Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Mitch McConnell says impeachment ought to
Speaker 1: be rare and that it's not good for the country.
Speaker 1: I wonder what else is not good for the country.
Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today, Democracy Dockets.
Speaker 1: Mark Elias joins us to talk about the latest voting
Speaker 1: rights issues, including Ohio's Issue one. But first we have
Speaker 1: the one and only Mary Trump Shows.
Speaker 2: Mary Trump.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Mary Trump, Thanks.
Speaker 2: Billy, How are you? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm actually in Europe right now and I'm
Speaker 1: coming home tomorrow and I've been We've.
Speaker 2: Been on quote unquote vacation.
Speaker 1: But so because it was on vacation, I was at
Speaker 1: a television studio doing a television hit because that's what
Speaker 1: one does on vacation.
Speaker 2: And producer was like, the.
Speaker 1: Host goes like, well, I mean, this is history, this
Speaker 1: is historic, and I was like, it's happened three other times.
Speaker 2: This always happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I We're all a little bit iner to this
Speaker 3: at this point, I think, And that's.
Speaker 1: A problem, right, And I'm talking about the new federal
Speaker 1: indictment for Donald Trump, the one where we finally get
Speaker 1: to see he's in trouble for doing all the stuff
Speaker 1: we saw around the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 3: Yes, almost three years later. It's troubling for a couple
Speaker 3: of reasons. And I'm with you in the sense that
Speaker 3: every time something like this steppens, I feel less. I
Speaker 3: felt nothing about this indictment except okay, this could have
Speaker 3: happened a year and a half ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: I didn't feel that it was anything to be happy about,
Speaker 3: or solemn about or anything. So the problem there is
Speaker 3: that it's just another way in which Donald manages expectations
Speaker 3: in his favor. You see this with his all caps,
Speaker 3: insane tweets. He says the most vile, vicious, violent things,
Speaker 3: and people shrug and say, yeah, well, I mean, I
Speaker 3: guess that's just what we would expect. If it were
Speaker 3: anybody else, we would do something about it. But it's him,
Speaker 3: so he keeps getting away with it, him pushing the envelope.
Speaker 3: And by the same token, because this is the third indictment,
Speaker 3: I now see people saying, well, this is so much
Speaker 3: more serious than the other two.
Speaker 2: Which is just false.
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, it's incredibly serious, but you cannot tell
Speaker 3: me that we know enough yet to say that the
Speaker 3: stealing of national security doc classified national security documents is
Speaker 3: a big deal. We don't know what he did anything
Speaker 3: with them, if he did anything with them, if he
Speaker 3: implicated anybody because he stole them and potentially showed them.
Speaker 2: To our enemies or what have you.
Speaker 3: And I'm also really tired of people referring to the
Speaker 3: New York case as.
Speaker 2: You know, hush money.
Speaker 3: It was an attempt at election fraud and potentially successful
Speaker 3: attempt at election fraud. So you know, it's once again,
Speaker 3: none of it's cumulative. It's like, oh, well, this terrible
Speaker 3: thing happened and has been replaced by the next terrible
Speaker 3: thing that happened and has been forgotten.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and that's that's also one of his strategies.
Speaker 3: It's, you know, just flooding the zone, which is I
Speaker 3: guess what Steve benn And has counseled him to.
Speaker 2: Do time and time again.
Speaker 1: It's funny though, because it's like, so here, you are
Speaker 1: trained psychologist and also niece of the defendant, do you
Speaker 1: find like the thing I'm struck by with him is
Speaker 1: that he is like, it's almost and it's funny because
Speaker 1: it's like, I.
Speaker 2: Come from a crazy kind of.
Speaker 1: Family, not quite not quite as ethically so as you.
Speaker 1: But do you feel like what you're seeing here is
Speaker 1: a person who has been able to really run roughshow
Speaker 1: through American democracy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just as he's run roughshot over everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's been allowed to his whole life. And that's
Speaker 2: the problem here.
