric Levay]

Yeah, he's. He's an interesting guy. I think. I think they were. He and his staff. I think we're getting pretty tired of my emails. After a while, they stopped. They didn't ever respond to me, but then they added me to their mailing list.

[Jordan Klepper]

So that's how you shut somebody up. It's just give them spam.

[Eric Levay]

She got it to him. She got it to Devin Nunes staff. I mean, she, you know, this thing about last night, like the ordinary person has so much trouble reaching their elected officials, and yet this person pushing a complete, you know, conspiracy theory that's not true is able to reach very high up people.

[Jordan Klepper]

Yeah. She claims she gave documents to Loudermilk. Do we know what was in those documents?

[Eric Levay]

Yeah, I don't know. Did you. I know you guys are probably always working. Did you get a chance to see the affidavit that this is all based around?

[Jordan Klepper]

No. Walk. Tell us, tell us about it.

[Eric Levay]

So the whole thing is that she delivered an affidavit. Basically what it is is it's a photograph of an actual document, which right away is a little, you know, unusual. It's not the document. It's. It's a lawyer stating that this hacker that you mentioned in the beginning sat in front of him and told his story. That's what it is. No one's been able. There is a lawyer that matches this name, but no one's been able to actually show that, like, really that he. That it was that lawyer. So it's not clear if this thing is even real.

[Jordan Klepper]

You can't even verify that that conversation took place?

[Eric Levay]

No. And the document, you know, I can't say I'm an expert on court documents in Italy, but there's no numbers on it. Like, it's just. It looks like someone, like, wrote it on Microsoft Word.

[Jordan Klepper]

And she's also. Maria Zak was doing an interview about an Italy gate from the back of a car in Washington, D.C. on January 6th. What's going on there?

[Kristen Bell]

This happened. It's very real. The president is right.

[Jordan Klepper]

Foreign interference did occur, and people need.

[Kristen Bell]

To be prosecuted in our country who actually participated.

[Eric Levay]

That was the show called America Can We Talk? And that's a very strange interview, just because, as you said, it's taking place while our capital is being attacked, but there's no mention of it till the end. They're like, I think Murray, is access something like, well, if they're able to, you know, get this under control, we can, you know, get this affidavit to more people. It's like, whoa. Like, you know, it's very strange.

[Jordan Klepper]

So there's. There's a lot of interesting red flags and characters within this. But after all these conversations, meetings, talking to Congressman Loudermilk, how high did this go? Like, who in government was actually taking this theory seriously?

[Eric Levay]

That's a great question. Seriously. I mean, in terms of, as you said yourself, Meadows, I guess, would be the highest ranking person to get it, but taking it seriously. You know, a lot of work with conspiracy theorists, you wonder who's an opportunist, who's not.

[Jordan Klepper]

Well, I mean, it's interesting question. You say, like, taking it seriously. We don't exactly know what people actually thought, but I. I would argue that part of the whole game plan here was to sow doubt. So the fact that there were different threads for people to hold onto, to grasp. Clearly, Donald Trump is somebody who was just flooding the marketplace with any thought out there, so that it's getting in people's heads, like, who had awareness of it. We're talking Meadows. Meadows knew about this, which means Trump had awareness of this. How did this thing get into more mainstream culture?

[Eric Levay]

Yeah, and Zach, too. She says she delivered or she told Trump about this at Mar a Lago in 2020. I can't confirm that, but she said that a number of times.

[Jordan Klepper]

Really?

[Eric Levay]

So I guess, to answer your question, if that's true, then that reached Donald Trump.

[Jordan Klepper]

Now, when all this is happening, is it fair to say that we didn't know how much of the voter fraud conspiracy theory would stick? These stories were so outlandish that it didn't seem possible that millions of people would believe them. And yet, even today, the majority of Republicans say they don't think the 2020 election was legitimate. Does that encourage Republican lawmakers to push more conspiracy theories, knowing there probably won't be consequences and that doing so probably will at least help them in some way?

[Eric Levay]

Consequences are, like, obviously incredibly important. Like, when there are no consequences, we're given a wide latitude to speak, and that's a good thing. But as you know, some of these conspiracies are incredibly harmful. So, I don't know. In cases like, I don't know, let's say an Alex Jones, when people are actually held accountable, makes a huge difference. Still, some of them stop tomorrow and you never hear from them again.

[Jordan Klepper]

What do you think it was about Italy gate that made it so sticky and interesting to people?

[Eric Levay]

So there's a conference call. I think it was on January 4, 2021. It's between Maria Zach and supporters. So it's right before the attack on the capitol. It's like 45 minutes long, and it's just. She lays out Italy gate, and then it's weird. Like, all these random people are popping in. Like. Like I was saying, like, Marla Maples pops in, and just, like, it's just. She's the only. Everyone else is just a first name, so you don't even know really who they are.

