‘Warmed-over conspiracy theories’: EXPOSING Trump's primetime address

[0:00] Two senior administration officials tell NMS Now the speech has not been finalized, [0:04] but will focus on voting machine security and alleged efforts by foreign nations to influence [0:10] U.S. elections. David, you co-authored that piece for MS Now. This is, it sounds like, [0:17] going to be just warmed over conspiracy theories that we've heard about the 2020 election, [0:23] delivered in the year 2026 in prime time. Yes, six years later, and the president's [0:28] inability to admit that he lost the 2020 election. So the speech isn't final. The president [0:34] himself decides on what words he says, but I am expecting no bombshells here. And if there are [0:40] bombshells, it shows that there are two factions in the White House now about this. There's a [0:45] faction that says there isn't evidence that votes were changed by any foreign power. There is no [0:51] evidence of that whatsoever. That's what everyone agrees. That's been agreed on for years. And [0:55] there's another faction led by Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, [0:59] and John Solomon, a longtime Fox News pundit who sort of pushes all these conspiracy theories [1:04] that there were votes changed. And I just want to say I'm very proud. It's worked by me and Vaughn [1:10] Hilliard and Laura Barone Lopez and Jake Traylor. Our coverage of this over the last two days has [1:16] angered Steve Bannon. He's sort of like, how, why is MS Now getting all this information? [1:20] I'll do the enemy yesterday. He called me a media assassin. And I want to say that's I'm doing my [1:27] job. But so that we are defining the narrative. And the narrative here is that this is going to be [1:32] warmed over conspiracy theories. It's about China. And the key thing here is that China, [1:38] like many foreign countries, tried to influence the 2020 election. Russia tried to influence the 2020 [1:43] election against Joe Biden. China tried to influence the election. These are just public [1:48] tweets, information, this kind of stuff. And China was against Trump. There's no evidence that China [1:55] successfully changed any votes, hacked into any machines. And what you might have is John Ratcliffe [2:01] made a public, this is a public old complaint, where he said in 2021, as then he was the director [2:08] of national intelligence, again, Trump controlled the government in 2020. He said that he felt the [2:13] CIA's assessment of the size of China's effort, their effort to influence public opinion was larger [2:22] than what the CIA concluded in its assessment. That is what John Ratcliffe said. Tonight, you'll hear [2:27] that presented as this terrible effort by the CIA. This would be Gina Haspel, also Donald Trump's [2:32] appointee to run the CIA, somehow suppressing this news. The point is, great, China put out a lot of [2:39] propaganda online. They did not change votes. There's nothing new here. I expect this speech. [2:46] And if he goes farther, there's one chance the president will say, we shouldn't use X type of [2:51] voting machine. I don't want to name a type because this isn't fair to these companies. [2:55] A, that's false. All the voting machines are safe. B, the president, since he came back to office, [3:01] has gutted funding and gutted CISA programs that secure our voting machines. And C, most importantly, [3:08] the president does not have the power to say to states, don't use these election machines. Again, [3:16] in the Constitution, he does not control how these elections are administered. So if he makes some [3:21] sweeping declaration about, I decertify this type of voting machines, it's false, and he has no power, [3:28] and he'll lose in court. [3:28] And why is he still talking about 2020, perhaps as a pretext to do something about these 2026 [3:33] midterm elections? Absolutely. Some incredible quotes in your piece, which I highly recommend [3:37] that people read on MS Now ahead of the speech tonight. This is from a current administration [3:41] official. Current administration official. I've never seen any intelligence that an adversary [3:46] hacked or changed or flipped votes ever. And then you have one from the first term who says all these [3:54] claims are, quote, complete and utter BS, although that person used the full word. Meanwhile, more than [4:00] two dozen House Democrats held a secret closed-door strategy session this week to game out how best [4:06] to respond to President Trump and potential attempts by his administration to interfere in [4:11] this year's midterm elections. Let's bring in MS Now congressional reporter Kevin Fry with more [4:16] details on Democrats' strategy session that was shared exclusively with MS Now. Kevin, good morning. [4:22] What'd you learn? Yeah, and I do want to stress, they are being incredibly secretive about this. [4:27] They won't even say on the record what day this happened. They certainly won't say which people [4:31] were in attendance, whether it be lawmakers or outside groups. They are so concerned [4:35] about presidential reprisals against those that are participating in these efforts. But they will say [4:40] that they are taking this incredibly seriously and have more than 100 different scenarios in mind as [4:46] they are prepping for this fall. With just over three months until election day, Congressman [4:53] Joe Morelli is constantly wrestling with one central question, what if? The president will do anything [4:59] that he can to subvert the election. He's made that clear. The New York lawmaker is the point man for [5:04] House Democrats on countering the president's potential efforts to meddle in the midterms. [5:09] Trump and his team have hinted at a number of possible actions, from leaning on the Postal Service [5:14] to not deliver mail-in ballots, to deploying ICE agents to polling places. How many different [5:20] scenarios are you kind of working through as potential avenues that the president or his [5:27] allies might take here? Well, certainly north of 100 that we've identified. And we're frankly [5:33] working through scenarios that have never been encountered in American life before. But that [5:39] hasn't stopped Donald Trump. Morelli and his team have been gearing up for that uncertainty, [5:44] working with voting groups and meeting with election officials across the country. [5:48] This week, though, the preparations entered a new phase, with House Democratic lawmakers secretly [5:53] meeting for the first time for a strategy session to walk through possible scenarios and identify [5:59] vulnerabilities. So we're going to be having to think through with our partners how to make sure [6:04] that we push back. MS now got a preview of that strategy session as Morelli and his staff test ran [6:10] one possible scenario where the president unilaterally implements aspects of the Save America Act [6:17] and requires proof of citizenship to vote. That will be going into court. It's going to be working [6:22] with local administrators, going to be working with secretaries of state. Morelli says their overall [6:26] strategy boils down to educating voters and local officials while also being prepared legally. [6:33] He says they have attorneys lined up around the country preparing court filings for any scenario. [6:39] Take, for example, the possibility of Trump shutting down a polling place in a key Democratic city. [6:44] Other than going to a court and appealing to them to intercede, what options are on the table? [6:51] Well, first and foremost, we're communicating with local election officials so that they know what the [6:55] law is, so that they're not, in a sense, bullied or intimidated by someone who shows up claiming [7:00] to be in a position to shut the polling place down. [7:03] So far, Morelli's team isn't willing to say who they're working with, fearful that naming any groups [7:09] or law firms will expose them to reprisals from the president. But Morelli insists whatever the [7:15] president tries this fall will not succeed. Can you say with confidence that Democrats will be able [7:22] to stop the president, Republicans, from any form of meddling in the midterms? [7:28] Yeah, I have every confidence that Americans will get to the polls, they'll have their chance to vote, [7:33] and their votes will be counted. [7:36] So some confidence there from Morelli. One other thing to add here is that he says that voters have [7:41] a role to play here, too. And he basically said one of the things you can do in preparation for this [7:45] fall is, one, make sure that your registration is up to date and everything is good to go there. [7:49] And also vote as early as possible as you can. As soon as you have the ability to vote, [7:54] go out and cast your ballot. [7:56] Extraordinary that they're even having these conversations and that a congressman has to [7:59] reassure voters that their votes will, in fact, be counted. [8:02] Congressional reporter for MS Now, Kevin Fry. Thank you. You can read more of Kevin's reporting [8:06] at ms.now. So, Ken Delaney, and obviously Democrats are preparing for the worst is probably good [8:13] strategy at this point, given what we've been hearing from this president and this administration. [8:17] What else are you hearing about the speech tonight and how it may fit into a larger plan ahead of the [8:23] midterms? Well, in terms of the speech, we should all be extremely concerned about the process that [8:30] is leading to the speech, because what's going on here is they're combing through the holdings of [8:35] the intelligence community and pushing some factions are to declassify previously classified [8:41] intelligence. And there's a debate going on. And apparently John Ratcliffe is actually trying to [8:46] stop some of this, according to our reporting. And look, the U.S. intelligence community collects [8:52] vast amount of information around the world. They are intercepting phone calls, hacking into [8:56] computers, talking to sources. And there's a lot of information that they collect that isn't [9:01] actually true, that doesn't pan out. That's why they pay thousands of analysts to sift through [9:05] this stuff and to create what's called finished intelligence that gets up to the policy makers. [9:10] And so if you just start trolling around in the U.S. intelligence holdings, you can find something [9:15] that says almost anything. Remember, there was a bogus report that the FBI put out and then withdrew [9:20] that China was circulating a fake license, was importing fake IDs into the United States to flood [9:27] America with IDs so that people could vote falsely. It turns out that those were just fake IDs that [9:33] teenagers wanted to buy to get into bars.