Speaker 3: I don't give a shit about Donald anymore in the
Speaker 3: sense that I haven't for a long time felt that
Speaker 3: he was the problem. The problem is anybody who enables him.
Speaker 2: Do I feel that he has deteriorated? Yeah, I do.
Speaker 3: I think that his impulse control is very compromised. But
Speaker 3: we also have to remember that sometimes it is just strategy.
Speaker 3: One of his negotiating strategy used to be to come
Speaker 3: into a boardroom when a deal was about to be
Speaker 3: signed and actually throw a temper tantrum until the other side,
Speaker 3: which was pressed by time constraints, agreed to a deal
Speaker 3: that was less in their favor than the original deal
Speaker 3: he'd agree to. You know, so a lot of what
Speaker 3: he's doing is just throwing temper tantrums. Okay, that's what
Speaker 3: he does. Is it strategic or is it simply because
Speaker 3: he's decompensating. I don't care. What I care about is
Speaker 3: a legal system that allows him to endanger the lives
Speaker 3: of potential jurors, prosecutors, judges, and their families. What the
Speaker 3: fuck is happening?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Why is he allowed to engage in the kind of
Speaker 3: rhetoric that gets people killed?
Speaker 1: It seems like to me he is both diminished and inevitable.
Speaker 2: No, I love that. I mean, I hate it.
Speaker 1: But it's brilliant, right, I mean, that's the thing I'm
Speaker 1: struck by. It's like he doesn't have the same power
Speaker 1: he used to. You know, it used to be he
Speaker 1: would tweet about you and you would get one hundred
Speaker 1: death threats, right, you'd have people going into hiding. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't And again I'm not saying that that that,
Speaker 1: you know, what he does do now is somehow better.
Speaker 1: It's just that he doesn't have the same kind of army,
Speaker 1: largely because a lot of those people went to jail
Speaker 1: and they have actually been punished. But it's just interesting
Speaker 1: to me because so you know, you saw that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you saw the video of him with this
Speaker 1: second federal indictment. And it's just him and one other person. No,
Speaker 1: you know, none of the kids, none of the pomp
Speaker 1: you know, just this sort of seventy seven year old
Speaker 1: man going in for his third indictment, and yet he
Speaker 1: is crushing everyone else in the polls. And Republicans are
Speaker 1: you know, you see Mitch McConnell, who is you know,
Speaker 1: the man who made all his dreams come true, stole
Speaker 1: three Supreme Court seats for him being booed and screamed that.
Speaker 2: He should retire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, listen, this is this is the bed the Republican
Speaker 3: Party has made for itself. And what I find fascinating,
Speaker 3: and they deserve every all of it, for sure, Yes,
Speaker 3: of course, exactly what I find fascinating is their lack
Speaker 3: of ability to see beyond their own egos, their own narcissism,
Speaker 3: and their own short term victories. And I think part
Speaker 3: of that is because their goal is to destroy American
Speaker 3: democracy now, because this may be their last attempt for
Speaker 3: them to claim to cling to power, no matter how illegitimately.
Speaker 3: But somebody like Dessantis, if he could get out of
Speaker 3: his out of his own way, I would have understood
Speaker 3: that the thing to do is wait or preferably the
Speaker 3: candidates not Donald, would have understood that this is their
Speaker 3: opportunity to change course and attack him as the pathetic
Speaker 3: loser he is, and not just as loser personally, but
Speaker 3: a loser for the Republican Party, because otherwise they risk
Speaker 3: losing everything. You know, if they were willing to attack
Speaker 3: him in the way he deserves to be attacked by
Speaker 3: his opponents in the primary, they won't win the presidency
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty four, but it sets them up better
Speaker 3: going forward, especially as there's no at the moment, no
Speaker 3: lear successor to Biden, even though of course there should be,
Speaker 3: but you know, racism and misogyny reign supreme in America.
Speaker 3: That part's also just very weird to me that the reluctance,
Speaker 3: because the base is the base, is what are they
Speaker 3: going to do if Donald loses the primary or is
Speaker 3: it running?
Speaker 2: Are they just going to stay home? I don't think so. Right.