[Jordan Klepper]

What's Marlon Maples doing there?

[Eric Levay]

I. I don't know. Like a supporter, I guess. Very strange.

[Jordan Klepper]

And all of this was sort of to just hip everybody to the Italy gate theory so that they had it in their back pocket.

[Eric Levay]

I mean, I don't want to say that she comes right in, but there's some hints of. To continue this work, I. We will need funding. Like, a private plane is talked about at one point, so.

[Jordan Klepper]

Oh, she's. She's. She's asking for a private plane.

[Eric Levay]

I don't know. It might have been one of the other People, but there's definitely more than one hint there about, like, we need, you know, money.

[Jordan Klepper]

This sounds like a timeshare situation. She gets everybody on a conference call. Let me tell you about this fascinating Italy situation. If you give me your attention and enough money for a private plane, I have something that is going to take your breath away in Pops, Marla Maples was like, ooh, tell me more. It's like, thanks, Marla. Marla has been on this for quite some time. Her and her family are big Italy gate supporters. And you, too, could be an Italy gate supporter. For just a mere $2,000, we can give you the correct mindset to keep you happy from this day forward.

[Josh Shapiro]

This.

[Eric Levay]

This, the last seven years, kind of feel like a timeshared. Like, do you ever feel like that? Like you're just trapped?

[Jordan Klepper]

I. Yes, I do feel like I've given over a portion of my life to live in a different reality every year. And you look at it, you're like, I think this is a bad investment. I think the timeshare is giving in to all of this bullshit that we're talking about. It just. It sucks away so much time that I could be using for something else. It's not a timeshare. Maybe that's. Maybe what we're describing is a time suck we've all invested in, a time suck that we will never get back. We can all agree is a really bad investment.

[Eric Levay]

It's wild. I mean, this is the conspiracy theory that, like, I think I was telling your producer, like, even other conspiracy theorists are like, Like. Like, that's how far this one is out there. Like, yeah.

[Jordan Klepper]

Where does this Italy gate conspiracy rank in terms of all the conspiracies related to the 2020 election?

[Eric Levay]

I would say in terms of the ones that are, like, the wildest, this has to be at the top. I. I can't think of. I know you guys have been doing this for a while, and on your podcast, if there's another one, I can't think of one.

[Jordan Klepper]

You got Hugo Chavez so dead. Hugo Chavez is a fun one. It's definitely takes a stretch of imagination, but there's intrigue, there's sexiness to this. I'd have to put it up there as well.

[Eric Levay]

It's also, like, the little details that kill me. Like, the data, it wasn't enough that it was the Italian satellites. They routed it through Germany. It's like. Like, why? Like, that's what I don't understand. Like, but it's just fascinating.

[Jordan Klepper]

There's somebody on the ground or in the air in Germany that was getting this information or working through the satellites. Through Germany?

[Eric Levay]

Yeah. They're saying, like, at some point they never got into the sort of, like how the stuff was transmitted, but it was from the satellites and went through, I think, some servers in Germany and then I guess back to the U.S.

[Jordan Klepper]

So they're theoretically, if this were real, not only are there folks in Italy who are culpable, but there are folks in Germany as well, which is what always kind of blows my mind with a lot of these conspiracy theories because they. The idea behind it involves so many people that even afterwards you'd expect. One thing we're really bad at is keeping secrets, especially if it's a multinational effort to overturn results in very specific states.

[Eric Levay]

And then it just disappears into the void, which is sort of, I think people should consider a major. I don't know if red flag is the right word, but if. If you believe so strongly in something you believe has happened, and then 30 seconds later when it doesn't, you know, when it's gone, you're just on to the next thing. It kind of questions like, credibility, you.

[Jordan Klepper]

Know, I think we lost that a long time ago. Well, Eric Levay, thank you for unfolding this conspiracy theory like carefully kneading a perfect pizza pie.

[Eric Levay]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Jordan Klepper]

We're going to take a short break. When we come back, we're going to talk to Pennsylvania Attorney General and Governor elect Josh Shapiro. We'll be right back. Prime delivery is fast.

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[Jordan Klepper]

See mintmobile.com in the days after the 2020 election, Pennsylvania became the focus of Republican efforts to overturn the results. They ramped up their attacks on the legitimacy of mail in ballots and claimed that ballots would arrive after election Day and be mixed with ballots that arrive before election day. Anticipating a possible Supreme Court showdown, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro began separating those post election Day ballots and became a high profile example of a Democrat fighting back against the voter fraud conspiracy theater. And as the Trump team became litigious before and after election Day, Shapiro beat Trump more than 40 times in court. In last month's midterm, Shapiro won the race for governor of Pennsylvania, defeating one of the country's most prominent voter fraud conspiracy theorists, Doug Mastriano. And Josh Shapiro is with us today to talk about the exciting world of voter fraud. Welcome to the show.

