Transcription
Donald Trump's plan to subvert the 2026 election is coming into sharper focus. First, he asks Congress to make it harder for you to vote. When they refuse, he declares a fake emergency and takes matters into his own hands. He has the Department of Justice access your sensitive voter data, prosecute his political opponents, and if necessary, be prepared to seize ballots.
Now, look, this is not my speculation. This is the cold reality in which we now live. In this episode, I'm going to walk you through the latest developments in this plot step by step. I'll tell you about a secret legal memo written by a right-wing election denier and how it's now being worked into an unconstitutional executive order. Look, I know this lawyer because he tried to go after me, suing me personally for RICO on behalf of Donald Trump. And I'm going to tell you how I kicked his ass. Look, it's going to be a journey. So, grab yourself a drink, sit back, and enjoy the ride. But before we get into it, make sure you're subscribed to this channel to stay informed about how you can defend democracy.
I have been warning for months that Donald Trump is going to try to steal the 2026 election. I started issuing these warnings when Donald Trump was focused on redistricting, which is just a way for him to rig the maps to try to keep him from losing control of the House. I said that when that failed, he was going to escalate to voter suppression and eventually to election subversion. So, it's all coming into sharp focus now. A new effort by pro-Trump election deniers to work with the White House on a new draft executive order that, believe it or not, claims that China, yet China, interfered with the 2016 election and that that should somehow serve as the basis for an executive order to allow Donald Trump to claim a national emergency and then do whatever he wants. And he's going to use that as a basis to declare some extraordinary powers that do not exist in order to set the rules of voting in 2026. And we know what he'll do. He'll claim that he can impose a strict voter ID law. He'll claim that he can require people to prove citizenship in order to register or even in order to vote. He'll even go so far as to ban mail-in voting.
Now, I've done other videos. I've written for Democracy Docket about each and every one of these claims and how damaging they would be and also how they're baseless. If you haven't already, this would be a great time to make sure you're subscribed to Democracy Docket. Look, I started it in 2020 to be a resource for you for precisely times like this when Donald Trump is lying, when Republicans are enabling him, and when frankly the legacy media is not doing its job. We just got news that Larry Ellison and Barry Weiss, who took over CBS News, and we've seen how that has gone, will now be in charge of CNN. So, look, we need to build a pro-democracy media ecosystem. That's why I do these videos. So, make sure you're subscribed here. And it's also why I keep building Democracy Docket, which has more than 20 people bringing you the news and information you need. So, please subscribe to that as well by clicking on the link in the description below or on the screen in front of you right now.
So, in order to understand where this dangerous executive order comes from, and it is dangerous. It may be crazy, but it doesn't mean it's not dangerous. It may not be legally sound, but it does not mean that Donald Trump will not use it as a pretext for much worse actions. But in order to understand where it comes from, we need to go back to February 13th and a post that he put on Truth Social, which is his platform. "The Democrats refused to vote for voter ID or citizenship. The reason is very simple. They want to continue to cheat in elections. This was not what our founders desired. I have searched the depth of legal arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future. There will be voter ID for the midterm elections whether approved by Congress or not. Also, the people of our country are insisting on citizenship and no mail-in ballots with exceptions for military, disability, illness, or travel."
Now, when he posted this, most of the legacy media ignored it. I didn't ignore it. Democracy Docket did ignore it, and I know you didn't ignore it. And the reason why we didn't ignore it is because we need to take seriously and literally what Donald Trump is saying he's going to do to subvert the elections in 2026. It is not enough for us to just say, well, you know, he's spouting off. Oh, he doesn't mean it. Oh, there will be guardrails around him. There are no guardrails around this man. There are only enablers. His cabinet enablers, his Department of Justice enablers, his White House enablers. Unfortunately, too many Republican governors and secretaries of state and local election officials are also enablers. So when he says that he has been searching the depth of legal arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future, it is easy to say that is the ramblings of a deranged old man. And while it may in fact be the ramblings of a deranged old man, that old man is the president of the United States. That deranged individual has sick fans all around him enabling what he is saying he wants to do. And that man, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, the man who signs his social media posts, he's serious that when he says that he is going to disregard Congress and impose illegal and unconstitutional measures. We need to understand that's what he's going to try to do.
Now, it doesn't mean you're going to get away with it. I cannot have people give up here. I cannot have you say he's all powerful and he's going to get away with it. No, he's not going to get away with it. But it doesn't mean we don't need to take it seriously. It doesn't mean we're not going to need to take steps to prevent this. And it doesn't mean he's going to give up. He's going to keep coming back and back and back at us. And we need to be as strong in our willingness to stand up to him as he is resilient in his efforts to attack.