Speaker 1: The thing that is such an interesting problem that Republicans
Speaker 1: have now is they have this candidate who has lost
Speaker 1: them every election since twenty sixteen, every single one including
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen except for a technicality, right exactly, and they
Speaker 1: are pretty sure they're going to be okay, which, look,
Speaker 1: maybe they will be. The electoral colleges is a funny thing.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because I think that the thing that
Speaker 1: it's been just so disappointing about these Republicans, and look,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are so many things to be disappointed
Speaker 1: with this Republican party, but the thing that I've been
Speaker 1: strupt by is just how stupid they are. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody gets behind If they had found a normal candidate
Speaker 1: and gotten everyone behind him like Democrats did in twenty twenty, right,
Speaker 1: I mean they there was a moment where it became
Speaker 1: clear that everyone was going to have to figure out
Speaker 1: who the most electable candidate was and get behind them.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, even though a lot of
Speaker 1: people loved Elizabeth Warren and a lot of people loved
Speaker 1: Mayor Pete and this and that, they just were like,
Speaker 1: we just have to get behind the guy who can win.
Speaker 1: And the calculus was that Joe Biden was the guy
Speaker 1: who could win. And so Democrats fell in line because
Speaker 1: they did not want to lose. And I don't think
Speaker 1: of Democrats as such mercenaries, but these Republicans are mass.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And as for twenty twenty, in Biden. I think
Speaker 3: he was like my seventh choice in the primary. But
Speaker 3: when it became clear right that he could win right well,
Speaker 3: or that he was going to win the nomination for sure,
Speaker 3: we fell in line, which you know, what's the expression,
Speaker 3: Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love. For the
Speaker 3: first time perhaps that ever, we fell in line because
Speaker 3: we understood what was at stake.
Speaker 2: And then I think it was.
Speaker 3: The combination of the two, because Joe Biden is a
Speaker 3: decent human being who cares about American democracy. You know,
Speaker 3: he may go about trying to save it in a
Speaker 3: way that I don't necessarily think is the most effective way,
Speaker 3: but he's been the best president of my lifetime.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm in London right now. They keep raising the
Speaker 1: interest rates in this country. They are completely screwed. I mean,
Speaker 1: we are. You know, we have banks saying that they're
Speaker 1: going to lower you know, they're going to raise the projections.
Speaker 1: Now they're not seeing a recession, they're seeing a soft landing,
Speaker 1: and that was unthinkable two years ago. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: building chips, they're building trains. I mean, they're not Our
Speaker 1: inflation is controlled. I mean, I'm sorry, but if a
Speaker 1: Republican had done this, I would be fucking impressed too.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's unbelievable. It is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I do think that the Guide does not get a
Speaker 1: ton of credit for any of that, and the polling
Speaker 1: is still pretty scary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not going to pay attention to pulls quite yet,
Speaker 3: although we always have to understand that the mainstream media
Speaker 3: is not our friend and shockingly is not the friend
Speaker 3: of democracy. Which it's weird because journalism needs a democracy
Speaker 3: in order to strive. But I guess if the bottom
Speaker 3: line is really the only thing you care about, you
Speaker 3: don't really care about journalism either. But I think with
Speaker 3: the Republicans, they continue to make the same calculus. Dat
Speaker 3: don't need Trumpism so called, to scale because they're not
Speaker 3: going after a majority. This is a policy free party
Speaker 3: of grievance, racism, misogyny, and anti immigrant hatred and increasingly
Speaker 3: LGBTQ plus hatred. They have no ideas beyond cutting taxes
Speaker 3: for obscenely wealthy people and dictating people. So I think
Speaker 3: they must on some level understand that it's too late
Speaker 3: for them to become a party of policy, so they
Speaker 3: have to much like Donald does, they have to double
Speaker 3: down on the things that turns most people off but
Speaker 3: keeps enough people in the game fighting for them that
Speaker 3: if they can just cheat around the edges, it might
Speaker 3: be enough. You know, those electoral College numbers in twenty
Speaker 3: sixteen and twenty twenty are the things that should be
Speaker 3: keeping all of us up at night, because Joe Biden
Speaker 3: didn't win by eight million votes. He won by like
Speaker 3: seventy seven thousand or forty four thousand or some horrifyingly
Speaker 3: tiny number. So I think that's why we see we
Speaker 3: see them making the kinds of moves they're making in Ohio,
Speaker 3: for example, and making it more and more difficult for
Speaker 3: ballot initiatives that would get people to the polls for
Speaker 3: Democratic initiatives harder and harder. They're making Alabama just to
Speaker 3: all the Supreme Court to take a flying leap because
Speaker 3: they are not going to change their congressional map, denying
Speaker 3: Democrats at least one or two seats. That's what they're
Speaker 3: going to keep doing because they know that's their only chance.