[Josh Shapiro]

Good to be with you, Jordan. Thanks for having me.

[Jordan Klepper]

Of course, we were debating a current governor elect, soon to be Governor Josh Shapiro. That's. That's most of it, right? Yeah.

[Josh Shapiro]

And look, I only require our four children to use all of the titles when they address me. You can call me whatever you want and. Well, not whatever you want, but you can call me one of those titles.

[Jordan Klepper]

I was gonna say, do you also throw in the beat Trump 40 times in court moniker or. There's probably a lot of people who also have that in their name as well. The guy's been to court many, many times.

[Josh Shapiro]

I don't know about that. But listen, we went to court 43 times against the former president and his enablers, and we beat him every time. We protected the right to vote. We had a free and fair, safe and secure election here in Pennsylvania back in 2020, again in 2021, and most recently in 2022, the will of the people was respected each time.

[Jordan Klepper]

When you've been at the center of these claims over voter prod for over two years now, even though you did win the race for governor, it appears as if the state is moving forward. Does it still alarm you how many voters, obviously many of them Republican, appear to have bought into these conspiracy theories?

[Josh Shapiro]

It does. But you know, Jordan, I don't blame the voters and Hear me on this. I blame the leaders who've been lying to them for the better part of the last two and a half years about voting by mail, about this phony election fraud. When you have leaders who you trust, who you put into positions of authority, and then they lie to you over and over and over again, it's hard to blame the public. I blame the leaders. And the good news is we're defeating those leaders who push the big lie from the former president to his chief enabler here in Pennsylvania, who I just beat in the governor's race. And hopefully now what we can do is continue to speak truth to the good people of Pennsylvania, to the American people, and help them understand reality from the fiction that the former president pushed and get us back to having a healthier democracy.

[Jordan Klepper]

Well, I went to one of the rallies your opponent held right there at the state Capitol and talk to some of the tens of people who showed up.

[Josh Shapiro]

I think about 12 people showed up that day.

[Jordan Klepper]

Yeah, and after a minimal amount of fanfare, Mastriano appeared. And he was frickin hilarious. Going after the pillow guy. Are you serious?

[Eric Levay]

Give me a break. Scotty.

[Jordan Klepper]

Beam me up.

[Eric Levay]

No sign of intelligent life anywhere.

[Jordan Klepper]

Boom. But even with the coveted Trump endorsement, the crowd was tiny. Was it small because of Mastriano's far right policies and election denialism? Nope.

[Eric Levay]

This is Facebook suppressing conservative speech.

[Jordan Klepper]

The reason there aren't people here? Because Facebook is silencing these people. Silencing? Yes. It was a low turnout. I felt like it seemed as if you had a good shot of winning that race. I want to talk a little bit about Mastriano, though, because he may have spread more election related conspiracy theories than any other candidates. Let's go through a couple of these. He. He was claiming that voting machines glitched in Michigan and switched 6,000 Biden votes, who were also responsible for 100,000 vote dumps that were all for Biden. In the middle of the night sharing a gateway pundit post of suspected fraud issues that included a way for people to search for dead people who voted using something called the Social Security Death Master File. Pretty catchy. He was claiming Dominion voting machines were built intentionally to rig the election for Democrats and claiming that Act 77, a Pennsylvania law that allows no excuse voting by mail, was illegally passed and was responsible for Biden's win. Can you walk us through some of these and tell us how, how you push back against them?

[Josh Shapiro]

Well, by calling them what they were. Complete and utter bullshit, that's what they were. He was lying to the good people of Pennsylvania and his conduct to try to overthrow the last election. Remember, he was part of the violent mob that stormed up to the Capitol on January six that day. And it's real important, Jordan, he went there that day not just to hear a speech from the former president or be part of some peaceful protest. He went there that day with a singular purpose. It's why they were all there, and that was to deny people's votes from counting. Because, remember, when you vote here in Pennsylvania, it's true in other states, but let me focus on Pennsylvania. You vote for the presidential race in Pennsylvania in 2020. Your vote gets tallied by your local county board of elections, gets certified by the governor and the Secretary of State in Pennsylvania. But then in order for your vote to finally count, it has to be read across the desk in the US House of Representatives. That's what they were there to do on January 6th. And he was there as part of the violent mob to stop them from doing. Then he comes back home to Pennsylvania, launches a campaign for governor, and Jordan, he says in his campaign that he was going to use his power to, as governor to be able to review all the voting machines, make corrections, as he calls them, and then he would pick the winner. That's not how our democracy works. That is not how our republic has survived over the last 246 years. And so it was important for us to beat him, to just obviously win the election, but also to protect our democracy, to protect the will of the people, and to make it clear to folks that spewing conspiracy theories, being part of a violent mob pledging to overturn the next election is not the way things work in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or in this country.

