Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, July 17, 2026

[0:00] the midterm elections are just a few months away but why talk about the future when you [0:04] could sow confusion about an election held six years ago and why work to encourage broad [0:09] participation in our democracy when you can manufacture unsupported doubt about the integrity [0:14] of american election systems tonight we ask the question when is hindsight not 2020 next this is [0:25] washington week with the atlantic corporate funding provided by in 1995 two friends set [0:34] out to make wireless coverage accessible to all with no long-term contracts nationwide coverage [0:40] and 100 u.s-based customer support consumer cellular freedom calls additional funding is provided by [0:50] koo and patricia ewan for the ewan foundation committed to bridging cultural differences in [0:55] our communities sandra and carl delay magnuson rose herschel and andy shrieves robert and susan rosenbaum [1:05] jay and sharon rockefeller charles hamowy through the charles hamowy fund steve and marilyn kerman [1:14] leonard and norma chlorifying and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you thank you [1:24] once again from the david m rubinstein studio at weta in washington editor-in-chief of the atlantic [1:31] and moderator jeffrey goldberg good evening and welcome to washington week i want to start by [1:38] giving you a sense of what it's like to live in the washington reality distortion field these days [1:43] among the issues facing americans and their leaders this summer are matters of enormous domestic and [1:48] international importance including the iran war the russian war against ukraine the future of nato [1:54] energy prices massive wildfires the coming ai jobs crisis and really really malignant lettuce [2:02] but what are we talking about in washington and what are we going to talk about tonight [2:06] our president's obsession with alleged election corruption on thursday he spoke to the nation [2:11] and claimed without providing evidence that our election system is in terrible danger he has brought [2:16] the country's intelligence agencies into this campaign and released declassified documents that he [2:21] says proves his point but don't prove it at all why is he doing this and why now for answers i'll ask [2:29] our panel tonight ann applebaum is a staff writer at the atlantic laura barone lopez is a white house [2:35] reporter for ms now stephen hayes is the editor and ceo of the dispatch and carl hulse is the chief [2:42] washington correspondent for the new york times okay no lettuce jokes that was my one lettuce joke for the [2:49] night i'm sorry and i know it's a very serious issue so i won't talk about it anymore laura you get [2:55] to start we're going to get to motive in a minute but explain the message that president trump was trying [3:02] to transmit to the country last night well one president trump for him this was about personal [3:09] vindication this was about him trying to again just convince the public that his lie about the 2020 [3:18] election being stolen is true that was him he is fixated on 2020 sources close to the white house [3:24] have told me it's what keeps him up at night he wants to be talking about this that's one but the [3:30] other main message is he was trying to show with this release of declassified documents the likes of [3:38] which many many you know intel uh experts and former analysts say they've never seen any release like this [3:44] in their careers um the big message was look our elections are so insecure that essentially he [3:54] needs to gain more control over it and so this is part of his larger campaign to gain as much control [4:00] over american elections as possible and he has had his agencies doing many things along the way to try to [4:08] take control from states which they have the constitutional authority to to control elections but take control [4:14] away from them ahead of the midterms right and what what evidence is there actually that our elections [4:22] are in danger from foreign interference or from other nefarious players that donald trump believes exist [4:30] out there so there's no evidence that any foreign nation has ever interfered in election in the sense [4:36] that they've changed votes or affected voting machines or altered the outcome of an election there's no [4:42] evidence at all and actually he didn't produce any i mean there are foreign countries who try to shape [4:48] the narrative who try to intervene in our social media and try and support one candidate or another [4:53] and ironically the one country that has done this rather successfully and at great length over many [5:00] years wasn't mentioned by donald trump and that's of course russia who uh went out of their way to support [5:06] him so you know there's no other and he didn't mention them and other that there isn't any evidence [5:12] there have been in our system there's a series of institutions that have been created going back [5:17] decades actually that are designed to prevent foreign interference and other interference and actually [5:21] the trump administration has pretty systematically dismantled them um starting with the cyber defense [5:27] agency which had an election monitoring ability and they've shut that down um there's a something [5:34] called the election electronic registration