'Make THAT make sense': Nicolle GOES OFF on Trump ahead of primetime speech peddling conspiracies

[0:01] It's really big news. It's really, really big news. And our country has to shape up. [0:10] But that's what we're going to be talking about Thursday is it doesn't get bigger because without free and fair elections, you don't have a country. [0:19] Well, on that issue, I agree. You can call it big news. You can call it the big lie. Either way, it's so big. It's so massive. [0:30] It's the one secret he's not going to leak himself just yet. Make that make sense. [0:36] But we know we can expect Donald Trump's primetime address on Thursday to be dangerous for our country, to be part of a string of his consistent assault on American elections and American democracy. [0:50] This afternoon, Georgia Senator John Ossoff didn't hold back on the deeply unpopular president's desperate whole-of-government attempt to sow distrust in our elections and subvert November's midterms. [1:05] When the president calls Georgia elections illegitimate, and if he calls Georgia's senators illegitimate, he is calling Georgia's voters illegitimate. [1:18] The president of the United States tried to commit voter fraud in Georgia when he badgered Brad Raffensperger to, quote, [1:27] find him the exact number of votes he needed to win in a state he had lost in 2020. [1:34] He is reheating debunked conspiracy theories and launching bizarre new lies because he fears losing these midterm elections. [1:44] Bring into our coverage senior White House reporter Von Hilliard. [1:50] He has some new reporting on what we can expect from Trump Thursday night. [1:53] I also want to bring in Media Matters for America president Angelo Carison and voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones Ari Berman is back with us. [2:01] Von, let me just start by putting out a frame that I think is essential to all of us who are going to be talking about this week. [2:09] Donald Trump has no questions about the 2016 election when President Barack Obama was the president and Donald Trump won, [2:19] when the person in charge of protecting our elections from foreign interference was President Barack Obama. [2:25] Donald Trump similarly has no concerns about the integrity of the 2024 election result when President Joe Biden was the president in charge of protecting American elections from foreign interference. [2:38] Donald Trump's stew of whatever it is he's going to dish out with his little gold-plated ladle is going to have us accept that he was the only one of the three of them [2:50] who couldn't protect an American election from interference from an American adversary. [2:55] That's that's really the pitch. Part of the pitch is that the 2020 election had regularities and that it was should be questioned by the American public. [3:11] And so what is he going to say that he couldn't do that Obama but I just I can't I know that there's reporting and I know you're covering the White House. [3:19] But what is he going to say he failed to do that Obama and Biden did do? [3:24] I don't I don't have any reporting that the president is going to say what he should have done in 2020 as opposed to what he didn't do. [3:35] But I think that there is part of our new reporting that can answer the question looking forward and perhaps the way in that he wants his executive branch to handle this election differently. [3:44] And that is the fact that along with our colleagues, David Rowe, Jake Traylor and Laura Burrow and Lopez reporting that the president does intend to talk about the idea of vulnerability of voting machines. [3:56] And this is significant because he is going to hearken back. [4:00] We are told to 2020 election, even though the intelligence community, I'm told by an administration official who says and makes the case very clearly that the raw material that the intel community has had [4:13] access to for five and a half years does not prove what Donald Trump wants them to say, that it's going to prove that the election was stolen in 2020, [4:22] but that there were voting machine vulnerabilities that are still at play. [4:30] And if, in fact, the president, as we're told, intends to move forward on Thursday with this speech, three and a half months out from the midterm elections, [4:38] he is suggesting that the voting machines that across the country that are going to be used could potentially be tampered with and hacked into by foreign governments. [4:47] And it's notable the delay in releasing this assessment, which we have not seen this intelligence assessment ourself. [4:54] But I think it's important to note that I was told by an administration official that this was actually information that was first brought to Susie Wiles in the White House last year, [5:02] but it was told to not be released. And now the president wants to move forward with releasing that intelligence. [5:08] And what has happened as a result of that passage of time, to the extent that the assessment is accurate, [5:13] is that DHS, the federal agencies that would be responsible for working in conjunction with state and localities to move forward [5:24] and ensure that there is a free and fair election, have been hamstrung from being able to do that. [5:28] And now the president on Thursday night could very well announce to the country that they have reason to believe, [5:34] again, depending on what he were to try to purport, that there is reason to question November's election. [5:40] Well, let me just put out some data points that are public facing. [5:45] Bill Barr called that conspiracy, quote, bullshit. Chris Krebs said it never happened. [5:51] The director of national intelligence at the time that you're saying this happened was, oh, John Ratcliffe. [5:56] He's currently the CIA director. And he took over in May from Rick Grinnell. [6:02] So which one of those four are going to be criminally investigated for letting this happen, Vaughn? [6:11] John Ratcliffe is currently the CIA director. And to your point here— [6:16] But he was the DNI in 2020. [6:17] He was the DNI in 2020 and made it clear that, for example, when it came to China, [6:22] China did—made no assertion that there was direct Chinese interference that would have changed [6:27] the vote outcome of the 2020 election. And I think that this is important when we take into account [6:32] Tulsi Gabbard is no longer the director of national intelligence. [6:36] And I just want to read a quote to you from a current administration official [6:40] who is emphasizing that we need to consistently talk about Bill Pulte and John Solomon, [6:45] the former journalist turned special government employee. [6:47] Both of those men brought in one month ago into these roles. And the way that it's framed to me [6:51] is that essentially John Solomon is the one that is pushing a lot of the conspiracy theories [6:57] then claims that there is raw material that the intelligence community has access to that [7:03] they're not released and that he is the one putting this into the ear of Donald Trump, [7:07] that there is actually evidence that would support his claim that the election in 2020 was stolen. [7:11] But then it's Bill Pulte, the current director of national intelligence, the acting one, [7:16] who is essentially the one that has promised the president, we are told by multiple sources, [7:20] is the one that is essentially doing whatever it takes to carry it out. The quote, [7:23] I just want to read to you. We're publishing on MS.NOW right now, but we wanted to get this on air. [7:28] Quote, this is an administration official who has been familiar with the raw intelligence [7:32] available across the intelligence community. And that is, quote, [7:35] it's that network of people, referring to Solomon and Pulte, that is the real effing problem. [7:40] They try to put bits and pieces together and then make these conclusions. [7:44] Everything I have seen, it's not what's there. And the reason that I'm emphasizing this [7:48] is the fact that for the first time, I would say in the second Trump administration, [7:52] to your point, Nicole, there are factions within this White House, [7:55] and there is one faction that is clearly winning out. And it is that Bill Pulte, [8:00] John Solomon faction, those that have lifted up and supported claims made by people like Michael Flynn. [8:05] And in the last months, they have had greater access to the president of the United States [8:10] than ever before. And it is people like Susie Wiles and other in this administration [8:14] that have effectively, last year, I am told, saw all of this, essentially the assessments from [8:19] people like John Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, and knew what was available through the intelligence [8:25] community, and clearly made the determinations that there was not enough to go public at that [8:30] point in time. Fast forward to June of 2026, Donald Trump has turned to two people who have made [8:35] the commitment to do just that for him. And that is what is happening now. It's those two [8:39] individuals that are making good on what the president has demanded for five and a half years.