Speaker 3: So I don't know that it's stupidity as much as
Speaker 3: it's cravenness. And I mean it's stupid, like I think
Speaker 3: that you know, you look at people like Jared Kushner
Speaker 3: or Rodsentis or Mike Penz. Narcissism in its extreme form
Speaker 3: makes you stupid. Yeah, you know the fact that Mike
Speaker 3: Pence thinks that he can win the presidency, the fact
Speaker 3: that Radescanthus thought this was the time for him to run,
Speaker 3: these are just bizarrely idiotic moves, right. But I think
Speaker 3: the larger issue with the word dangerous one is they
Speaker 3: have no principal core principles. They have no they don't
Speaker 3: care about American democracy. They only care about their own power.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And it is kind of It's a pretty
Speaker 1: stark realization.
Speaker 2: So let me ask you.
Speaker 1: I always feel like I hate to ask you this,
Speaker 1: but I feel like you have an insight here.
Speaker 2: Where does Cisco? What does he do? I think I
Speaker 2: have an idea, but you tell me you think. I'm
Speaker 2: very curious to see what happens tomorrow.
Speaker 3: In the hearing, I thought it was a good sign
Speaker 3: that the prosecution in DC flagged it for the judge
Speaker 3: and that they made the decision to get a protective order.
Speaker 3: I thought it was a good thing that the judge
Speaker 3: denied Donald's team where they needed more time to respond
Speaker 3: to I don't know. It's absurd denied his team's appeal
Speaker 3: to have it delayed. So I'm very curious to see
Speaker 3: what happens there, and then it's hopefully it's something serious
Speaker 3: enough that it will put Donald in a situation position
Speaker 3: of having to change his behavior.
Speaker 2: I don't think he can anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think he'll continue to double down,
Speaker 3: triple down, quadruple down on his egregious behaviors because at
Speaker 3: some level he knows that's all he's got left. You know,
Speaker 3: he's nothing else to offer. It's just grift and grievance
Speaker 3: and this pretense that somehow he's saving everybody else from
Speaker 3: being pursued by the DOJ. I personally don't worry about
Speaker 3: that because I haven't betrayed my country and I haven't
Speaker 3: stolen classified. Maybe maybe his base has done things that
Speaker 3: we're not aware, but you know, he's really the only
Speaker 3: person who's whose future and freedom are on the line here.
Speaker 3: But he knows what's worked because he's always gotten away
Speaker 3: with it, and it will be very interesting to see
Speaker 3: it for the first time in over seven decades. This
Speaker 3: person is told this much and no more, and if
Speaker 3: you cross that line, we'll see you in jail, right,
Speaker 3: or you know, we'll ask you to put up a
Speaker 3: balie of hundreds of a mill I don't know what
Speaker 3: her I don't know what the recourse is here, but
Speaker 3: I think he's already setting up this this dichotomy here.
Speaker 3: Either I get to say whatever I want because First Amendment,
Speaker 3: or I'm going to get persecuted for exercising in my
Speaker 3: first Amendment rate to free speech and then martyred. I
Speaker 3: think that's what he's banking on, and I don't think
Speaker 3: he would be wrong quite honestly, Mary.
Speaker 1: Trump, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: You are the best.