information center a kind of non-profit that helped [5:39] states manage their electoral roles um there's an electoral election assistance commission another [5:45] bipartisan commission i mean i could go on and on there are multiple things have been created [5:49] to make the system safe and actually the trump administration has pulled them apart one by one [5:56] steve what was the purpose of the speech casting forward yeah well i think you framed it the right way i think [6:05] the speech was all about looking for the speech itself wasn't the main thing last night it wasn't it was [6:11] about 2020 but it wasn't really about 2020 it was about the security of elections in the past but it wasn't [6:16] really about that i think it was all about what's to come and i think it sets up what we could see from [6:22] this president going forward if you look back at the way that president trump has tried to intervene in [6:26] elections in ways that are both you know uncommon illegal unethical sometimes legal um he's very [6:35] concerned about the outcomes in 2026 he doesn't want to be impeached he believes that if democrats [6:39] take the house they will move to impeach him quickly so he's done a number of things in his [6:44] past that suggests he's very open to interfering in the elections in the months to come people have [6:51] talked about this as uh the opening shot in a campaign to regularize or normalize the idea that [7:00] the trump administration and even in the midterms will come in and uh meddle in untoward ways with [7:08] local elections elections or congress is that something that's worth worrying about in your mind [7:13] yeah look i mean at this point if you look back on what the president has done this stuff is not [7:18] hypothetical it's not speculative you look at the fact that he you know has tried to seize voting [7:23] machines in 2020 that he threatened his own vice president that he called the georgia secretary of [7:28] state and asked him to find votes so that he could win in georgia that he summoned a riot on january [7:34] 6 to try to stop certification these are things the president has done they're extreme it's at this [7:40] point if if you think it's alarmist to worry that he's going to do something you're wrong it's naïve [7:47] to worry to not be concerned that he won't and all those things are also more things he did during [7:52] his first term this i wouldn't call it an opening salvo because since the start of the second term [7:58] he has been doing things the justice department has been threatening local elected officials with [8:03] prosecution if they feel like oh you allowed a non-citizen voter to stay on your voter rolls uh the dhs [8:11] just followed that up with more threats today so all along the way also tulsi gabbard going to fulton [8:17] county alongside fbi agents this term to seize ballots yes they were about 2020 but it's all [8:23] about laying the groundwork for actions they may take ahead of the midterms carl i want to talk to [8:28] you about what's going on on the hill but you're right it's just interesting it just strikes me [8:32] listening to you and listening to what you just said about tulsi gabbard the idea that the director [8:36] of national intelligence was dispatched herself to a local voting jurisdiction in georgia [8:43] is quite quite extraordinary and sometimes we lose but novel and unprecedented and we lose that [8:50] that's why it came up in the hearing this week for her for her successor yeah no i want to ask you about [8:55] that hearing i also want to ask you at the end of the speech carl he he called for republicans to pass [9:00] the the save america act with what he's calling the save america act um doesn't seem likely that he's [9:06] going to get his save america act a what what is it and b what is the general kenner of the [9:13] conversations you're hearing among republicans on the hill about this this hard pivot to talking about [9:19] 2020 and and and and forward the save america act has become a big priority of the president it would [9:25] change some election rules probably make it harder for people to uh register to vote and vote require id [9:31] citizenship really crack down on vote by mail which of course is a huge thing in a lot of states well [9:37] when you say citizenship only citizens you would have to prove your citizenship to register to vote [9:43] and it can make it harder for married women whose names are different how that and how that would be [9:48] sort of enforced so the and it's stuck in the senate because the democrats don't want anything to do [9:55] with this and and the republicans despite the president's regular uh urging them to get rid of [10:02] the filibuster john thune does not want to get rid of the filibuster over this yeah certain or at all [10:07] but certainly not over this so there's a lot going on so today talking to republicans you know they they [10:13] wish the president would move on from this right it's it's not going it's not going to happen it's just [10:18] causing them a lot of grief but they were also really interesting to me you know we all know these big [10:25] presidential set pieces usually come with a big coordinated effort with the hill and everybody [10:31] talks and the statements to bolster well the silence was deafening except for the people who said i talked [10:37] to lisa murkowski she's like i'm