"The fate of Donald Trump's Republican Party"

0:00Hi there everyone, it's Nicole Wallace. I'm here to tell you about the MS now membership. We're bringing you an experience that lets you connect with all your favorite hosts and a community that cares as much as you do. You can stream live TV, you can join real-time daily discussions, and unlock features that you can't get anywhere else. Direct access, more clarity, all for a stronger democracy. Just visit MS.Now slash membership to join us. Hi there everybody, it's Forefuck in New York. In so many ways this afternoon, the fate of Donald Trump's Republican party in these midterms and beyond rest really simply on one thing. That is preventing the American people from asking themselves one of the most basic questions in all of politics. And my better off than it was two years ago, or two months ago, or two weeks ago, or two days ago.

1:01Because one answer cuts across pretty much every kind of voter and every demographic. Heck now. So no new wars, candidates started a new war. A pevel in the straight-up hormones sent fuel prices to the moon. The cost of diesel this morning reached a record high for the seventh day in a row. According to gas buddy, which tracks these things, the two-day rise in the national average price of gas is now the largest two-day rise since April. If you can afford to drive to the grocery store, guess what prices there are up to 0.7 percent over the year ending in July. Then there's the trade war that Trump started with our allies. There are issues seemingly popping up every single week with the safety of our food supply. And the list goes on and on and on. In fact, it seems the only people who are better off than they were two years ago financially and otherwise are the people closest to Donald Trump himself. So in Dallas this week, Donald Trump is doing everything short of dangling a set of shiny new car keys in front of the assembled audience.

2:04Look over here, he insists and be afraid. Be very, very afraid from the New York Times. Quote at a gathering that fans and foes alike have nicknamed Trump a polusa. The president and his Republican allies spent more time whipping up fears about the specter of socialism and communism and even anarchy. Then they did trumpeting the successes of his administration. Democrats running for Congress were evil. They were communists and anarchists. And they wanted to turn the country into a socialist hellscape. Quite the allegations rich in irony. This Trump also attempted to bribe the whole country last night, offering a so-called dividend to every single adult in America, $5,000 checks. But if and only if Republicans win the House and Senate go figure the math is ludicrous on its face, $245 million American adults, $5,000 each. That's roughly $1.2 trillion and his political reports.

3:04It would quote, dwarf the amount distributed during the COVID pandemic and likely explode the deficit, not to mention what that would do to inflation. But don't worry, Trump says oil and gas prices are going to fall. It's just not going to happen until right after the midterms. So whatever you do, don't ask yourself if you're better off. The future of Trump's Republican party depends on that. That's where we begin today. Democratic pollster and political analyst Cornell Belcher is here. Joining me at the table, political strategist and former senior aid for Hillary for America. Joel Payne's at the table and we have Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan here. He's running for re-election this year to represent New York's Hudson Valley with us at the table. He also previously served in the US Army as a military intelligence officer. I want to start with you and this sort of beyond the disorienting blur of political rhetoric and Dallas. What do you hear from your constituents as being sort of top of mind? Well, you're nothing about this performance in Dallas.

4:08It was the most important thing. My district is a very purple district. It's one of the last battlegrounds left after all the gerrymandering. Folks elected him, as you said in your opening, to stop wars and lower costs. He has skyrocket exploded costs, especially gas. And obviously this war now dragging on the blood and treasure we've expended is infuriating. So my voters see through the BS. They're not distracted by this sort of mirage down in Texas. I mean, that does seem like one of the things that is different. I mean, I've covered Trump for 10 years. I feel like when I'm dead, they'll study my brain to see what that does to a person. But one of the things that is different is that his own voters also see through the mirage this time because you can't spin your way or sort of fill up us or your way in a Fox and Friends interview if he still does those about the price of gas. I mean, you feel it when you fill up and you see it every time we drive through town. Yeah, and he set these in the 2024 election as these measures, right?