Speaker 4: Thanks Will I.
Speaker 2: I'm really happy to be here with you.
Speaker 1: Mark Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics.
Speaker 4: Mark, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Delighted to have you so at First, I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about something that when this podcast airs,
Speaker 1: will be decided, though it seems like it's happening right now,
Speaker 1: which is this Ohio vote.
Speaker 5: Look, the Republicans as a whole in this country are
Speaker 5: no longer a majority party, and they know that they
Speaker 5: no longer actually in most areas, seek to compete in
Speaker 5: arena as. We're getting fifty percent of the vote is
Speaker 5: enough to win. So if you think about their strategy
Speaker 5: around the Electoral College or the Senate, it's all around
Speaker 5: how do they win majority power with a minority of voters.
Speaker 5: So it's it's no surprise that in Ohio, where Democrats
Speaker 5: and Progressives put a pro choice ballot initiative on the ballot,
Speaker 5: that the Republican reaction was to then try to change
Speaker 5: the threshold for a ballot initiative passing from fifty percent
Speaker 5: to sixty percent because they know they will lose in
Speaker 5: a head to head on the choice issue where the
Speaker 5: threshold is fifty percent.
Speaker 1: So let's talk for a minute about what's happening in Alabama,
Speaker 1: because we have a Republican state party which is going
Speaker 1: against the Supreme Court, the very conspervative Supreme Court.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and by the way, under appreciate created in this
Speaker 5: whole Alabama drama is the fact that the three judge
Speaker 5: panel right the trial court, which is in this case
Speaker 5: a three judge panel, is two judges appointed by Donald
Speaker 5: Trump and one who was originally appointed by Ronald Reagan. Right,
Speaker 5: So so it's really something. But Alabama is showing that
Speaker 5: despite Chief Justice Roberts saying times have changed, you know.
Speaker 5: That was his phrase in the Shelby County case. Apparently
Speaker 5: times didn't change that much in Alabama.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, but I mean, is there any mechanism
Speaker 1: to force them to make that district or now?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So look what happened is for those folks who have
Speaker 5: not been sort of following this blow by blow, Alabama
Speaker 5: created its congressional district. It created one majority black district.
Speaker 4: It was sued.
Speaker 5: My law firm was among those who brought the litigation
Speaker 5: under the Voting Rights Act, saying that there needs to
Speaker 5: be two majority black district A three judge panel, as
Speaker 5: I pointed out, two of whom two judges of whom
Speaker 5: were appointed by former President Trump, agreed there needs to
Speaker 5: be a second majority black district. Alabama went to the
Speaker 5: US Brief Court thinking they'd get relief from it there.
Speaker 4: They didn't.
Speaker 5: The Supreme Court upheld that there needed to be two
Speaker 5: majority black districts. So Alabama, when the case came back
Speaker 5: down and it was now time for Alabama to draw
Speaker 5: two majority black districts, what did it do. It drew
Speaker 5: one majority black district. The second closest to a majority
Speaker 5: was thirty nine percent. So that's where things stand right
Speaker 5: now in court. The next step will be that the
Speaker 5: trial court will hold a hearing on August fourteenth to
Speaker 5: see whether a district that is thirty nine percent is
Speaker 5: greater than fifty percent, which the court will find it isn't,
Speaker 5: at which point I think it's pretty clear the trial
Speaker 5: court will have its own special master draw district. It's
Speaker 5: already made preparations for its own expert called the special Master,
Speaker 5: but it's essentially a professor who knows how to use
Speaker 5: mapping software. And so I think the way this drama
Speaker 5: ends in Alabama is the legislature gets to say it
Speaker 5: defied the court's order and the court winds up having
Speaker 5: its own expert drawing you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they've really had to twist Alabama's arm.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's more than twist its arm. I mean.
Speaker 5: The thing about the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County,
Speaker 5: when the Supreme Courts had times changed, is that one
Speaker 5: of the things that Chief Justice said had changed is
Speaker 5: that you no longer had these predominantly Southern states disobey
Speaker 5: or violating court decrees. Well, that's what we've seen here, right.
