Trump’s speech was about ‘setting the stage’ to reject midterm election results: Top Intel Cmte. Dem

[0:00] Congressman Himes, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I just want to let you go [0:05] on your reaction to everything he said that is in your jurisdiction in the Intelligence Committee. [0:11] Yeah, so Lawrence, because this is so important and because I don't believe it's only about the [0:15] SAVE Act, let me not put any fine point on this. The President of the United States [0:19] lied to the American public today. It was a bald face, 180 degree, obviously provable lie. Why do [0:27] I say that? I have reviewed all of the intelligence that the President supposedly declassified and there [0:33] is absolutely nothing in that intelligence that substantiates what he was saying, that Venezuela [0:39] was doing this, that Russia and China and China was doing this. The conclusion of the intelligence [0:45] community under Director of National Intelligence, John Radcliffe, John Radcliffe, his guy who's at CIA [0:51] right now was that there was no meddling. You can look at it. This is a public report. There was no [0:57] meddling in the 20—meddling meaning interference, no screwing around with vote totals, with voter [1:02] lists, with machines, etc. Yes, Russia wanted to re-elect Donald Trump. That is in there, too. [1:07] And yes, Iran didn't want Donald Trump to win. And so they put out propaganda. They put out [1:11] misinformation. But there is nothing in the record to suggest that anything that the President said [1:17] tonight was true. And the reason I'm animated about this—by the way, for anybody out there who [1:21] thinks that this is an MSNOW, you know, Lawrence O'Donnell Democrat talking, I want you to go to [1:25] WhiteHouse.gov, and I want you to open up the section on China. I've reviewed every single one [1:29] of those documents, but you can't do that. And the reason you can't do that—and do it right now. [1:34] Do it right now, and you will see that every single one of those China documents is almost entirely [1:39] redacted. It is black line after black line after black—you can't read anything. There's individual [1:43] words. There's maybe 20 words in 30 documents. By the way, if those documents did anything to prove the [1:49] president's case, do you think they'd be redacted? No. You would have more than 12 words. Look at the [1:54] Venezuela report. Please go to WhiteHouse.gov right now and look at the Venezuela report. And what [1:59] you will see is an old report that says, hey, Maduro and Chavez before him, they wanted to influence—here's [2:06] the key word—Venezuela elections. But the president of the United States says, look, Venezuela wanted to [2:13] influence elections. And so what the president did tonight was lie. And the issue I'm going to [2:18] take with you, Lawrence, is that, yes, maybe it's partly about the SAVE Act, which is a ridiculous [2:23] solution to a problem that does not exist. Foreigners do not vote in U.S. elections. That's [2:29] the facts. But what worries me—and the reason you hear some emotion and some passion right now—is [2:33] because here's the scenario. Election day is going poorly. John Ossoff has been clearly reelected. [2:38] In Michigan, a Democratic senator has—so the House of Representatives is about to change hands [2:43] to a Democratic majority and maybe even the Senate. And what do you think happens? I know what happens [2:48] because I was stuck in the chamber on January 6, 2021, when a mob of thousands of people motivated [2:54] by the president tried to stop the transfer of power. So when Donald Trump sees that those are the [2:59] results, which are likely, he's going to say, remember in July when I told you that the Venezuelans [3:05] and the Chinese, that's exactly what happened. So what we're talking about here is not about the [3:10] SAVE Act, which is an abomination, but it is about setting the stage for Donald Trump to reject the [3:16] results of the upcoming election. And every American citizen—and I know it's hard to read some of the [3:22] president's most closest acolytes because I work with 220 of them in the United States House of [3:28] Representatives. That's the Republican conference. But this is a moment for the American people to say, [3:32] what is going on here? Look at WhiteHouse.gov, look at the China section, and look at document [3:38] after document after document, which is nothing but black lines of redaction. That tells the story. [3:44] I believe you and The New York Times and, you know, other members of Congress are going to [3:50] completely dismantle, as you're doing right now—and I want to encourage you to keep doing it—these [3:55] documents that he's talking about. But take me to this other point. Take me to that election. [4:00] Now we're after the election. In the scenario you just came up with, we're counting votes [4:05] in Georgia. And you said Donald Trump will reject the election. And do what? [4:13] Here's what happens. Senator Ossoff, who you just had on tape there, has clearly won. [4:21] Yeah. [4:22] We know how the president feels about Georgia. You ran the clip. When he lost Georgia, [4:26] did he concede? No. He called up Brad Raffensperger, Republican Secretary of State, [4:30] find me 11,000 votes. Clearly corrupt. No one can look at that and say that's anything other [4:36] than criminal, but also corrupt. So when John Ossoff wins—this is just one example. And remember, [4:41] there's a Senate race in Michigan. There's a Senate race in North Carolina. Donald Trump looks at that [4:45] and he says, my people in Venezuela—because remember, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are running [4:50] Venezuela—have found secret intelligence, secret intelligence that shows that in Caracas, [4:55] Maduro's cousin manipulated voting machines in Georgia. This is how this happens. This is how [5:01] American democracy goes away. Now, a lot of people know me. I've been in this position for [5:06] some period of time. I'm not an alarmist. In fact, I get a lot of guff for being a little overly [5:10] optimistic and overly calm. But understand what happened tonight. The president was setting the [5:15] context. He was setting the basis for him to turn around at midnight on election day and say, [5:21] I warned you. I warned you back in July that the Chinese were doing XYZ and the Venezuelans [5:26] were doing XYZ and all this terrible stuff. It happened tonight. I am deploying federal officers [5:31] from the Department of Homeland Security to seven states. They will be seizing ballot boxes in those [5:35] states because we know that lots of undocumented aliens voted in those things. So we are seizing [5:41] ballot boxes. Now, Lawrence O'Donnell, what happens when all of a sudden we've lost the chain [5:45] of custody of 70 ballot boxes. That is the moment in which American democracy dies. Make no mistake [5:53] what happened tonight. What's the defense against that? The defense against that is what I'm trying [5:58] to do tonight, which is that the American people need to understand as much as you may love Donald [6:02] Trump, as much as you may hate the Democrats, there is something that we care about more than our [6:07] party affiliation. And that is the preservation of our democracy. And part of the energy you're hearing [6:12] from me tonight is the fact that I was one of the last people out of the chamber of the House of [6:16] Representatives on January 6th, 2021. I saw our democracy come this close to ending. And the [6:23] energy you're hearing from me tonight is that I actually, I see the path. And this is the moment [6:27] for every American to go to whitehouse.gov, as the president asked you to do, to look at the China [6:32] section, to read the report. By the way, John Radcliffe, old friend of mine, runs the CIA right now, [6:38] right? Old friend of mine, current friend of mine. Please read his statement. Read his statement on [6:42] Twitter. It says we provided documents. Every American should look at those documents. Nowhere in [6:48] John Radcliffe, the president's guy running the CIA, in his statement does it say, and I agree with [6:54] everything the president said tonight. You know why it doesn't say that? Because he doesn't.