5:11And he talked about gas prices obsessively. Now he runs and talks about anything else that he possibly can and puts out all kinds of lies to try to distract us from that. But you're right. The lived reality of constituents in my district has been life is you said heck now. I could think of some other work. I won't say I'm here. They try to keep me clean. Yeah. I mean, you know, you know, you too. So look, so in my district, I have about 30,000 voters in 2024 vote for Trump and me. And I say in very regular touch with them, they are, they feel betrayed. Just straight up betrayed. And once you feel betrayed, there's no going back on that. Well, I mean, and that's the context in which he's offering to pay them off. I mean, I think there was a time where a $5,000 check is appealing, right? Like a check from the government and certainly after an unprecedented global pandemic, you know, it's a different kind of tool. But this is quite obviously money to be paid in service of something

6:11cravingly and cynically political. That that tack you're at Nicole, but I want to surface a few things. So you talked about fear in your open and I want to surface two more terms. Obserty and desire, the absurdity of just what we're seeing. And I was listening earlier in the day to Luc Roswell from the weeknight. There on the ground in Dallas and pointing out how ridiculous it is that look, I think it is a topic worth talking about, but I have to admit I have some hesitance to treat it with any seriousness because it fundamentally lacks seriousness. I mean, we know what the priority of this president is is to help the wealthy and the well-connected is to make sure that the people who got him elected, the people who bankrolled and who continue to bankroll his political operation continue to be well taken care of. So there's an absurdity to the claims that I think belies what we're saying here. But then desire Donald Trump has uniform control of not only government with the trifecta in the house and the Senate and the White House and the Supreme Court, but he also has like an iron grip on this White House,

7:13unlike he did in the first term. If Donald Trump wants to do something, he has demonstrated he will do it. If Donald Trump wants to do this, he can go and advise the head of his government accountability office or his government finance office to go and cut this check. He could go and make this happen to snap his fingers overnight, but it's patently clear that's actually not what Donald Trump is. Well, it's a bribe. I mean, your point is the right one because if he wanted to give the American, every American adult $5,000 today, he could. I mean, that's what makes it a crime, right? It's a bribe. He's only going to write the check if you vote for a Republican. That's right. Just like the point about how oil and gas prices are going to go down after the midterms. It's always conditional because it's always a con. The absurdity of what we saw last night was a con and the con took continue to get the American people to put even a small reservoir of trust in any of the words that he's used. That's what's so fundamentally just outrageous about what we saw on display last night.

8:16You know, Cornell, we've come together and had so many of these conversations about moments that feel like the bottom or that we try to cover as the bottom. We know there is no bottom, but I do want to sort of bring in to focus what's happening in terms of what it says about the Republican Party, of which I was once apart, that they're so feckless that one of the greatest things voters say they don't like about Republican members of Congress is their weakness. The ones that have shown up in Dallas seem to be hanging a lantern around the one thing the voters are saying they hate the most and that is the inability to stand up against Trump's most unpopular tendencies. I mean, what do you think it says that they're actually Republicans there? Well, first, the call I want to stop and say, I don't know what you guys are talking about because I'm going to be rich when I get my doge check, my pair of check, and now this check, I'm going to be rich, but that's the level of hustle.

9:18But it is a hustle and it's a conjo. But here's the sad part that I think the seat is full head, 75% of Americans say that they're there, they're just their salaries are falling behind and flaking. So that's the real sad part. Americans are desperate for support for support for support, for support for support. Some help us here and he's dangling out this con that frankly, I hope Americans don't fall for it anymore, but this ethical and the be truthful and the co I didn't watch him but I watch him being some piece of it, but like I look great deal of Americans, I was watching football last night. But so much of it gives you know so much of my information is actually social media, sort of, be playing pieces of it. And the pieces that we've seen replayed pieces that I caught on it, it does fit the narrative that you're talking about, especially, again, I don't want to bring it up because there's no cringe, were they? Nicole, but if any American saw a Tim Scott last night, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina last night, it is so cringey and bothersome and problematic. And when the majority of Americans want