Speaker 5: It's Alabama was under a court order to draw a
Speaker 5: to draw two majority black districts. And you know, as
Speaker 5: I as I said, when they didn't, you know, that
Speaker 5: wasn't an invitation, wasn't you know? They were in invited
Speaker 5: to do it and they could either come to a
Speaker 5: dinner party or not. They were ordered to do it,
Speaker 5: And when you fail to comply with an order, that's
Speaker 5: a serious thing.
Speaker 4: But that's where we are.
Speaker 5: States like Alabama don't want to comply with the Voting
Speaker 5: Rights Act and are being forced to do so, which
Speaker 5: looks a lot like times not having changed.
Speaker 1: You, right, and also just super upsetting as a person
Speaker 1: who lives in democracy. So right now we are in
Speaker 1: this run up to twenty four, we're seeing Republicans quietly
Speaker 1: trying to sort of make it so their guy can win.
Speaker 1: What are the things you're seeing that are really worrying?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So look, I think the way I describe it
Speaker 5: is that Republicans are trying to make it harder to vote,
Speaker 5: an easier to cheat. The harder to vote is the
Speaker 5: voter supression liss.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: We've seen them in state after state enact laws that
Speaker 5: target black voters, other minority voters, and young voters by
Speaker 5: throwing barriers up that are disproportionately aimed at them, either
Speaker 5: because they taught target urban areas that tend to have
Speaker 5: more Democrats, or because they target college campuses which tend
Speaker 5: to have young voters who tend to be Democrats. So
Speaker 5: we continue to see that, and that has been a
Speaker 5: steady drum beat now since everyone will remember in two
Speaker 5: thousand and one when Georgia passed it's omnipus voter supression
Speaker 5: law in the Major League Baseball moved it's All.
Speaker 4: Star game in Texas. It's right all that.
Speaker 5: But the second part, though, I think molly, is the
Speaker 5: part that I think people don't pay enough attention to,
Speaker 5: which is that Republicans are trying to make it easier
Speaker 5: to cheat. And what do I mean by that all
Speaker 5: of these elections of version methods that they are engaged in.
Speaker 5: What Donald Trump did in twenty twenty was he tried
Speaker 5: to cheat, right at the end of it all, he
Speaker 5: tried to cheat. And when you have fake electors, that's
Speaker 5: just trying to cheat. And when you see election officials
Speaker 5: at the local level, their office is being infiltrated by
Speaker 5: these election deniers who are stealing data or otherwise in
Speaker 5: gauge in those kinds of behaviors. They're just cheating. So
Speaker 5: I think we need to be prepared not just for
Speaker 5: voter suppression, but for this kind of election subversion that
Speaker 5: unfortunately has become quite normalized in the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does seem to me like that A lot
Speaker 1: of the Trump defense now with these fake electors is
Speaker 1: you know, there's sort of almost like is democracy really
Speaker 1: so great anyway?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think you see, you know, particularly
Speaker 5: among the apologists for Trump in the legal profession, I mean,
Speaker 5: you know, it's it is no surprise that when you
Speaker 5: look at the the Trump indictment in BC, that at
Speaker 5: least five and potentially six or six of the co conspirators,
Speaker 5: the unindicted co conspirators were lawyers, and those lawyers and
Speaker 5: others on the outside are pretty much saying, you know,
Speaker 5: maybe this whole free and fair election thing isn't all
Speaker 5: it's cracked up to me.
Speaker 2: Right, that's in itself pretty shocking.
Speaker 4: It is shocking.
