Swan predicts Trump's 'free & fair elections' speech announcement

[0:00] Primetime presidential speeches typically are rare, and until last hour, we didn't know much [0:05] about what the president has in store for Thursday night, but he gave us a preview. [0:11] It's really big news. It's really, really big news, and our country has to shape up. [0:19] But what we're going to be talking about Thursday is it doesn't get bigger, [0:25] because without free and fair elections, you don't have a country. We'll be discussing other [0:29] things, too, but it's going to be a very big announcement. We're joined now by Jonathan [0:35] Swan. He's a White House reporter for The New York Times, also the co-author of the bestseller [0:39] Regime Change, Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. Jonathan, great to see you. [0:44] Thanks so much for joining us. What are you hearing about why the president wants to dedicate a primetime [0:49] speech to this issue of election security? Well, I should say I haven't seen a draft of the speech, [0:55] and I make a practice of not trying to forecast Donald Trump's speeches, but he has been obsessed [1:00] with relitigating the 2020 election, and he's been pushing his team to try to come up with evidence [1:06] that the 2020 election was stolen. This was a big part of Tulsi Gabbard's efforts when she was [1:13] director of national intelligence. Bill Pulte, who's currently there, is involved, and others are [1:17] as well. So, look, I haven't seen the intelligence or whatever he claims to have, but I wouldn't be [1:24] surprised if you see them try to build or try to make a case that there was foreign interference [1:29] in 2020 and for Trump to try to use that as, uh, for him to make the case that the election was [1:36] stolen. Of course, we've seen no evidence that it was. Yeah. How much of that is related to the [1:40] upcoming midterms and perhaps some concern from Trump about Democrats taking over Congress and [1:47] any personal or, uh, familial risk that he will face? Because there will be investigations not only of [1:53] Trump, but his family and their business if Democrats win. So, strangely, we, Maggie and I [2:00] found in our reporting for the book that it's not that Donald Trump doesn't care about the midterms. [2:05] Of course, he does. And you see that, you know, evidenced by the fact that his team is trying to [2:09] get every advantage they can, uh, gerrymandering and what have you. But it's more driven by his team [2:16] than it is by Donald Trump. And what you find if you talk to Trump advisors is often they're [2:20] frustrated that he doesn't care, seem to care as much as they do about what happens in the midterm [2:25] elections. And they, they would like him to be more alarmed and more exercised. This is very [2:30] retrospective, uh, when it comes to 2020. That is fascinating. So as you talk about the [2:34] administration and, and Republicans gaining every advantage that they can, uh, you mentioned efforts [2:39] to gerrymander. He, he keeps pushing the, uh, Save America Act, even refusing to sign this housing [2:45] bill, bipartisan housing bill that is seen as an achievement by this very divided Congress. [2:49] He fired the board of the election assistance commission, uh, installed Pulte as DNI, which [2:54] you mentioned. Do you see the administration planning to try to influence the way that [3:00] elections are carried out in a way that is atypical of the federal government during the [3:05] midterm? Yeah, of course. I mean, blatantly evident, you know, right in front of our faces, [3:10] they're trying to squeeze out every single advantage they can and to try to, you know, [3:15] remove as many pickup opportunities as they can for Democrats and make it harder [3:20] to vote by mail and all the rest of it. Um, what's interesting though, is you talk to some [3:24] of Trump advisors, they're not sure that some of these more restrictive voting efforts will [3:29] actually benefit them politically. Remember in 2024, a lot of their voters were people who don't [3:33] normally vote and low propensity voters. So does making it more difficult to vote actually help [3:39] Republicans? I'm not sure that's such a easily answered question. Democrats have increasingly [3:44] been sounding the alarm that they expect the president to influence this November's midterm [3:48] elections. And last Thursday, the White House fired the leadership of the federal agency that [3:52] provides funding and security guidance to election officials. That's according to sources familiar [3:57] with the matter and an email reviewed by CNN. One of those former commissioners is with us now, [4:03] Thomas Hicks, who served on the election assistance commission and was fired from that position [4:07] by President Trump. Thomas, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for having me. Um, first, [4:13] I mean, on your firing, were you given a reason? Not a reason at all. And as I've said to many [4:18] people before, this actually happened on the fifth anniversary of my dad's passing. [4:23] Okay. So this has been incredibly personally traumatic for you. This has been very alarming [4:28] for a lot of people who are watching this happen. What does it mean to not have this commission in [4:33] place going into this election? We don't, we don't run elections. So I want to assure the American [4:38] people that they can still go out, cast their votes in the, and if they want to vote by mail, [4:43] the Supreme Court reaffirmed that two weeks ago. What it does mean is that moving forward, [4:49] we're going to not be able to adjust the voluntary voting system guidelines that the states have, [4:55] that they go for voting machines in terms of certification and other aspects of it. [4:59] We can't have meetings, um, to talk about these issues. So if there are issues that come out in [5:05] November, there's no one to talk about these issues. And there's other aspects as well. So [5:09] if this had happened in Russia, Cuba, there would be an alarm being set. But it's happening in America [5:16] and there should be more people outraged. You said you have not had one contact with the [5:22] Trump administration since they came back into office. Correct. [5:26] Is that atypical? What would the contact normally be like with an administration? [5:29] Um, well, I've been here since, um, Obama's administration. So they would call and tell [5:35] us what they feel what you should be doing. Um, and we would either take that or not take that [5:41] because we were an independent agency. And so we did that with the, um, Obama administration. [5:47] The first Trump administration, um, contacted us. The Biden administration contacted us. Um, [5:53] and then this, this current administration has not. Um, they might've contacted my Republican [5:58] colleagues, but not me. The commission certainly was a target of the president's right from the [6:03] very first executive order. It directed the EAC to add a proof of citizenship requirement to federal [6:08] forms for voter registration while ordering the commission to pressure states to adopt election [6:13] day mail ballot deadlines. It was largely blocked by, uh, blocked by courts. However, obviously you were [6:20] a bit of a target there. I wonder is the Supreme Court recently issued a decision that bolstered the [6:25] president's power to fire leaders of independent agencies if you thought this was coming. [6:32] Well, it was always a, a thing that could happen. Uh, but my thing is we're all going to pass away at [6:37] some point. I'm going to do my job the best that I can, whether or not that I had gotten fired or not. [6:43] Um, so I'm just going to figure out my next steps and take in all sort of options and see where I go. [6:50] But again, it's not about me. It's about the American people being able to cast their votes. [6:54] Yeah. I was just one person there. For you, it is about you. I mean, you're in the middle of that. [6:59] But for a lot of people, it's about what it means for this whole commission to be gone. [7:02] And it's not just the commission, right? CISA, which is the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure [7:06] Security Agency, which is always, it's been so crucial in the past. It's been gutted by the Trump [7:11] administration. And I wonder how you look at the commission plus that and even other changes [7:17] altogether. How are you seeing the effect of that? Well, I was surprised about CISA because the Trump [7:22] administration formed that agency back in I think it was 2018 or 2019. So that that was really [7:30] surprising to me. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission did a lot during the COVID-19 crisis [7:36] in terms of getting agencies together to talk about how to ensure that people could still vote [7:42] independently and privately and safely. So with CISA being gone, with DHS being gone, [7:48] the EAC was stepping up to actually have briefings for election officials, talking to other federal [7:55] partners and helping to ensure that this election runs smoothly in November and during the primaries, [8:01] which we're in the middle of right now.