So, I want to just focus you on his point about searching the depths of legal arguments. Now, Donald Trump doesn't search the depths of legal arguments. I'm not even sure I know what that means, but if it means legal research, he definitely doesn't do that. I don't think Donald Trump is much of a reader. I don't think Donald Trump cares about the law. I really don't think he cares about whether or not the founders desired something or not. All he cares about is power. His power. And his ability to exercise that power to not lose control of government. He didn't want to leave after 2020. We know that because they filed baseless lawsuits and then he incited an insurrection in the nation's capital. He's not going to go quietly in 2026. And watch as his Republican party, as the majorities he holds in Congress are not just defeated, are not just thrown out of power, but are humiliated because he is so damn unpopular. He's not going to let that happen without a fight. He's not going to let that happen without abusing every lever of power that he has. When he says he's going to impose ID, he's going to uh require uh proof of citizenship, which by the way will throw tens of millions of people off the rolls, and that he is going to ban mail-in voting, which would cause utter chaos in our elections, which would disenfranchise tens of millions. I mean, several tens of millions. Like we need to take that seriously, but that doesn't mean it has any merit. This is a garbage theory. It's garbage.
The thing I don't like about what the Washington Post wrote is that somehow it unlocks power. This doesn't unlock anything. This is a crackpot legal theory that somehow the president has these emergency powers and that he gets to exercise them. He does not have those emergency powers and he certainly does not get to exercise them. So just a quick reminder to everyone, Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution. This is the Time, Place, and Manner Clause, and it gives the states the power to set the time, place, and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives. But the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the place of choosing senators. What does that mean? It means that the states set the rules for elections, except that Congress may by law pass laws out of the House and the Senate signed by the president by law alter those regulations. So, for example, Congress chose to set a uniform election date of the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. That was a law that Congress passed that altered the regulations that states had had prior to that uniform election date. Okay? But Congress has spoken on very few areas. They have preempted state laws in very, very few circumstances. And in any event, it's up to Congress. Notice that in Section Four of Article One of the Constitution, there is no mention of the president at all. That is because he has no power when it comes to federal elections.
Now, if you want to hear this from a judge, not just from me, I will point you to a recent decision by the federal district court in Washington D.C. in a case that my law firm litigated challenging Donald Trump's last executive order, which was also an illegal and unconstitutional power. These consolidated cases are about the limits of the president's power to dictate the rules of federal elections. The framers of our Constitution recognized that power over election rules could be abused either to destroy the national government or to disempower the people from acting as a check on their elected representatives. Accordingly, they entrusted this power to the parts of our government that they believed would be most responsive to the will of the people: first to the states, and then in some instances to Congress. And then the court cites Article 1, Section 2, Clause 1 and Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1, the exact provision I read. But here is how the judge ended this discussion: "They assign no role at all to the president. Put simply, our Constitution does not allow the president to impose unilateral changes to federal federal election procedures." Let's say that again. Everyone together: "They assign no role at all to the president." No role, not some role, not a little role, not a role when Donald Trump feels really strongly about it, and not a role when some crackpot right-wing lawyer says that because China had something to do with the 2016 election, Donald Trump gets to declare an emergency in 2026 and assign whatever rules he wants. And no, China was not involved in the 2016 election. But even if they had, it is still the case that the Constitution assigns no role at all to the president. To put simply, our Constitution does not allow the president to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures. That's not my words. Those are the words of a federal court in Washington D.C. Though I am proud that I was one of the lawyers in that case that led to that decision.
So we have a crackpot lawyer coming up with a crackpot theory for an autocratic president to try to implement through an illegal and unconstitutional executive order. That is where we stand, everyone, as we head into March of 2026. This adventure is just beginning. Donald Trump is going to continue to attack free and fair elections, and the team at Democracy Docket are going to continue to keep you informed on what you need to know. But what can you do to help? You can become a subscriber today to help spread the word of what they're doing and help support their work. There are free options. There are paid options. The link to become a Democracy subscriber is on the screen in front of you right now and in the description of this episode.