underwhelmed by this it was nothing new john cornyn at an event said [10:44] this is all old stuff they weren't moved by this at all right so you know republicans traditionally want [10:51] states to run the elections they don't want the federal government to run the elections so and then [10:57] lastly on kind of what you were talking about so mark wayne mullen uh followed up the speech today [11:03] with the briefing the new secretary homeland security and we had been hearing a lot before the speech that [11:09] the president was going to say more than he said last night because you're right he didn't say they have [11:15] changed votes mark wayne mullen kind of picked up where trump left off last night today saying we know [11:21] countries have the ability to change votes even though i'm not sure that's true and that you know [11:27] we might go out and arrest state elections officials who don't cooperate with us so i mean obviously that's [11:34] taking it to a another right level entirely he did say it now on the other hand democrats are really [11:41] preparing for this because they think this is coming they're all organized they have a lot going [11:47] on to get ready for i want to talk about the non the the non-political part of that the organization [11:52] that you're talking about but i also want to ask you about the the politics of watch uh watch this uh [11:58] for a moment this is some democrats talking about what's going on do you deny that joe biden won the [12:06] 2020 election who won the 2020 election the 2020 election the 2020 election who won the 2020 election [12:15] the point being the democrats seem to think that there's a way to capitalize on this obsession yeah [12:23] and my question to you is how how much are they going to jujitsu this in a kind of way and take that [12:30] obsession and turn it against don ossoff who you saw there at the end from georgia uh kind of expected [12:36] to be a target of the speech last night and wasn't but he has turned this into a blockbuster for him [12:42] really kind of elevating his presence out there uh yeah so i think they see this as a rallying cry [12:49] uh you know the more that they see the admit that they can tell voters the administration's trying to [12:54] take away your vote your ability to vote it rallies people they think so in some ways they think it's a [13:01] benefit but they're all they're seriously concerned about what might happen after the election with [13:07] seating members and uh there's a lot because i think it's really important to think understand [13:12] that this is not just about what happens before the election it's about creating a narrative about [13:17] what will happen after and so the reason they're talking about non-citizens voting even though study [13:23] after study after study shows that almost no non-citizens ever vote including heritage foundation studies [13:29] the reason they're doing that is that when they get a result they don't like they will say [13:34] non-citizens voted like we said they were going to so it's a preparation and just to me more [13:39] important than the democrats asking was clayton's non-answer was clayton not was essentially refusing [13:45] to say that joe biden won the election and again we were talking about dni director of national [13:49] intelligence that's the position he would be in the current acting one bill poulti just like tulsi [13:55] gabbard he was the reason that the president went forward with releasing all of these declassified [14:01] documents that acting director of national intelligence all of the sources told us at ms now [14:06] was one of the biggest advocates constantly in the president's ear bringing diagrams and telling him we [14:12] need to release these documents and again yes it's not about 2020 ultimately it's about justifying any [14:18] actions they may take right around november after november all around the election let's um let's [14:25] just watch with me for a minute senator gillibrand in the hearing for clayton uh this week you can [14:33] understand why this committee is concerned that you won't say biden won the election because it just [14:39] reeks of this insecurity by the trump administration about election security so when you say election [14:45] security is important to you i want to make sure that you understand the odni has a responsibility [14:50] towards cyber security towards election security that's not about voter fraud but about the [14:57] influence of foreign countries on our election security do you understand that um absolutely [15:05] stay on clayton for a minute he's not a well-known figure you can introduce him a little bit in in [15:10] your answer but what does this tell you this general atmosphere in this specific hearing about his ability [15:18] to be a neutral arbiter and analyst of the facts related to foreign interference right well he has [15:26] no intelligence experience um not that that stops the president from nominating anyone for positions [15:32] that have no experience for what they ultimately have no television experience right i know we can all [15:36] tell yeah i appreciate that no but um he i think that it doesn't bode well for independence uh because [15:45] we have seen that again with his answers to the committee he was not willing to to give a direct [15:53] answer also he was behind the subpoenas of the new york times reporter