Speaker 5: It is unfortunate in so many respects, but it is
Speaker 5: extremely dangerous for the future of our country, right, I mean, fundamentally,
Speaker 5: if one of the two parties in a two party
Speaker 5: system and one of the problems. People point to other
Speaker 5: countries and say that there have been right wing parties
Speaker 5: La penn in France or or you know whoever. But
Speaker 5: those are multi party systems, so you know, those systems
Speaker 5: can correct hopefully over time. But in a two party system,
Speaker 5: when one of the two parties is essentially no longer
Speaker 5: committed to democracy and you know, majoritarian rule, it's extremely
Speaker 5: dangerous because how do you have how do you have
Speaker 5: elections where inevitably Republicans are going to win sometimes where
Speaker 5: the consequence of that may be these extremely anti democratic results.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is so incredibly I mean, it just seems
Speaker 1: like there's no way. I mean, right now we've sort
Speaker 1: of relied on Democrats winning elections. But if God forbid
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen. I mean, I think a lot about
Speaker 1: those midterms because you know, I thought, if Carrie Lake
Speaker 1: ends up being governor of Arizona, we will never have
Speaker 1: another free and fair election in Arizona. You know, those
Speaker 1: points will not go to whoever wins, They'll go to
Speaker 1: the Republican.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, one of the things that people may or
Speaker 5: may not know is, you know, in this country, in
Speaker 5: order to take office, whether it's president, or Senate or House,
Speaker 5: or governor or whatever, you need to be certified the winner,
Speaker 5: and in most states the governor is integral to that.
Speaker 5: For presidential the governor is integral to it in every state. Right,
Speaker 5: these certificates that get sent to the National Archive and
Speaker 5: get sent ultimately to the powders to be counted have
Speaker 5: to be signed by the governor of the state. To
Speaker 5: take a Senate seat has to be signed by the
Speaker 5: governor and counter signed by the Secretary State. So I
Speaker 5: think it is a real I think it was a
Speaker 5: real risk with a carry lake, and a real risk
Speaker 5: in the future that if you get an election deni
Speaker 5: er in office, they simply will refuse to sign the
Speaker 5: certification necessary for a Democrat to take an office.
Speaker 1: Right, and you could see a place where Republicans then decide,
Speaker 1: this is how we're going to do it. Now, you
Speaker 1: were talking about Republicans cheating, what are the ways in
Speaker 1: which they're cheating.
Speaker 5: So, look, I think that they are cheating in a
Speaker 5: couple of ways. First is, I would argue that the
Speaker 5: shenanigans we've seen in Ohio of raising the threshold from
Speaker 5: fifty percent to sixty percent or trying to do that
Speaker 5: is in itself a form of cheating, right, It is
Speaker 5: moving at election threshold in a way that is fundamentally
Speaker 5: anti demotic. I think the more conventional sense of cheating
Speaker 5: that people have are what the Republicans are doing around
Speaker 5: the takeover of local election offices. This periodically jumps up
Speaker 5: on the national radar screen, but because it's so diffuse,
Speaker 5: because it's all localized at the county or subcounty level,
Speaker 5: it oftentimes gets overlooked. But you know, we have whole
Speaker 5: counties in America now that are administered by election and
Speaker 5: we saw in the midterms as smoothly as they went otherwise.
Speaker 5: You know, we my firm had to sue Coache's County
Speaker 5: Arizona because Coache's carrier and Arizona was not going to
Speaker 5: accurately count and certify election results. We had to sue
Speaker 5: a county in Pennsylvania because it was refusing to certify
Speaker 5: accurate election results. Those kinds of activities at the local
Speaker 5: level are a form of cheat. And of course, you know,
Speaker 5: I just have to add real quickly, there as an
Speaker 5: article in pro Publica about the mass voter challenges that
Speaker 5: we see Republicans engaged in states like Georgia, and that also,
Speaker 5: I would argue as a former chief.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say, what are you looking at now
Speaker 1: as we are in this run up?
Speaker 5: We are looking at the states that in twenty twenty
Speaker 5: three seem to be being targeted by Republicans for new
Speaker 5: voter suppression laws.
Speaker 4: So in Idaho we saw a.
Speaker 5: Law that targets only college students, I mean literally only
Speaker 5: targets college students. In Ohio we saw a law of
Speaker 5: the targets college students, but other groups as well that
Speaker 5: tend to vote more democratic. We've seen Montana pass some
Speaker 5: anti voting laws. North Carolina looks prepared to potentially pass.