[Jordan Klepper]

Well, I was surprised. Many of the people I talked to that day were also there at January six. It was almost a mini reunion. You have been aggressive at pushing back and made headlines for that. Do you think that your victory is a sign that voters are energized by candidates who push back aggressively against election deniers?

[Josh Shapiro]

You got to fight back against it. And look, we've done it in big ways and small. I mean, I've. I've been to the hunt clubs in rural communities in Pennsylvania and confronted folks directly, and they'll say to me, they were saying to me, you know, the election 2020 was stolen. So I said, what. What evidence do you have of that? Let's just have a conversation. Well, there was massive voter fraud. And I say, you know, I'm. I'm the attorney General. It's my job to prosecute election fraud, along with some district attorneys as well. And we had about a handful of cases of election fraud in 2020, by the way, where each of those individuals who were prosecuted were trying to cast one extra single vote for their candidate for president, by the way, for Donald Trump, not for Joe Biden. But even if they were trying to do that for Joe Biden, it wasn't going to affect the outcome of the election. It was not this widespread voter fraud, and they were prosecuted for it. And so I confront folks with truth and try to force them to think about the reality of what they are saying. In addition to that, it was critically important for us here in Pennsylvania, in Arizona, in Michigan and other places to defeat those people who continue to spread the lies. Now, I said on election night when I won Jordan, that this is the beginning of our work. Just because we beat these election deniers doesn't mean that it's rid from our system. We have to now do the hard work that folks have been doing for the last 246 years in this nation, right? Our ancestors and their ancestors to perfect our union, to speak truth, to make sure that the will of the people is respected. So I think we've done step one, defeating those extremists. But now we got to do the hard work of perfecting our union. And that task now falls to me as the next governor of Pennsylvania.

[Jordan Klepper]

How complete do you think step one truly is? Because I do look, looking at those, the major election deniers, the races in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, here's swing states where the people in control of verifying those ballots could have very well gone to election deniers. Those big places, they were defeated. But there's still a lot of people who are election deniers who are in position of power in America. A lot of very close races where perhaps election deniers were defeated. But it didn't, when I looked at this, I didn't exactly see the idea of election denialism expunging from the American narrative. But perhaps stepping back for a little bit, is there a fear that Democrats are a little too confident in the pushback of election denialism after this election?

[Josh Shapiro]

Well, let me say I'm not confident that it's over at all. So don't, you know, certainly don't put me in that category. I'm in the category where we, we had a good day on Tuesday, November 8, in defeating those extremists, those election deniers. But we have so much more work to do now. I believe that these election deniers are Mastriano in particular, just profoundly and pathetically weak people. And let me explain what I mean by that. They know it's, but yet they say it over and over again because they're willing to sell out our democracy and our country for some short term political gain, for some short term attention, maybe some love from the former president. That's why they do it. That's the definition of weak. If you're willing to sell out your nation and our values on behalf of your own short term goals. Well, now we've denied many of them that short term goal and hopefully in defeating them the way we have, it forces that next batch of candidates to go along and say, geez, is that really the path I want to take to be successful? It doesn't make them any stronger. It just speaks to how, again, how kind of spineless so many of these folks are and letting them know they're not going to be rewarded for the lie. And so I think hopefully this will have an effect on the politics as we go forward. But we also need to work on ridding our system of these weak folks and getting some people with backbones back in it. And by the way, Jordan, even folks who might disagree with me on some policy, that's okay. But we got to get back to the point where we have strong, capable people in positions of public trust who argue about tax policy and health care policy and education policy, all the things that we should be arguing about, the healthy fights we're supposed to have. But we've got to continue the battle against these weak people in defeating them in their elections and defeating them in their, in their political aims.

[Jordan Klepper]

Did you have any Democrats from other states reach out to you to ask advice on confronting this election denialism?

[Josh Shapiro]

I did. A lot of them, folks running for governor and other offices. And you know, I spoke, obviously I'll keep those conversations private. But I did speak to them about the need to take the fight on directly, to not give an inch on this. You know, when they say that something was stolen, challenge them on it. Put the facts out there. Make sure that you're going directly to the good people in my case of Pennsylvania with the facts. Do not let any of that nonsense stand.

[Jordan Klepper]

Okay, Looking forward. Well, where we are right now, Trump is running again. Elon Musk is green lighting misinformation all over Twitter. We know that voter fraud, conspiracies, they're going to get worse in 2024. What are tangible steps the Democratic Party can take to fight and to push back, knowing the world they're in right.