10:23someone to put a check on Trump, the ideal that these people are so worshipping him in such a way it draws a contrast that helps Democrats, without Democrats even opening up their mouths. So I was watching the Met's game, which had a football score. They blew an eight point lead and then they made it up and then they blew a six point lead. So I too missed it all and caught up this morning. But I want to put up those promises that you joked about waiting for those other checks. If you were in the sort of coalition that trusted Donald Trump at any point, up to an including today, these are the checks you're right now waiting for. $5,000 the bribe that he's going to pay you if the Republican Party defies all of the history of midterms and wins the House and Senate. The $5,000 Doge dividend, which he promised in his unpaid, the $2,000 tariff dividend, which he promised in his unpaid, and then the $5,000 stimulus. So I mean, these are also tests for

11:28people's willingness to be lied to and sort of suckered. And I think I've dragged a lot of you into my fascination with the manosphere. Why did anything that calls itself or allows itself to be called the manosphere? That's not my term, that's theirs. Think that it was manly to be lied to and to be treated like chumps. This seems like another chump test, Cornell. Well, I'm going to show my age and probably Nicole are square in this here, but you know, what a fool believes. He sees. Right. But I think a lot of it is that they wanted to believe that Trump is a strong man. They want to believe that he is that he's a manly man who'd the conqueror, and he certainly promotes that image. But when you look at the data now, that time seems to be wearing off. Look, you know, the new polling has them at 33% Dow approval. And Nicole, he's now in the 20s among, among independent and in our internal data, we're seeing a 10 point generic

12:31horse race open up, which you and I both know that sort of historically the magic numbers for C-way. So more and more Americans are not longer buying. I want to show you, and I should say the Mets one, that football game baseball game. They can't be. They can't be. They're finishing strong, whatever you want to say about the season. Here's Sarah Huggabee Sanders, though, about people explaining what's wrong with giving things away. And you know better than anybody. You do not build a strong economy by giving things away. You do it by encouraging work, making it easier, creating opportunity, lowering taxes. That's what Republicans are doing. The opposite side, they want to give everything away. At the end of the day, though, somebody has to pick up the check. And it's the taxpayers that will ultimately pay the price. I knew if I lived long enough, I find a reason to platform Sarah Huggabee Sanders. There she is rapidly responding to Donald Trump's bribe. And I'll quote her, quote, you do not build a strong economy by giving things away.

13:32Talk about somebody that's hard to take seriously. How about the trillion dollar plus give away to the top 1% that was the cornerstone of the only legislative agenda to the degree that existed of this White House? That again, they're not talking about that because people saw through the fact that all the things that were promised, that list you shared and everything else, the economic relief has not come through, what has come through, what was made permanent in that legislation, our tax breaks for the ultra rich and powerful. And I think what's important here too is like, this is transcended Democrat versus Republican. In a district like mine, folks of all stripes on a lot of independence too, just see this for what it is. I think especially like the data center discussions. And frankly, near riots rightfully so are illustrative of that too. People are just done of getting stuff rammed down their throat, their bills going up, their water getting polluted. So some guy that was in the front row of Trump swearing in on that very first day can get more power

14:35and more wealth. And I'm telling you, we are going to see a huge outcome. I mean, we're going to see a repudiation. And I say that being very present on the ground in a swing district. What do you see predicting a wave? What kind of results do you think a wave of the size you're talking about will usher in? Well, they're doing everything they can to, you know, affect the beach on which that wave is going to land, right, from Jury Mandering to the mail interference and everything else. I still think we can be 20 to 30 seats. I really do. I think it is easy to fall for his lies and his traps and all the propaganda they put out. But on the ground, folks are going to come out with a fury. It's different than 2018 and how that push back is manifesting, but it's strong. And I think it's going to people are resolved to push back on this. And on their side, they're trotting out old attacks that when you see them, you can turn on Fox News literally any time from from six in the morning to midnight and they're they're making the kinds of attacks that