Speaker 4: New voter suppresson law.
Speaker 5: So number one, we're kind of always looking out for that,
Speaker 5: But number two, we're trying to We're looking at the
Speaker 5: role of Trump supporting AGA extremists in the administration of
Speaker 5: elections because our system of elections relies on large numbers
Speaker 5: of local election officials and volunteers, and they have been
Speaker 5: under attack for years now, and that system of local
Speaker 5: election administration has been weakened, and so we are looking
Speaker 5: at what we can do in a variety of ways,
Speaker 5: including in court, to try to bolster local election administration
Speaker 5: to make sure we have free and fair elections next year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is the only game in ten right,
Speaker 1: free and fair elections. Mark, I want to ask you,
Speaker 1: do you think that in twenty four that these litigations
Speaker 1: are going to be sort of a regular thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I look, there was more there were more cases filed
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty two than there were in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Think about that, and I think that that will be
Speaker 5: true in twenty twenty four. Both because Republicans every time
Speaker 5: the demography of the country turns further and further against them,
Speaker 5: they have to go to more and more extreme measures
Speaker 5: to figure out how to win elections without a majority
Speaker 5: of the vote. So that requires them to engage in
Speaker 5: more and more extreme tactics. The other thing, though, Molly,
Speaker 5: is we have to acknowledge is that Donald Trump faces prison.
Speaker 5: I watch some of the things he says on TV
Speaker 5: and his lawyers say on TV, and they think it's
Speaker 5: some political thing. Donald Trump has been indicted in two
Speaker 5: federal cases that if he's convicted in either of them
Speaker 5: would normally and I think this instance would would carry
Speaker 5: a term of incarceration. And Donald Trump is a self
Speaker 5: preservationist above all else. So if he was willing to
Speaker 5: go to extreme measures in twenty twenty, just imagine what
Speaker 5: he'll be willing to do in twenty twenty four when
Speaker 5: he thinks that the only way he of avoids that
Speaker 5: is by winning the White House in pardoning.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and also we've seen the very few we've seen
Speaker 1: Republican senators who aren't even running for president going all
Speaker 1: in on I mean, Jade Vance tweeting about how you
Speaker 1: know these cases against Trump are cases against the First Amendment?
Speaker 6: There is almost no one saying left in that part.
Speaker 6: I play this game with folks sometimes. Think of the
Speaker 6: most moderate republic the most pro democracy Republican you can
Speaker 6: in the Congress. That person voted against the John R.
Speaker 6: Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. That person voted against the
Speaker 6: Freedom to Vote Right. For all of the talk about
Speaker 6: Republican moderates, where are they, I mean, on democracy, they
Speaker 6: don't exist. There are a handful of Republicans in the
Speaker 6: House who have f ratings with the NRA. There are
Speaker 6: none of them, zero who voted for any of the
Speaker 6: pro voter bills, including the Voting Rights Restoration Law or
Speaker 6: the Freedom to vote.
Speaker 2: Yeah, unbelievable. Thank you, Mark.
Speaker 4: I hope he'll come back anytime. I loved him. No
Speaker 4: moment o.
Speaker 2: Jesse Cannon, I drunk fast.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump had a little afternoon rally this afternoon, and
Speaker 1: who the crazy was more crazy than usual?
Speaker 2: I feel like, I mean.
Speaker 1: I just think that with Donald Trump, we constantly see
Speaker 1: him doing this same stick and he's doing it now.
Speaker 1: He did it on Hillary Quintin. He continually does it
Speaker 1: for whoever he's in competition with, and now he is
Speaker 1: turned his sights to Fanny Wellis. During this speech, he
Speaker 1: said a lot of lies about Fanny Wellis and they
Speaker 1: were gross and they were racist, and they were disgusting.
Speaker 1: And that is who Donald Trump is, and that is
Speaker 1: who he has always been. And for that little vignette
Speaker 1: is our moment of Fuckery's for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the
Speaker 1: best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
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Speaker 1: for listening.