Trump CAUGHT MEDDLING with midterm election?! Padilla explains.

[0:00] now Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California. He is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. [0:05] Senator, welcome back to the weekend. I want to bring something up. We don't have the sound [0:11] just yet, but I'm going to read what Todd Blanche, Attorney General Todd Blanche, just said to [0:16] Dana Bash when she was talking about Alaska, asking about Alaska and this whole nonsense [0:21] about the suing Alaska. Dana Bash, what's the crime? Blanche, depends. There could be a crime, [0:27] but the real wrong here is Alaskans will be confused. The second Dan Sullivan is going to [0:33] create confusion. It's not a real candidate. It is on the ballot only to pull votes from the [0:37] incumbent. So the real question that Americans should be asking is how, as a country, can we [0:43] allow this to happen? Now, you are a sitting U.S. senator, but before that, you were the secretary [0:49] of California whose job is to run the elections. Is that even a sound, rational argument from [1:01] the attorney general of the United States to justify what they're doing in Alaska? [1:06] So it's not a sound, rational argument. What it is, is a desperate argument by Donald Trump's [1:13] personal lawyer because that's who Todd Blanche is. His title is attorney general, but clearly [1:18] he continues to serve as Donald Trump's personal lawyer. Like the whole administration, including [1:24] the president, they're scared. They're desperate because they see what's coming when the voters [1:28] go to the polls on November 3rd and more than 25 million ballots have already been cast. And [1:34] so to file a lawsuit to prevent certification of results of an election where people have begun [1:41] voting but are not done voting is beyond just premature. It's a sign of their desperation and [1:48] it's got no basis, right? We keep, we've been going back for a year and a half to the Constitution. [1:54] States administer elections, no matter how many times Donald Trump or Todd Blanche tries to [1:57] suggest otherwise or threaten otherwise. States administer elections and if the federal government [2:03] is going to get involved in how elections are administered, that comes from Congress, not the [2:06] executive branch. I'm going to go to California because your secretary, the person who [2:11] has your own, you want to get all my money. Shirley Weber, the current secretary of state in [2:16] a filing said, quote, of the individuals in the sample, this is of the government, I mean, [2:20] their list of supposed non-citizen registrants. Of the individuals in the sample, less than [2:25] half have active voter registration records. Over a third have canceled registrations and [2:30] nearly three-quarters of the list have never voted. There's also this from the democracy docket. [2:35] Appeals court to hear DOJ's dangerous bid to block California from counting votes. The 9th Circuit [2:40] Court of Appeals said a three-judge panel will hear remote oral arguments at 4 p.m. Unusually, [2:46] the court agreed to hear the case even though a district court has not yet ruled and had set [2:51] a hearing for Tuesday. Does this make you concerned about the first thing I talked about? What was [2:58] Secretary Weber said? The fact that the circuit court is going to hear the case and they should be hearing [3:04] the case so they can dismiss it. But before there's been a ruling. Before there's been a ruling. Well, there's the [3:09] case itself. There's the TRO. There's all the legal steps. The bottom line is this. Not only does [3:15] Donald Trump or Todd Blanchett not have jurisdiction here. We're so close to an election. I mean, just [3:21] a week and a half ago, was it? The Supreme Court failed to overturn a New Hampshire voter ID case. And [3:28] what do they say? You can't be changing election rules this close to an election. And now we're even [3:33] closer to an election. Never mind, like, the lack of merit to the case, right? Last month in Nevada, [3:40] more than 16,000 ineligible voters in the world. Oh, hold on. After further review, there's about 185 [3:46] that warrant further investigation. At the end of the day, zero. Goose egg. The same is happening in [3:51] California. The initial threat, 20,000-plus ineligible voters on the list, at least they made the caveat of [3:56] likely because they know the data is not reliable. They know there's inaccuracies. They know that [4:02] there's U.S. citizens on those lists. And how do you go from 20,000 down to 28 all of a sudden in a [4:08] state that has more than 23 million registered voters? And as you're saying, after initial review, [4:14] well, this person has never voted. This person was actually born in the United States and is a citizen. [4:19] It's flawed data. That's not the point. It's not about election integrity for Donald Trump. [4:23] It's about trying to intimidate voters and rig the election on the eve of accountability, [4:28] because accountability is coming. Well, because you brought that up, [4:32] I want to look a little bit past November and ask you about another [4:34] former Californian who loudly quit the state, Elon Musk. He has, according to the Washington Post, [4:41] and I don't know exactly what war posture means, but he's adopted a war posture in response to looming [4:46] threats of congressional investigations, of Democrats' win control of Congress, and next month's [4:50] midterm elections. Musk has signaled he is bracing for a fight. As Republicans, election prospects [4:56] have soured. Lawmakers are building momentum for probes looking into the tech mogul, his companies, [5:01] or the work of Doge. I'm wondering, obviously, the House has subpoena power. The Senate is going to be [5:09] equally as important, just in different sort of complementary ways. But with what I'm hearing, [5:16] which is that the posture of private sector clients changing, and at least in some cases, [5:22] and adopting this Elon Musk war posture and in imitating the posture that we are likely to see [5:30] from the White House of stonewalling all of these investigations, what is going to be the workaround [5:35] for people like Elon Musk who declined to cooperate with congressional investigations? [5:39] Well, you don't want to play the legal hand too early, right? Let's get back to what the theme has [5:45] been for the last almost two years. Costs, chaos, and corruption. That's what the administration has [5:50] brought to the American people. And so the first and foremost focus for both the House and the Senate [5:55] is going to be how do we bring back those health care costs, the housing costs, the price of gas, [6:00] the price of groceries, everything else. But we can't forget about accountability for the corruption [6:05] piece, including Elon Musk. It's not just, you know, he's a successful private sector individual. [6:13] The role he played, unconfirmed, unelected leader of this Doge experiment, which, you know, [6:20] had tremendous costs for the American people, not savings. The level of government contracts, [6:27] the decision-making that he's been a part of, the role he may or may not be playing in [6:31] Ukraine and their reliability of Starlink, as they're trying to defend themselves against Russia, [6:37] who Donald Trump is clearly favoring more and more every single day. So, no, there's so many areas [6:42] that Elon Musk is clearly worried about. That's why he's either lowering up for after the election [6:48] or dumping so much money into this election cycle, still desperately trying to salvage the House or [6:54] the Senate or the Senate or the Senate.