15:39I talked about in the setup. I mean, here's how Congressman Garcia and Crow responded to the smears about socialism. They're obsessed about socialism. They're obsessed about Donald Trump and what he's doing. They're obsessed about line of the American public. We're focused on lowering the cost of gas, the groceries and of food. While the elite and the wealthy and the privileged in the rooms across this street where Donald Trump is hanging out, get wealthier and belly up and make money off the American people's backs. It's the American working class that does the fighting, that does the the dying and pays for all of it. Well, working class folks are over it. We're done. I'll just say this times up. The American people know better and they see the farce, the spectacle for what it is dangerous and harmful to them. I mean, you hear this everywhere. People are over it. People are over and also I think it's also important to just underscore how

16:44important the alternative reality that Trump not just presents but enforces is critical to the political project because if you don't believe you're lying, guys, and you believe the narrative version of the United States and of the world that Donald Trump tells you would believe the fabulous things that you heard on stage last night. You'll believe that you're going to get a $5,000 truck from Donald Trump. You'll believe that we're winning what's going on in Iran right now and that our troops aren't being abandoned because they are being bereft of the type of battlefield strategy that they deserve. You'll believe all the things out of this administration and it's critical that you believe that because if you actually believe what you see, you'll see that this presidency is a failure and that he has no vision to make your life better. And I mean, what's interesting is that that's never been disputed by Donald Trump who said in 2017, don't believe your eyes, don't believe your ears, just believe me, it was in the context of tariffs. But you know, you have here like in year nine, it's all out in the open.

17:47That's exactly right. And then the last thing I will just kind of surface here is what's different about this time is Donald Trump can't claim to be a bystander in his own government. I do think that that's critical. The first time around he could say, oh, the deep state has captured my government. I'm not allowed to do the things I want to do. That's over. Donald Trump has demonstrated to the American people. If he wants to do something, he'll do it and he's done nothing to lift a finger to help you. That's such a good point. All right. No one's going anywhere. We have so much more on these topics than others ahead still to come. A rare rejection by the United States Supreme Court for Donald Trump putting a stop to get another one of the many Trump back schemes he and the Republicans have dined up in order to keep control of the House next year. And later in the broadcast, we'll try to keep him off the airwaves. Trump's FCC enforcer, Brendan Carr might have just given Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talleriko a pretty big boost. We'll explain the administration's latest threat to silence any critics. All the stories and much more. Deadly White

18:48House continues after Quick Break. Don't go anywhere. Can I just quickly say hello to you? For me, being a part of this place has always been about the people, not about the politics. Why are you holding this sign? You've ever been to a protest before? Be safe. People that we cover who allow us to enter their lives. How's everybody doing? Everybody doing okay? How long has been in line? I love human beings. To spend time connecting with them is the biggest blessing that I could ask for. From the field to the studio, Jacob is finding the heart of the story. Connect with Jacob Soberoff. We can set 10 a.m. Eastern on MS now. Credit where credits do Laura Ingram of Fox News asked Donald Trump the same question. Joel Payne just posited. Why not give every American adult that $5,000 check right now? See if you can make his answer make sense. Why not just give the money now if you have the money. They can't. I'll tell you what, because the Democrats can't do it. Because with them, it's negative growth with us. It's so positive.

19:54So we're taking in $21 trillion. Nobody, no country's ever taken in anywhere near that. It's four or five times higher than the next one. All because of that beautiful word that you and I love more than most others tariffs. And my hippo ate a pie. I mean, it's just as relevant to everything that just came out of his mouth. What do you just say? The Democrats can't do it. The Democrats don't control anything. And that beautiful word, what what? Going back to tariffs is stunning to me because the reason really underappreciated. I think it was the tariffs for the first big time, big moment where people like, whoa, that's the thing that he unilaterally did. That is making things where small businesses in particular, my district and most of the country are getting just crushed by these. Now the Canadian tariffs, especially in Northern New York, the Canadian border are brutal. And the fact that the revenue he's bragging about is coming from