so i think that he is showing that [15:58] he is willing to do the president's bidding and you know they're talking to an audience of one [16:03] so steve this is a really fascinating question now we're getting into the psychology of this let's [16:10] go to previous presidencies there are certain issues let's say that were no-go issues if you [16:16] didn't agree with the president on x you couldn't you couldn't work for him you could not be opposed to [16:22] the free market and go to work for ronald reagan yeah just a random example um it seems now and it has [16:30] seemed for a while that if you don't play along with the delusion the the the either earnestly felt [16:41] delusion on the president's part or the manufactured delusion that he won 2020 you can't work in this [16:47] administration yeah this is what might be called a novel situation in american democracy i mean [16:53] novel is probably the nicest way to put it um look i think it's very worrisome jay clayton was somebody [16:59] who's widely respected among republicans um republicans not just in the mega world but [17:04] republicans who serious guys serious lawyers yes he has honestly he has a history he has a history [17:10] they're they're never trump republicans i think very highly of him and to watch him you know unwilling [17:16] to answer this very simple question in a straightforward manner okay pure speculation uh i'm asking for but [17:24] what are the chances in your mind that jay clayton someone you've studied believes that joe biden didn't [17:31] win i mean zero no zero right nobody serious nobody serious believes that anymore look remember it's [17:36] important to remember the president's own campaign hands didn't believe that he won the 2020 election [17:42] they were the ones who were telling him his white house counsel was telling his attorney general was [17:46] telling nobody serious believes this and so watch somebody like jay clayton who's going to be taking the [17:51] position that you said that you mentioned not being willing to state the obvious i think is [17:56] really problematic it's also the case we should point out that in interviews not just the high [18:02] level not just in senate hearings but in interviews of low level employees being hired by the administration [18:08] they too are asked usually as the first question did donald trump win the 2020 election they have to [18:14] say yes well that's what i mean it's become the equivalent in 1942 of saying to somebody who wants to work [18:19] in the administration you do support our war effort against japan and i mean it's a baseline people [18:24] are being regularly polygraphed right it's an authoritarian test well this is what i wanted to ask [18:28] and you go go into this because you have broad experience covering elections and threats to democracy [18:34] in other countries including other countries that have experienced authoritarianism what are you seeing [18:39] here that's novel and what are you seeing here that's not so novel it's not at all novel that there [18:46] is a kind of myth or a lie that everybody has to pay lip service to in order to demonstrate their [18:53] loyalty so trump also at some level knows it's a lie or he and he but he's making people go along with [19:01] a lie because that proves they'll be loyal to him no matter what and that they won't they won't they're [19:06] not bothered by reality by law by anything else well in this one all the way to all the judicial nominees [19:12] have been caught in the same trap they have to say it now the thing about mr clayton democrats wanted [19:18] to support him and move him along quickly because they want to replace the acting director right in [19:23] there but this that hurt him yeah he he that hearing hurt him with democrats and he's not going to get the [19:29] democratic votes that he would have before one last question on this steve the does it mean anything [19:35] that the president didn't outright say last night on thursday on his speech in his speech that the 2020 [19:41] election was stolen i mean he didn't do the usual he used the words rigged and stolen full full monte [19:48] no but it wasn't but he didn't go in you're right he didn't go he didn't go into detail and he didn't [19:52] spin the crazy conspiracy he didn't get into venezuela some of the things that we were right to believe [19:56] he might yeah i think it's very stuck to a script that had been written with him but well and it comes [20:02] after the administration has gone to great lengths i mean we talked about tulsi gabbard going to georgia [20:07] to seize ballots to to do deep investigations of what had happened in 2020 and the fact that they've [20:13] been focused on this that this is what keeps the president up at night that they've spent time and [20:18] attention on this and that in this moment the president didn't make that case i think is pretty [20:24] telling right although i will say in in one of my encounters with the president i asked him you know [20:29] why can't you drop this you're already the most successful american politician of the 21st century [20:35] you've won two elections and and he said three and i said exactly why do you have to and he said it [20:41] was very interesting i thought this was interesting psychologically he said i don't want to keep [20:45] bringing this up but i believe in the truth so deeply that