Now, I mentioned several times that this is a crackpot lawyer. And in the introduction, I noted that I actually have some history with this lawyer. He represented Donald Trump in a lawsuit in Florida that alleged that Hillary Clinton and me and a whole bunch of other people committed racketeering against Donald Trump. Now, I point this out both because I think it's an interesting fact for you to know that I actually have uh gone up against this lawyer, although in my capacity as a client, uh, but also to put in context who the hell it is that is advising the president of the United States. That's right, the president of the United States. The person advising him, apparently, is this crackpot lawyer. It's not like, you know, people who are academics who study these things. It's not uh people who are at the Department of Justice who are career uh uh lawyers. It's not even people in his White House Counsel's office. No. Uh, it is this individual. And I'm going to put up on the screen here so that you can see it. So there it is. There is the caption of this lawsuit. And as I promised, it is Donald J. Trump versus Hillary Clinton and then her campaign and the Democratic Party. And then DNC Services is also the Democratic Party. Perkins, my former law firm, Michael Susman who worked at Perkins. There I am. I am right there. Um, Mark Elias, right before Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was uh the DNC uh chair during the 2016 cycle. I'm quite proud of to be included in a list of uh of of there's Jake Sullivan, Adam Schiff, you know, John Podesta. It's like it's like the greatest hits of who Donald Trump hates. I wear that scorn like a badge of honor every single day. And then I'm going to put up here the last page, which is uh the uh the the where lawyers have to say that they have served the complaint. There is the Tictton Law Group. Peter Tictton, that is the crackpot lawyer I have been referring to. Uh, there he is listed. Uh, he actually signed this. Um, you note that uh across from him is Alina Haba. Uh, the former uh Trump lawyer turned federal prosecutor. Uh, I say half jokingly, although ha although sadly uh uh in New Jersey. Anyway, the this is these are the documents that prove that they filed this lawsuit. This lawsuit didn't end well for them. You know, when Donald Trump sued me and Hillary Clinton, others, it never occurred to me to settle. You know, every time I watch as some large corporation with billions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars or even millions of dollars, you know, bow down to Donald Trump, I I think, you know, I must have been either the smartest man or the the dumbest man in America because when Donald Trump sued me, it never occurred to me to settle. It never occurred to me to apologize. It never occurred to me to try to find a way out. No, I I just said like, let's full steam ahead here. I didn't do anything. I'm not going to settle with this this liar, this autocrat, this this guy, by the way, who is a convicted felon now, right? Donald Trump, people forget he he got convicted in New York, got indicted all over the place. Why would I settle with him? I'm not going to bend a knee. I'm not going to bow down. I'm going to fight. And we fought and we won. At the end of the day, these lawyers, they got sanctioned for bringing this case. Yeah. They got sanctioned for this racketeering charade of a case. They then appealed it to the 11th Circuit. The 11th Circuit, a conservative court, not only did they rule against them, they ruled against them like in record time. So, I mention this because I think it's important for you, the audience, to know that I, like I said, I have history with this guy. So, so you can factor that in, but you can also factor in like the win-loss record. You know, I put my record as a lawyer against this joker's and even as a client, I put it against him.
But there's an important message here, which is that when Donald Trump says on February 13th that he doesn't care what Congress says, that he is searching the depths of legal arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject. Well, if vetting it is this guy, they still remain unvetted. And I'm here to vet them. Donald Trump, this is a bunch of And you should know better. Your White House Counsel's office does know better. The Department of Justice does know better. And if you go forward with this executive order, you're going to get sued again, and you're going to lose again. And you're going to lose every time you try to subvert democracy. Because that's what we need to do, everyone. We need to fight him every step of the way where he's going to try to steal this election. and subvert the Constitution. No matter who his lawyers are, whether they're people like this or they're Pam Bondi and her Department of Justice, we need to be in this fight from start to finish. And I'll be honest with you, that fight's getting harder. You know, I I I I post on social media periodically how many cases my law firm's involved in. And I think recently I said we're involved in 85 cases in 40 states. We're a 60 some odd person law firm. It's a lot of cases. It's more than anyone else. You don't see big law in these cases, by the way. I sometimes look around and I'm like, is there anyone here from like one of the largest law firms in America? Crickets. Nowhere to be found. They're all cowards. But anyway, you know, so we're in like 85 cases, like I said, 40 states. This week, the Department of Justice filed five more cases. Yeah. They sued five more states to get access to your sensitive voter data. They had already sued 24 plus the District of Columbia. So they'd filed 25 lawsuits so far and they now are up to 30. So if you live in Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia or New Jersey, congratulations. Donald Trump is using taxpayer money to sue your state to access the most sensitive voting information they have about you, your neighbors, your friends, and your family. I've done videos before. I've written extensively for Democracy Docket about why these lawsuits are so dangerous. Why, in my view, this series of cases, which used to be 25 and is now 30, are the most important cases going on in the federal courts right now. Yeah, I know what that looks like and you can shout out other cases, but I'm here to tell you come November, we're going to be talking a whole lot about these cases because these are the building block cases. The Department of Justice desperately needs this sensitive voter data. Why do they want it? Why do they want to know your social security number, your date of birth, your address, where you've registered to vote, where you have voted, whether you're registered Democrat or Republican, whether you vote in primaries or not, whether you voted by mail or in person early on election day. Why do they want to know all this? They want to know this because they want to be able to sort who they want to disenfranchise. They want to be able to know whose ballot they don't want to count. They want to know who should be challenged at the voter registration level, who they should be looking out to vote in person, what those mail ballots may contain in those sealed envelopes. I'm telling you, you cannot do anything in politics without a voter file. You ask anyone who's a political operative whether they're trying to turn out voters, register voters, persuade voters, or suppress voters, or challenge voters, it all starts with the voter file. And the Department of Justice is obsessed with getting it. Well, guess what? So far they're 0 for three. My law firm is three and 0. They are 0 and three. Yeah. My law firm, we have intervened to fight against the Department of Justice in all 25 cases that they have filed. And I'll tell you right now, we're going to be in the next five. So we are literally fighting them every single place. And again, I'll just say like, you know, we're a 60 person law firm. We're in 30 cases. If you took the 100 largest law firms in the country, they are in zero cases. Zero. Collectively zero. So that's the state of affairs in the legal world. We know what the state of affairs is in the media world with the consolidation. We know what the state of affairs is in the corporate world because they are showing no courage. So it's up to us. It's up to you. It's up to me. It's up to the coalition of people who are committed to free and fair elections in our democracy.