20:55the American people. It's coming from us. And then they're cutting refund checks to the big corporations and individuals are getting nothing. Another point that I think we haven't talked enough about. So obviously, it's just circular logic and incoherence from him. Well, I think it's more sinister than that. It's, you know, it's BS. I mean, it's stuff that's so cynical and nonsensical that law ringgums like. Yeah, the moments that always get me are when like the state media can't actually square the circle. You can tell that Trump is really struggling. What, well, one, it's pretty clear that none of these messages are like road tested outside of a small cadre of advisors and sick offense. Not like Harp. Whenever it makes contact with the outside world. And in this case, the outside world was Fox News. But, but it just, it does not pass the smell test. And I think that what the American people, as we are less than two months away from the election, are sensing and what they're seeing, even more with each passing hour, is that

21:55none of the stuff that he's pushing passes the smell test because it doesn't match up with their reality. They know how much they're paying when they fill up at the gas tank. They know how much it pays to fill a grocery cart. I mean, they know that their life has fundamentally not improved under Donald Trump. And that's a core promise that he broke to them. What's happening in Cornell? And I mean, it feels like the 37th year of Trump's presidency, it's really the one, two, three, four, six. Is that everything that was true about him for the, you know, 65 years he was on the public stage is now true about every aspect of his presidency, right? Doesn't pay his bills. Doesn't mean what he says. Changes what he meant. Didn't mean what he said. And the variable is he now did something so catastrophic that everyone, the kaleidoscope was shaken up and everyone sees the truth. And I think it's the triple betrayals of Epstein files, the Warren Iran being started by Donald Trump after saying that he obliterated their nuclear program, you know, 10 months earlier and crashing the economy from the vast majority of working

23:01families in that entire country, including the vast majority of his political coalition. How do you take that story to the whole country? I think the whole country's beginning to own in. I think when you look at his numbers, and it's not just as job-proble, it's as favorables. Like people genuinely don't like him. Like your old boss Nicole, yeah, like his job-proble would fall, but voters would still like him as favorables, just greater and 12 people doing it. I remember sitting on folks' group with a woman saying, you know, I don't like what he's doing, but he's a good man. Yeah, he loves his wife. He goes to church. I mean, that sort of tangible thing, but they generally don't see him as a good person. But it's also, you know, Nicole, I also have to say this, right? It's kind of what we deserve because we saw this. His numbers aren't that dramatically different now than what he left off. We saw Trump the first show, this man who only finished his entire life enriching himself and

24:02his friends and family around him. Never spent a moment trying to look out for anyone out. And he got in the White House and he did that one. And now he's right back in the White House doing it again. And we once again all find ourselves just a- You made the point in the break that I sort of borrowed in my question to Cornell about how the war in Iran, let's the whole country see that he doesn't mean what he says and he never says what he means. We talk a lot about the war in Iran in terms of the economic calamities that have ensued, but there are 18 families that have lost loved ones. There are actually hundreds of families and more than we know at the time that it happens that have been injured. There are thousands of families worried about loved ones on long deployments that Donald Trump says quote aren't long enough, frankly. What is your sense of the toll his second term is taking on the military? Generational devastating impacts, the purging of our most experience. And by the way, most lethal, the most ferocious fighters of the ones that are purging out, the culture warriors

25:07are the ones that they're keeping. Today actually there was a really important story that came out, a family of one of the soldiers killed on March 1st in Kuwait at this Shueba attack, which I questioned Pete Higgseth on. One of the families came forward today to CBS and spoke out publicly, which is a big deal. And I think we're going to see more of this because you talk about the ultimate betrayal. Sending our most precious young men and women into war with no plan in a state of denial with Pete Higgseth in charge. And we've seen the consequences of that in 18 lives lost hundreds wounded, 100 billion plus per day spent. By the way, I don't know where these dividend checks are coming from because he just keeps adding to to the debt. But the macro point is I think just as we saw in 2006, a misguided war where clearly administration is blatantly lying to the American people