[Josh Shapiro]

Now, you know, try to meet people where they are. That's why I'm talking to you today. I mean, you've been out front on the importance of combating election denialism. You have exposed a lot of these folks and, and the lies they tell by, you know, mocking them and, and, and showing not the humor in it, because obviously this is incredibly serious. But, but showing people this in, in a way that they can comprehend it if they don't read, you know, front page of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times. Not to say that your listeners don't read the, the New York Times, but.

[Jordan Klepper]

The point is they at least read the headlines. Right. Good at reading the head.

[Josh Shapiro]

You gotta meet people where they are. You gotta communicate to them. You gotta show them the difference between fiction and reality. And then I have responsibility now as a governor to hold myself up to that high standard and to continue to speak truth and continue, you know, to communicate, meet people where they are. Whether we're talking to them on TikTok, on your podcast, anywhere. We've gotta meet people where they are and continue to share the truth.

[Jordan Klepper]

You say you went to hunt clubs, you went to places where people had questions about the election. Yeah, I get the question all the time. Do you ever change people's minds? Boy, that is, that's a unicorn. I can't say I'm watching people change their minds about information. When you're at those places, being confronted with outside facts doesn't always. Is often met with resistance and a doubling down of the things they, they think, they believe, they feel challenged in a way that I have not found conducive to reaching a new understanding. Did you actually see that in those moments in those, those, those, those hunt clubs with people who were confronting you and you're pushing back sometimes?

[Josh Shapiro]

I did directly. But what I was really going after was, was not to embarrass anyone in front of their peers or force someone to have to look at me in front of their peers and say, you're right, I'm wrong. What I've thought for the last year, you know, is incorrect. What I really wanted was when they left there to be thinking about it and to process it and to maybe make a change in their thinking or their politics or the way they might vote. And Jordan, I got some pretty good evidence that we made a whole lot of people think because I won this governor's race by a big margin. I think we won by about 15 points, but I got more votes than anyone in the history of Pennsylvania running for governor. And the reason I'm telling you that is not to pat myself on the back, but because it would be impossible to win with the number of votes we did in the margin we did with only Democrats. We got a whole lot of Republicans and independents cross party lines to support us. A whole lot of people who clearly rethought their politics after 2016 and even 2020 and said, you know what? We're going to go with this guy. We're going to go against the election denier, we're going to believe this truth, and hopefully we're going to all be able to continue to come together to repair our politics.

[Jordan Klepper]

Well, after such a clear, humble brag such as that, it's.

[Josh Shapiro]

I thought I was chill about that.

[Jordan Klepper]

You did a pretty good job. That's what I could. You're a savvy politician. Even, even the bragging does come across somehow as humble and informative. That's well played. Well, your high profile and your success here has upped some of the speculation where people have seen you in the light of somebody who could be a Democratic nominee for president. Do you want to use the Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy podcast as a platform that you confirm? Loving hearing that speculation.

[Josh Shapiro]

Yeah. No, man, look, I'm just so excited to be governor. I haven't even been sworn in yet. I got a lot of work to do. That's all I want to do. That's all my wife and kids want me to do. And that's all I am going to do.

[Jordan Klepper]

Awesome. Well. Well, thank you for talking to me. Governor Elect Josh Shapiro. We'll be right back. Shopping is hard, right? But I found a better way. Stitch Fix Online Personal styling makes it easy. I just give my stylist my size, style and budget preferences. I order boxes when I want and how I want. No subscription required. And he sends just for me, pieces, plus outfit recommendations and styling tips. I keep what works and send back the rest. It's so easy. Make style easy. Get started [e-mail] Spotify. That's stitchfix.com Spotify. Want to live better?

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[Jordan Klepper]

We're back and we're talking election fraud. It's obviously something I hear over and over on the campaign trail. But unlike some of the other conspiracy theories we've covered on this podcast, this one has some serious implications on the future of our democracy. This month, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case called Moore vs Harper, and it could fundamentally change how elections are conducted. To break this down with me, I have Supreme Court expert, author of Lady Justice, Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America and host of the Slate podcast Amicus Dahlia Lithwick. Welcome to the podcast.

[Kristen Bell]

Hi Jordan.

[Jordan Klepper]

Dalia, I have to call out the fact and you're well aware that you are wearing not one, but two headphones today. Is there a conspiracy in this? Do you want me to do a secondary podcast on your hyper attention or are you just a super big Jordan Klepper fingers a conspiracy fan?

[Kristen Bell]

I mean, I can repurpose the joke I made the first time you teased me where I said that if Rudy Giuliani can wear two watches, I can wear two headphones. But I'm a belt and suspenders guy. I went to laws school and we learned to be very, very, very compulsive. So that's my story. I'm sticking to it.

