'Looked like a crazy person': Lawyer reacts to Trump's latest interview

[0:00] Let's bring in MSN's Jillian Frankel. She's at a Los Angeles county ballot processing center [0:05] where the work continues there. And former federal prosecutor Ankur Kudori is with us as well. [0:10] Jillian, President Trump is continuing to falsely point to this lengthy counting process as [0:16] evidence of election fraud. He has, as we know, a well-documented history of spouting this [0:23] disinformation. Take us through the reality of how elections work in California and why it takes [0:29] longer to count all the votes. On a good morning, that's right. We've repeatedly seen President [0:35] Trump take to Truth Social to criticize the vote counting timeline here in California, [0:40] to criticize this process. But this is a very typical timeline for calling races and counting [0:46] ballots. It's normal for it to take at least a few days, especially in a race like this, [0:51] where for the governor's race, we've got some 60 candidates running. And just given the sheer [0:55] volume of mail-in ballots here, I actually want you to take a look behind me. This is as close [1:00] as we can get here. But these ballots are being counted here. Los Angeles is the biggest election [1:06] jurisdiction in the country. And here in California, ballots are counted as long as they're postmarked [1:13] on or before Election Day and as long as they're received by county election officials within seven [1:19] days of Election Day. Ana? Jillian, what about the state of these two races we're watching, [1:25] the mayoral race as well as the gubernatorial race? Any sense of when we may get the final word on [1:30] who's going to face off against Becerra, who's already advanced in the governor's race, or [1:34] Bass in the mayoral race this November? Yeah, the short answer, Ana, is things could still take a few [1:41] more days to shake out and become definite. But in the governor's race, we know that the Democrat, [1:46] Javier Becerra, former HHS secretary and a longtime congressman, is set to advance to the general [1:52] election in November. But the number two slot is still not set in stone right now. Steve Hilton, [1:57] the Republican, who's been endorsed by Trump, is in that number two spot, followed in third by Tom [2:03] Steyer, a Democrat and a billionaire hedge fund founder. But in the mayoral race, Karen Bass, [2:08] the incumbent mayor of Los Angeles, is set to advance to a runoff in November. And just recently, [2:14] in the last few days here, we've seen Nithya Raman, the progressive challenger, take over that [2:19] number two spot. And Spencer Pratt, the Republican, is now trailing in number three. But again, there's [2:26] only about 82 percent of the vote in that still could change. Nothing is quite set in stone just [2:31] yet, Ana. Yeah, especially in such a huge, huge county, such a big state, obviously. Jillian [2:37] Frankel, thank you. Keep us posted. Ankush, before I get your reaction to the president's comments [2:43] there, we played at the top, I'll note that the Trump-backed Pratt is similarly sowing doubt over [2:47] the surge of votes for Rahman in the L.A. mayor's race, suggesting without evidence on social media that [2:53] her lead may have been affected by fraudulent votes from homeless people. Again, that's baseless. [2:59] There's no evidence that he's presented. How damaging are these kinds of messages from both [3:04] a candidate and a sitting U.S. president to the rule of law and the trust that Americans have in [3:10] the voting process? Yeah, I mean, this is very bad for all of those things. And unfortunately, [3:15] it's sort of become just a standard tactic, I think, in the Republican playbook and the Trump [3:22] administration playbook here. Anytime there are election results that they don't like, [3:26] all of a sudden it's been rigged. Trump complains when votes are counted too fast if he doesn't [3:31] like the result. He complains when they're counted too slow when he doesn't like the result. The only [3:35] common thread is that when he doesn't like the result, he and his allies come up with these [3:40] baseless claims of election fraud. And of course, we know that this goes all the way back to 2020 when [3:45] he lost the election. That interview he did with Kristen Welker was really, really striking. I mean, [3:50] he's still insisting that he won the 2020 election. And he is our sitting president. We've spent a lot [3:55] of time talking about President Biden still, who's no longer in office. The sitting president, [4:00] I can no longer tell if he thinks he won the 2020 election or not. He definitely didn't. [4:05] But he looked like a crazy person arguing with Kristen Welker about it. [4:08] It did remind me of 2020 when I saw that interview as well. And remember, in 2020, [4:14] there were still guardrails. He still had people around him who would tell him no or who would at [4:21] least speak publicly to the American public and say there is no evidence of this fraud. [4:25] This election was safe and fair and legitimate. But here you have people around him in positions [4:31] of power who seem likely to go along with these conspiracies and with the narrative the president [4:38] has set. You even had the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney's Office announcing on Friday that it had opened [4:43] multiple election fraud investigations into California's election system, citing, quote, [4:49] serious structural vulnerabilities. Ankur, do these investigations legitimize these baseless [4:55] attacks on California's results? I think that they helped to do so. I mean, [5:00] and particularly the way in which the U.S. attorney has framed them as multiple ongoing investigations. [5:05] You know, if there was something that they wanted to do to just satisfy people and to do so in a [5:10] professional way, they might open an inquiry, say we're going to observe. But instead, they've [5:14] ratcheted things up and they've handed Trump and his allies, you know, this tool, additional point of [5:19] data to suggest that there's fraud here. But I'm going to say, you know, you know this. I know many of [5:24] your viewers know this. None of this actually should be that surprising. This is an off-year election. [5:30] Trump is incredibly unpopular. These are Trump-aligned candidates. It's a blue state. [5:36] L.A. is a blue city. I do not know why Republicans and responsible members of the media would think [5:42] that this was a real race. And I have to say, I just, the media has, not your network, but some [5:49] parts of the media have not done a good job on this. Last week, Politico ran a story from the head of [5:53] the newsroom saying that the biggest threat to J.D. Vance in 2028 is Spencer Pratt. Now, [5:59] this was clickbait, but it was unsound in analysis and it is not helpful to readers. [6:03] I think something that is useful to remember in 2026 and even going into 2028 is that there's [6:08] still fundamentals that undergird our elections, trends, voting patterns. And we have to remember [6:15] that and not just make everything out into a dramatic reality show TV race. [6:19] Yeah, that's so important to remember, Ankush Khodori. We feel like we're living in crazy town [6:25] these days, but we just got to stick to what's in our control, what we know. Thank you for joining us.