26:13now. That is a sort of breakthrough moment. And in my district, that is certainly noticed by everybody. Yeah. And not something that I've seen come up on the stage between, between innings of my message. Although Trump is the only one who brought it up back. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. But without a really reliable stream of information. I mean, just lying. Right. Yeah. Always the constant. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being here. On set, Cornell, thank you for being here through the trends and things are starting all of us off. After the break, taking its state by state with less than eight weeks to go until the midterms, the Supreme Court has ruled again on what maps the state of Missouri should be using for the elections. Hi, everyone. It's Nicole Wallace. I'm here to tell you about the MS now membership. We're bringing you an experience that lets you connect with all your favorite hosts and a community that cares as much as you do. You can stream live TV. You can join real-time daily discussions

27:15and unlock features that you can't get anywhere else. Direct access, more clarity, all for a stronger democracy. Just visit ms.nail slash membership to join us. After weeks of confusion in Missouri over what congressional maps will be used for the November midterm elections, and the major win today for voters, the United States Supreme Court stepped in for a second time to block the state of Missouri from using the newly redrawn Republican-friendly maps. The decision noted no descents and led Missouri's Republican Secretary of State to back down. He said in a statement today that he is directing local election authorities to use the 2022 congressional map instead of the map backed by Donald Trump. The Elias Law Group, who represented the pro-voting partners in this case, celebrated the decision like this. Quote, Missouri Republicans have played their last card and they lost. Despite increasingly

28:18desperate tactics at threatened to throw this November's election into chaos and drew a strong rebuke from the Missouri Supreme Court, it is now clear after two rejections from the US Supreme Court that Missouri will not be allowed to ram through an egregious gerrymandor before the voters have a say. This rejection, this loss from the Supreme Court notably also came just minutes. After the Trump administration jumped into the fight directly asking them to keep the GOP-friendly map in place. I want to bring in New York Times journalists covering elections and voting, Nick Korsan-Niti, an NYU law professor and legal analyst Melissa Murray. Melissa, this was sort of unfolding while I was on the yesterday Brett Kavanaugh issued the first ruling and then it was clear it was going to go back to the Supreme Court and now we're prepared to sort of be unsurprised by the worst and pleasantly surprised by something less bad. But what was your reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling on this? I wasn't surprised by this Nicole and Justice

29:22Kavanaugh didn't even refer the first matter to the full court. He's the circuit justice. He's the one from whom to whom the petition is initially directed and he has the option to refer it to the entire court if he thinks it requires the entire court's attention. But this was a situation where the Missouri Supreme Court had earlier weighed in and said that as a matter of state constitutional law, the Missouri GOP could not use the new redrawn Trump-ordered map from 2026 and instead had to use the 2022 map that had been in place as a result of the 2020 dissennial census. So the Missouri Supreme Court already said what had to happen instead that it had to happen as a matter of state constitutional law. The matter had not been put to Missouri voters. In fact, Danny Hoskins, the secretary of state of Missouri, had really dragged his feet on certifying a voter referendum that would have put the issue to the voters and the court seemed to suggest that there were some machinations in order to keep that question off the ballot and allow this map to be used. So now it seems at least that Hoskins

30:26has surrendered on this point, but there is still a really chaotic and confused landscape in Missouri with a lot of Missourians not really understanding what the state of play is and with a lot of election officials not knowing how to weigh the fact that they had a primary with the 2026 map and they're now going to have a general election using the 2022 map. It's also intricate and confusing and that is its point. That is both its feature and its bug and Nick someone asked me, well, what's what are they doing? And I said, well, three things, just for the end of maps, threats and mail, right? Like they're trying to change the maps, they're trying to stop and mess with the mail and then there's the bucket of threats. Your latest reporting focuses on that category of threats. Take us through your reporting. So we heard and were able to confirm with the Justice Department that they sent letters to the top election official in at least 30 states. Those very explicitly threatening