[Jordan Klepper]

You're a belted suspenders guy. What does that mean? That means it's. It's. It's. Is that an overabundance of caution or fear that your pants could at any moment fall? Like, what is. Okay, this is what we do on this podcast. We really get into the nitty gritty. But is this a move out of fear respect?

[Kristen Bell]

True story. I heard the expression at one point very early in my career covering oral arguments at the court, and I was like, what the hell does this mean? And all these lawyers were like, it just means being careful, idiot. So I think not to suggest that you're not knowing this term implies anything, but it was. I learned the hard way that apparently everyone but me knew that belt and suspenders is just kind of shorthand for lawyerly over. Cautiousness maybe, but also fear that your pants will fall down.

[Jordan Klepper]

I was going to say it's interesting is that like it's all about spin. It's either caution or it's fear. But I see how the attorneys do it. It's a turducken of sound. And I appreciate you taking that shirt and suspenders action to listen to this. I want to talk about the potential collapse of democracy. It's a hobby of mine. And I want to discuss this more. V. Harper. Can we talk about that case itself and what that might mean for elections?

[Kristen Bell]

Sure it is. It's hard to say this crisply, Jordan, but it's both the most serious and least serious case of my career. It's serious because the implications are vast, which we're going to talk about. It's also rooted in so much nothing that it's almost painful. Like when they call it the independent state legislature doctrine or the independent state legislature theory. Almost everybody puts doctrine and theory in air quotes because there's no there there. It's not something that is rooted in constitutional history. It's not something that's rooted in tradition. It's something that was almost entirely plucked from a chunk of a Rehnquist opinion in Bush v. Gore that only got three votes. It's not a majority opinion where he was kind of spitballing, you may recall, Bush v. Gore, also not a serious decision.

[Jordan Klepper]

So this is like a Rehnquist fever dream that we're in the midst of right now.

[Kristen Bell]

It's a Rehnquist fever dream where he's sort of spitballing, hey, maybe state legislatures have, you know, kind of plenary, unreviewable power and state courts can't come in and Bigfoot on them. It gets that's two votes. That should be the end of the story, but instead it's being lifted up as this important piece of doctrine. And not to get too in the weeds, but the reason it's serious is because if the claim in this case and this case comes from a North Carolina gerrymander, the North Carolina Supreme Court says, oh, hell no, do do your maps again. And the North Carolina Republican legislature takes this to the Supreme Court and says, we're here proffering this completely asinine, rootless theory that when a legislature does election stuff, no court can review it. End of story.

[Jordan Klepper]

Is that it? In a nutshell, if you're to explain it to our audience or Even our host pretend there's somebody who read the headline of a Vox article but maybe didn't get all the way through because they're busy. Is that basically it? It's something that's looking at the power of state legislatures over federal elections and questioning whether or not they have ultimate power. Is that, is that ballpark?

[Kristen Bell]

There's ish, but there's, there's one clarification. There's one section of this that has to do with the electors clause in the Constitution. That's the federal elections. There's one that is the elections clause that has to do with state elections. So this particular case actually doesn't implicate some of the stuff we talked about. Brad Raffensperger and you know, state electors and sending over fake state electors. This is not scooping up that this is about state processes. But it does mean that if a red state, and let's remember 30 of the 50 states have red state legislatures, if they decide they want to make up new rules about ballot initiatives, they want to do new vote suppression, they want to close polling, play whatever they want to do, they are saying nobody can take this to a state supreme court, not even a federal court, a state supreme court, and complain because basically nobody is the boss of me. So this, this particular one is about the state, how state election procedures are handled. But one tiny wrinkle there, Jordan, that's worth saying. One consequence of that is that if they win on that claim, you're going to have on the same ballot that used to have state and federal elections complete chaos because one set of them can't be reviewed and one presumably can. So one of the things that this is going to inject into the system is totally different lanes for state and federal office. Okay, so you're looking perplexed. I'm worried that I've, I mean, it.

[Jordan Klepper]

Sounds, it sounds like there may be, there should be a check or a balance in there, that these state legislatures shouldn't be able to be the final say. Where do the justices stand on this? Like, what is the actual likelihood that state legislatures will gain control of federal election procedures?

[Kristen Bell]

I mean, here's the tricky part. We already have four justices on the current Supreme Court who've evinced real enthusiasm for this theory. So we have Justices Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas that are kind of like pedal to the metal. This is cool. And in some of the pre2020 election cases, we saw them sort of effusing about how cool this was. And then we have a fourth Justice, Kavanaugh who's done some like chin strokingy, like, oh, this is kind of. I think this is pretty compelling, but isn't necessarily all in. Let's remember it takes four votes to grant a case, so that might be it. We don't know where Amy Coney Barrett sits on this. We do know that Chief Justice John Roberts doesn't think this is necessarily a fantastic idea. We also know he's irrelevant. So there might be five votes already going in.

