Nicolle: Trump is already using his 'dangerous and insidious' lies to challenge midterm elections

[0:01] I've won three elections, but we did great in the second one. It was a rigged deal. [0:08] That's all they're good at, weaponization and cheating on elections. [0:11] They turn the cameras off when they talk about it because they don't want good stuff for us, [0:14] because they don't want us to win elections. And why, I don't know. [0:20] The dangerous and insidious lie about voter fraud persists as Donald Trump lays the groundwork to [0:26] challenge the integrity of this year's election results as well. Today, The New York Times has [0:30] some alarming and exhaustive new reporting on Donald Trump's campaign to tip the scales rooted [0:36] in the very same debunked conspiracy theories he's been peddling for years. That includes 19 official [0:43] actions Trump has taken to question previous results, which began with granting clemency for [0:48] nearly 1,600 charged insurrectionists while brazenly installing election deniers in the federal [0:54] government. At least 15 actions to fire, indict, or revoke security clearances for people who have [1:00] worked against the election denialism movement, 21 actions to tighten voting restrictions designed [1:06] to tip the scales in his favor, and 14 actions to nationalize elections, many of which have failed [1:12] in court. But as The New York Times reports, quote, while many of Trump's directives have been blocked [1:17] or delayed by the courts, election experts say that their potential harm remains significant [1:22] and that some of the efforts have already eroded faith in the process. Joining me at the table, [1:27] former lead investigator for the January 6th Select Committee, Tim Hafe, is here. Importantly, [1:32] he is also Jack Smith's law partner at Hafe, Smith, Harbaugh, and Wyndham. Also joining us, [1:37] former Department of Justice pardon attorney, now the host of the podcast, Is This Really Legal? [1:42] Liz Oyer is back with us, and Andrew's with us as well. Let me ask you about the antibodies in the [1:49] system. I mean, they weren't enough to avoid a deadly insurrection on January 6th, and Trump has [1:54] stacked the government with election deniers. What are our odds facing all of the things he's doing [2:02] to mess with our elections? You still need facts, Nicole, thankfully, right? If you just keep repeating [2:10] something, it doesn't make it true. So launching investigations and calling into question the [2:15] integrity of the election continues to be rhetorical until, unless and until, there's some actual substance [2:21] which has not emerged all these years later. It's performative. It's distracting. It is meant [2:27] to decrease confidence in elections. Hopefully, it's not effective because our elections are run [2:33] really, really well with a lot of security and capable people in this country. My hope is that [2:38] facts will still matter, and that core narrative remains and makes this a fruitless effort. [2:44] I don't have. I'm not as hawkish on facts. Trump ran the government in 2020, and as I was just [2:50] talking to Andrew about, these were all of his supporters and backers, people who campaigned for [2:55] him, people who voted for him, people who liked the things he was selling at a policy level, even [3:01] though that's sort of wild to me. They were his people. They were running the federal government, [3:05] and they were running more than half the swing states he lost. What is, I guess my question for you [3:12] is, what do we have to push back with now that is stronger than it was then? [3:17] We have the courts, and I think that Tim is right that facts will continue to matter because the [3:22] courts are insisting on it. The courts are continuing to apply the facts and the law, [3:26] and they are shooting down Donald Trump's efforts at every turn to interfere with the elections. [3:31] He has tried to get voter roll data from, I believe, 10 different states, and courts have told him [3:36] every single time, no. There are two court decisions that recently said that Donald Trump cannot [3:42] order the Postal Service not to deliver mail ballots to people in states who aren't complying [3:48] with the demands for voter data. So the courts are really working overtime to protect our elections, [3:53] and at the end of the day, the Constitution gives the president zero role in elections. The [3:58] Constitution says that states have the primary authority over elections and that the federal [4:04] government, through Congress, can make certain laws about elections, but those can only be [4:09] legislated by Congress. The president himself does not, by executive order or any other means [4:14] of interference, have any power whatsoever with respect to elections. What does it say, [4:19] though, that he's sort of chipping around the edges everywhere where he may find an argument [4:25] to seize some power away? Well, that's a very important point that you make, Nicole, because it's [4:29] not about a winning legal strategy. Right. It's about sowing doubt. It's because Donald Trump knows that there [4:34] is a real risk that he will lose, his party will lose at the midterm elections, and he wants to be [4:39] ready to sow doubt about whether the elections were fair. And he has every intent of doing that. He's [4:45] laying the groundwork to do that right now. He's also still relitigating the election that happened [4:50] in 2020, which is something that I think is becoming very exhausting for the American people. But it is [4:56] having the effect of sowing doubt and chaos because it's coming from the most powerful elected official in [5:01] the country. Thomas Massey just tried to pierce through the insanity with sort of cold, hard [5:07] reality. And I don't know. I don't know who was listening, you know, on Earth, too. But he said, [5:12] what's wrong with the elections? We control everything. We won the White House. We dominate [5:16] the Supreme Court. We control the House. We control the Senate. The elections are just fine. [5:20] Right. And they're not seizing election machines in Texas or in Wyoming or in states in which [5:27] the president was victorious. They are targeting areas in which he lost, sometimes surprisingly, [5:32] like Georgia. He's also, frankly, targeting majority black districts. Like, there's this [5:37] narrative that it's Detroit and it's Atlanta and it's these cities controlled by black elected [5:42] officials that somehow are riddled with election fraud. Again, Nicole, without evidence. And to your [5:48] earlier question, it still takes fact in America, all right, to have a legal consequence. There is still [5:54] a rule of law. There are still judges, as Liz says, who are going to say no. It's a huge contrast here [5:59] between elections and immigration, right? Immigration is an executive function. The federal [6:04] government controls that. So he has a huge leeway to do things, really robust executive authority [6:10] things in the area of immigration. Elections are not a federal function. They're a state function. [6:14] And that limits his power and gives judges the authority to say, no, you can't seize these voting [6:20] machines. You can't restrict mail-in ballots. That's a decision for states. [6:24] Andrew, where do you come down on the power of the lie to mobilize Donald Trump's supporters, [6:29] as he did for violence on January 6th, and the power of the courts to demand evidence and facts? [6:36] So I'm going to give a less rosy assessment than Tim and Liz. I mean, I agree with their points, [6:44] but I think it ignores something. So it is beyond question that countries like Russia and China, [6:53] they're not the only two, but certainly they are two countries that interfere in elections, [7:00] both here in the United States and in other so-called Western democracies. That has happened [7:08] in the past, and it is going to continue to happen. We have been lucky to have career people at the [7:16] Department of Justice, at DHS, in the CIA, and other agencies to thwart those activities. Does anyone [7:24] think that this administration is going to thwart foreign countries interfering in our elections if [7:33] they are in favor of Donald Trump? So Russia, which was in favor of Donald Trump in prior elections, [7:42] and is still going to be? Do you think this administration is going to do that? And so [7:48] that's something that's happening before you get to court, which is the government taking actions to [7:53] make sure that our elections are free and fair and don't have election interference. And that's something [8:00] that I think is a real threat to democracy and is another lever to, in addition to the ones that [8:09] the New York Times has outlined in their terrific article about undermining the upcoming election in the [8:17] midterms, but also future elections.