31:30regarding their refusal to turn over these state voter lists that include unredacted private data like social security numbers or partial drivers licenses. Now the Justice Department has been after this data and these lists for the better part of a year. But the letters that went out on Friday told these election officials, quote, you are under investigation, which is a very intimidating thing to say. Now they tried to relate it to this ongoing litigation and said it was part of document retention, including that they needed to retain all documents and data from the 2024 election, even though federal law wouldn't require that. And you know, these letters went out with one day to go before the election officials were allowed to destroy any old election data to make room for new data and results. So these new rounds of threats kind of come in a year where election officials have been threatened by the Secretary of Homeland Security, by the President, by the Deputy Attorney General. And it's a kind of whole government approach to try and get these

32:35election officials to bend a little bit in ways that they haven't yet as the administration has sought to change how these midterms will be run. But this is asking them to do something illegal because the story also says that the Justice Department has sued 30 different states for this data and they've lost 23 of those cases and have won none. It certainly feels like an end around to try and get some of this data. Now the 2024 election records wouldn't be part of those lawsuits in which the DOJ has been trying to force states to hand over this privacy data. But a lot of these states are very strictly confined by state law and state privacy laws that they can't hand this over. So no matter how threatening the Department of Justice wants to be or really any agency within the Trump administration outside of a warrant for a criminal proceeding, which the Justice Department at least didn't indicate they had in these letters or a new law from Congress, these states simply can't at least some of these states simply can't hand over this data. So whether it's an end around or not to

33:38try and get these new to try and get data that they failed so far through civil litigation, there's just very clear and concrete laws that prevent some of these election officials from doing so. And at the same time, as you mentioned, they've won in court and they feel strongly about protecting the privacy and the data within their state voter lists. And I don't think a new round of letters necessarily is going to move any or at least the ones that I talk to, you know, they didn't seem to be very moved. They were more worried and concerned about the language in these letters and how it kind of comes in a broader threat context. Well, keep going on this topic of threats, Nick, I'm a lot of stick around. We will be right back. By show of hands, do you feel your states are being targeted by the USPS mail and ballot rule? Absolutely. I think voters around the country are being, I mean, I think the election is being targeted by this rule. The only reason that people haven't called the president out even within

34:39his own party, I think, is that people expect us to win in court. And I do too, but the fact that our president is creating this kind of potential chaos for our entire system of voting in the midterm elections is something that should be shocking to people. I was our own Lisa Rubin with attorneys, Demol. Melissa, this is an extraordinary sort of new normal. I don't even want to use a word normal, but this is an extraordinary reality to be living through as we head into an election. What is your sense of the dynamic as the Trump efforts fail in court as being illegal and unconstitutional, but the conduct sort of war's on? Nicole, I don't know why we would be surprised by this. I mean, we already saw the playbook for this being created with Rudy Giuliani and the flap in Georgia with Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shay Moss. I mean, they're attacking poll workers. That's the infrastructure of voting. And now they've

35:44just gone up the chain of command to the state secretaries of state who manage elections and they're threatening other election officials at the state level. I mean, part of what is going on here, you mentioned the money, you mentioned the mail, and you mentioned these threats, but it is about creating confusion. It is about selling chaos, creating a climate in which voters don't know what to do, but it's also about systematically dismantling the infrastructure for coordinating and organizing and conducting elections. And that's essentially what they're doing. They are trying to threaten state officials to make them scared to do their jobs. They are issuing these threats that are nonsensical. These officials already have document retention requirements built into their state avaradoses. This is not required from the Department of Justice. This is merely meant to intimidate them. And again, perhaps even to scare them out of their jobs or to scare them from doing their jobs. Nick, what exists in the system to fight back? Well, I think the biggest strength of the American electoral system, and when we've talked