[Jordan Klepper]

So this is cool. It's probably coming down to Amy Coney Barrett who's going to decide this case. That's your best guess right now.

[Kristen Bell]

My guess is that John Roberts thinks this is too extreme and he's written lots of prior cases, famously an Arizona case, case where he has said time and time again, no, no, no, no, we're not taking state, just judges powers away over state legislatures. So I think he's pretty much going to adhere to some version of that. This is wackadoo. Right? We have, we made that point enough. This is insane. And John Roberts is many things insane. He is not. So, yes, I think it comes down to what Justice Barrett thinks, and we have no idea on this doctrine what she thinks.

[Jordan Klepper]

Well, this issue has popped up over the last hundred years. Supreme Court has batted it down over and over again. Why is it cropping back up now?

[Kristen Bell]

It's cropping back up as part of this kind of larger, larger. And I think this goes to your sort of vote suppression frame. What do you do when you can't win majorities anymore in America? Right. What you do is you capture state houses and then you gerrymander the heck out of your state voting systems to make sure that tiny minorities stay in charge. And so I think this is of a piece with a whole subset of things, whether it's voter suppression bills, like, you know, the stuff that Stacey Abrams has been fighting, or whether it is ridiculous, you know, malapportionment. That means that, you know, the Alabama case that the court heard earlier this year, Merrill, where you have a third of Alabama, of Alabama is African American, almost a third, 27%. They're all smashed into one of seven districts, so they can't elect the candidate of their choice. So I think there's all sorts of ways that you suppress majorities. And I put this in the bucket of why do it small if you can do it huge, right. If you can just do whatever you want as a state legislature. Legislature. And it's unreviewable by any court. And by the way, just one other parenthetical there's a maximalist crazy version of this not at issue in Moore v. Harper. That would also say that governors like you talked about checks and balances also have no power to do anything. They can't veto this. So I think one way to sort of lock in minority rule for time immemorial is to just make it impossible for majority will to be represented at the ballot box.

[Jordan Klepper]

Go big or go home. And while you're at home, just stay there because there's no reason to go.

[Kristen Bell]

Out to vote or that you can have an entire orderly election. And this is where folks should think about what happened in Georgia in 2020, where you have a completely orderly, non chaotic election and then you have the legislature be like, no, we don't like those electors. Let's go for this slate of it, which is what John Eastman and Donald Trump were asking Brad Raffensperger to do. So I want to be super clear. That issue is not, I think, in the four corners of what this appeal is. But I think it's of like, you have to draw a straight line between this and the kind of election denialism we're seeing in 2020, where you had states and state legislatures being lobbied by Donald Trump, by Ginni Thomas, by John Eastman to be like, and never mind what the voters say, let's do it this way.

[Jordan Klepper]

Well, let's, let's, let's draw that line. So we do have conspiracy theorists and election deniers in pretty prominent positions. Granted, quite a few of them did lose in the midterms, including Carrie Lake in Arizona, who is now contesting her loss for governor even though the results have already been certified. Is it crazy to think that whole states that have election deniers in their legislatures could just choose to throw out the results in federal elections?

[Kristen Bell]

I don't think it's crazy. And I think, in fact, one of the things this doctrine is setting up is the stepping stone toward that. Right. I mean, the reason it didn't happen in 2020 when Donald Trump called Georgia and said, you know, give me a fresh ballot of fake electors, is that there was no architecture in place to support that. Right. This case would be part of building the architecture that says state legislatures can do whatever they want. It is unreviewable. Nothing can go to a state supreme court. And one other point again on this is in, in there's an easy way to solve this particular North Carolina case, which is the actual legislature in North Carolina has already said that the state judiciary can review these questions. So this is an easy case. It shouldn't even be a question because the legislature has taken this power away from itself. But I do think you're exactly right to say this is really a building block toward a future where state legislatures power are so utterly unreviewable or even creepily reviewable only by the US Supreme Court, that you should just stay home.

[Jordan Klepper]

Well, you say this shouldn't be a question, and I guess I'm curious what that says about our country's political ideology and also the ideology of the justices. There are a number of conservative legal figures who are coming out against the Supreme Court even hearing this case. The fact that they are. What, what does that say about the ideology of the justices?