i feel that i can't let people lie [20:50] about who won in 2020. it was and and to go to your point we don't know if he believes it or if he [20:57] believes that he believes it or some kind of it's it's it's too uh it's it's a very complicated thing but [21:03] the point of fact is that it is the central preoccupation and it's influencing a lot of [21:08] events and it happened and it's going to influence the midterm but if i could just add one more thing [21:12] because a source uh close to the white house who used to work in the white house told me that there [21:17] are more people like clayton maybe who don't believe it around him including in the white house right now [21:23] but they will not stick their heads out because they know that this is the one thing that he wants that [21:29] he believes this is the red so even if they don't want pulty in the oval talking to the president [21:35] convincing him to declassify all these documents they are not willing to fight on it right carl i [21:40] want to turn to the death of senator lindsey graham the untimely death of senator lindsey graham one of [21:45] the most influential members of the senate one of the most influential allies of of donald trump talk about [21:50] his legacy for a minute well i mean definitely a big character in the senate that has fewer of them [21:56] these days you know he was he filled a lot of roles he was a deal maker but he was also uh hard right [22:03] on foreign policy very uh you know pro u.s intervention uh he obviously learned at the knee of john mccain [22:12] and joe lieberman traveling the world trying to insert themselves into all these foreign policy disputes [22:20] very the the senate was rocked by this just i mean people were really kind of stunned uh john thune [22:27] relied on lindsey graham as a conduit to the white house so you know the question about lindsey graham is [22:34] also what happened to lindsey graham right someone who had criticized uh the president so harshly ran [22:41] against him uh sort of acted like after january 6 that he was going to break with the president and [22:47] didn't break with them uh lindsey graham as i said in that story and a lot of people have also noted [22:55] he was in search of relevance lindsey graham wanted to be in the middle of everything on capitol hill [22:59] and he kind of did what he had succeeded at that to stay in the middle of it and part of that was uh you [23:06] know appeasing the president and having a relationship with him now members on both sides give him credit [23:13] for keeping president trump and the administration it behind the ukraine when there was a lot of [23:21] pressure uh on the outside not and you've thought about this last word to you on this a lot of us [23:28] met lindsey graham when he was this sidekick wingman sancho panza to john mccain a man who loathed [23:36] donald trump and everything that donald trump stood for you've written a lot about this new age of [23:41] politics um how do you interpret lindsey graham's legacy i think lindsey graham will be remembered [23:49] for only one thing in the end and it won't be ukraine and it won't be iran support for ukraine [23:54] yes it won't be about any or anything to do with foreign policy it will be [23:58] his decision to abandon the ideals that he held for so long he was very loyal to the military he had an [24:06] idea of propriety and politics he had an idea of america playing a role as a leading democracy in [24:13] the world he abandoned all of those things in exchange for having power and influence and helping [24:19] to legitimate donald trump and i really think in the long run of history that's how he'll be remembered [24:25] one last question to you on the ukraine piece this is a blow to the ukraine cause [24:33] on the hill is that fair to say it's it's not clear to me that he made that much difference you [24:38] know he had this sanctions bill um almost everything in the sanctions bill that would put sanctions on [24:44] russia can be done without the bill so it was more of a symbolic game rather than real influence as far [24:50] as i could see well carl you're you're definitely right that he was larger than life in a senate that [24:56] seems to be getting smaller yeah the characters aren't quite there the way they used to be and [25:03] you know and he was actually love him or hate him he was a very funny person right and there was a lot [25:08] of humor uh with him and now his sister uh is serving in his stead and we'll see what happens there [25:15] right we are going to have to leave it there uh i'm sorry to cut the conversation off but i want to [25:20] thank our guests for joining me and thank you at home for watching us you can read ann's story on [25:25] lindseygram's legacy at the atlantic.com i'm jeffrey goldberg good night from washington corporate [25:32] funding for washington week with the atlantic is provided by consumer cellular additional funding [25:41] is provided by ku and patricia ewan for the ewan foundation committed to bridging cultural differences [25:48] in our communities sandra and carl delay magnuson rose herschel and andy shrieves robert and susan [25:56] rosenbaum jay and sharon rockefeller charles hamowy through the charles hamowy fund steve and marilyn [26:05] kerman leonard and norma chlorifying and my contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you thank you