36:46about it often, is just how decentralized it is. There are local election officials across the country who run this. There are county election officials and these secretaries of state. And they have all shown throughout the decade that Trump has been in politics, and ever since 2020, when he's been repeatedly casting doubt on this, they've been unmoved by that at least 99% of them. No way that any way that could have messed up an election. And that's been holding. And at the same time, the courts have been holding. Even though there's been moments where a court has temporarily sided with the president in some of the more extreme ways to either intrude or interfere on or go beyond the constitutional authority of the executive branch regarding elections, it's been reigned back. And so I think the big question there, though, is what's the Supreme Court going to do over this mail-in ballot ruling that is before them. Yesterday, there was a brief file by seven Republican secretaries of state who were breaking not just with the president of their own party, but with the attorney generals of their state, in some cases, in Kansas and

37:48over at Dakota, saying, we don't necessarily want to disagree or agree with this rule, but it is absolutely imperative that it is not forced upon us for this election. And they gave so many reasons from very weedy reasons like we simply couldn't reprint ballots. There's not enough vendors. There would be a four-week crunch turns into a 12-week crunch that's just about the industry. To then the confusion that is really racking voters everywhere. Earlier, we were talking about Missouri. There's voters in Missouri who are now extremely confused about which district they're in, let alone the methods that they can vote. And everything comes and is adding on to the angst that voters are feeling. And I think that's where you're seeing, but at the same time, I mean, voters are still turning out, right? In early voting, they didn't. Primaries, we saw records in Rhode Island just the other day. So the ways of fighting back has been voters turning out, election officials doing their jobs, and the courts upholding what are clear constitutional restrictions and regulations on what the executive branch can do regarding elections.

38:49Melissa, democracy, docket rights that like this, uncharted territory. Votes already cask, it could be at risk if Trump's order is revived. A total of 294 votes to the U.S. Postal Service had already been counted in North Carolina as of 80 and Wednesday morning, according to a tracker. The data shows that Democrats have cast twice as many male ballots as Republicans in the state. While Republicans used to be the party of male voting, while Democrats preferred in-person early voting, there's been a noticeable post-pandemic shift that experts in pro voting groups have attributed in part to Donald Trump's war on male voting. What is your sense of the whole of the democracy defenders response? Like you hear anecdotally, that people are going to look to history and go out like they haven't before to protect their friends and neighbors' rights to vote. And then you also hear maybe even more often anecdotally that people who are infrequent voters or maybe aren't sure if they change their name after they got married or got divorced or aren't sure if they re-registered, may just decide to sit it out.

39:53It's not worth getting investigated for voter fraud. You know, I certainly hope democracy docket is correct in that people will do their level best and head to the polls as though this is of no moment. But I do recognize that this kind of chaos in the electoral landscape is by itself a very potent effort to suppress voter turnout. I mean, we already make voting in this country difficult already. We don't have a nationwide day off, for example, as some countries do to cast a ballot. We make it very difficult by having polling places closed at certain times. We don't have early voting in every state. And now at the attack on male voting, we make it very hard for working people. I think this might be a moment where perhaps if the whole country is interested in democracy, those with the authority to do things like, for example, employers who can let their workers have time off to vote as has been the case in past years, we could do that on a collective basis. That would certainly help. But the point

40:53of all of this was to create enough cacophony that it would suppress voter turnout. And that may actually work. That's what they knew they had to do because they weren't sending a message that would actually persuade voters. And so they just needed to make sure there weren't that many voters. It's interesting. It'll be one of the things. It'll be one of the questions if people study for a long time. What was the impact of all of this, of what you've chronicled Nick? And what the voters still have the final say in terms of what we do. Nick, of course, thank you for another important piece of reporting. Melissa Murray, thank you so much for making sense of all of it for us. After a break, we talked about redrawing the maps, limiting male and ballots, threats of investigation and violence to election officials. But there's more. We'll tell you about another idea Trump has to try and meddle with just who can vote in our elections. That story is next.

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