[Kristen Bell]

So, so this is without a doubt for me, the most interesting part, right? You've got Mike Ludig, the guy who almost got Chief Justice John Roberts seat at the court. Right. He was on the short list. This is a stalwart conservative legal movement giant. He's also the guy, by the way, who, you may recall, Mike Pence was like, dude, can I do this thing that Donald Trump is asking me to do and not certify the election? It was Mike Ludig, you know, conservative legal giant, who's like, no, Mike, you can't do that. So he's wildly come out opposed to this. And in fact, I think he's one of the people, at least he said on my podcast, like this would signal the demise of orderly elections and checks and balances. So he's come out against it. Ben Ginsburg, famous Republican election lawyers against it. Every chief justice of every state Supreme Court is on a brief in this case saying, like, this is insane. Stephen Calabresi, co founder of the Federalist Society, has come out again, like, there's very few sane conservative figures who are for this. So then your operative question is, why the hell is the court flirting with this? Like, why are they playing footsie with a theory advanced principally by John Eastman, the guy who was the architect of the January 6 legal coup? And I think the reason is because there's no breaks at the US Supreme Court because they have a six justice super majority. Everything in the world they wanted last term. Abortion, guns, you know, kneecapping the epa, kneecapping the cdc. Everything they wanted they got. Everything they didn't get last year, they're getting this year. So this is just a. My friend Leah Lippman at Michigan calls it the hashtag yolocourt. You know, they used to have some solicitude and sensitivity for what the public could tolerate. And I Think now they're like, directly in opposition to what the public can tolerate. They're like, oh, oh, 80% of Americans hate this. Let's do it.

[Jordan Klepper]

Great. This is what an uplifting conversation. It's so good to hear about the people who are pulling the levers here. Okay, so let's. If states choose to do this, if this is a situation that does come into fruition, what happens next? Is that it for democracy? Is there anything people in these states could do to prevent that?

[Kristen Bell]

Well, I think that you're gonna see very much what you're sort of seeing post Dobbs, which is blue states will rush to bolster blue state super majorities and will create, you know, super majority districts and will do all the things that New York tried to do and failed to do in the midterms. But you'll see red states rushing to bolster, you know, the power of Republican super majorities in all the ways that they do that. And so I think in a weird way, maybe it's a sort of second iteration of the red state, blue state patchwork. We're seeing around guns, around environmental protection, around abortions. We're just going to see both sides further, you know, push whatever it is that they can do to make sure they have unlosable power. And that's pretty scary.

[Jordan Klepper]

The important question I think we're all thinking about, what does this mean for me in the short term? Am I going to go out into the world and just hear stop the steel forever? Or at least until rogue red states decide to reinstall President Trump again?

[Kristen Bell]

That is what we call a Stephen Breyer four part hypothetical question. Can we start with, there's so many pieces of that. I mean, I think what it really means is that first of all, this is an incredibly abstract case. Nobody understands this case. This should be bigger than Bush v. Gore. The implications, as I said, are vast. And yet I think folks are just like flummoxed right on the Stop the Steel folks, I have to say, just looping back to where you started, Jordan, I'm pretty happy about the fact that the Stop the Steelers got absolutely shellacked in the midterms because it tells me it was not as salient as they thought it was. And more urgently, and I think the polling really showed this people kind of like democracy. I mean, it was one of the issues that people showed up, you know, in addition to reproductive rights, people were really anxious that the machinery of crushing democracy had kind of gotten a toehold and so on. I actually think it's not to say this isn't a worry. It's a huge worry because the Supreme Court, as we have both stipulated, does not care what you and I think. But I do think that the appetite for crazy lawless vote suppression, democracy shattering initiatives is not what I think Donald Trump and Kari Lake thought it was. And so I'm like, I was like eight bourbons in this time before the, you know, but before the midterms. I think maybe this isn't terrible because I think as much as it sucks that the US Supreme Court is an unchecked juristocracy that is going around doing whatever the hell it wants with life tenured people, one of whom has a wife who was involved in January 6th. That's bad. Let's agree. I think that. But folks recognized that after Dobbs in a way they didn't. And I think that the ability to just sit there and like take it on the chin because the Supreme Court says so is much I think the taste for that is in decline right now. I think people are sort of angry and so I'm not as hopeless as you sound.

[Jordan Klepper]

Well, I will drink to that. That looks like a good place to end. Dahlia Lithwick, thank you for coming out of the podcast.

[Kristen Bell]

It was a pleasure. Thank you.

[Jordan Klepper]

Well, that's it. The end of our six episode limited edition miniseries. Something like that. It's a limited series. It's a podcast, whatever it is. We did six episodes. It's what we said we're gonna do. And now we've wrapped it up and there's a chance we'll come back because there's always a world in which Americans believe dumb shit and we want to talk about all of that. Thanks for listening. This has been a blast. Listen to Jordan Klepper the Conspiracy from the Daily show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Explore more shows from the Daily show podcast universe by searching the Daily Show. Wherever you get your podcasts, watch the.

[Eric Levay]

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[Josh Shapiro]

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[Jordan Klepper]

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