So I need you to help fight back. And there are three things I'm going to ask you to do. Number one, I'm going to ask you to share this video on social media with your friends. I need you to send this out. I need people to understand what the fight is we are in the middle of and where it's going because it is going to get worse. This is not the end. This is I hate to tell you we're still in the beginning. It's going to get a lot worse over the next 6 to 8 months. So, I need you people to be educated. I need you to share this video. I need you to share Democracy content. I need you to share pro-democracy news information analysis. Democracy Docket, obviously, I think is the best, but there are others and if you share their content as well, that is great too.
The second thing I need you to do is to be in regular communication with your elected officials. And here's why. Because unlike presidential years when really everyone's focused on like three to six to 10 states, right, the battleground states in congressional elections in the midterms, every state's a battleground state. There are congressional elections everywhere. And in order to have free and fair elections, you cannot have them in just three places or four places anytime. Everywhere. There's a reason why Donald Trump said that when he wanted Republicans take over the elections, they would target 15 places. That's because he wants to target the places that are going to have the greatest impact. But the truth is, every state will have an impact. And so, it's well and good that the blue states are fighting back, but the red states, I worry, will go along for the ride with him. They'll give him what he wants. We've already seen that with some of these voter file cases where red states are turning over your sensitive voter data. Well, what's to prevent those red states from cooperating further with his executive orders, which are illegal, with his efforts with ICE to maybe disrupt voting, with seizing ballots, right? You can see how this could unfold where it's not Donald Trump's administration versus a state. It's actually Donald Trump's administration and the state against the voters. So obviously a big part of that is on the lawyers, but a big part of it is on you. And the way in which you can help prevent this is you can call your state legislators. You can call your state election officials and you can call your members of Congress. You know, the Save Act I I act as if it's done because it's probably done, but honestly, they're going to be back at that, too. You know, John Thune is not going to hold out against Donald Trump forever. Mike Johnson will do whatever the hell Donald Trump wants. So, I need you to call your Democratic and Republican members of Congress and Senate and tell them that you are worried about voting rights and you want them to do everything they can to ensure that we have free and fair elections. So, when you talk to Republican offices, that means voting against the Save Act. That means not enabling Donald Trump. Okay, that's the magic things that I need to ask for. For Democrats, you need to just tell them to prioritize them. They're all against these laws. You just need to tell them that this is your top voting priority. Free and fair elections is what you care about and is your issue and it's what you vote on. In the state level, state legislature, same messages. Democrats and Republicans, governors, same message. Local election officials, show up at your local election meetings. You know, if your town or your county is having a meeting of their election board, show up and listen. There's an open opportunity to speak, speak out because you need to do your part alongside the lawyers and alongside independent media because the big guys, they're not coming to help. There is no cavalry. It's us. We are the cavalry. We are on our own, but we're in this together.
And then the last thing, the very last thing I need you to do has to do with people in your orbit. First of all, I need to make sure you all know how to vote under the current rules and how to register to vote and how to make sure you are still registered, that you haven't been purged, you haven't been kicked off, you have not been challenged, that nothing there is no excuse that they can use to keep you from voting. And if you vote to keep them from counting your ballot, okay, you need to be very diligent about this. If you vote by mail, you need to understand each of the every box. You need to fill out the envelopes that go in the envelopes and the sealing and the dating and the like. It may be stupid. And believe me, I think a lot of it's stupid. And we're suing and winning to try to make this more accessible, but in the meantime, you need to have a plan. You need to check your registration. You need to have a plan for voting. And you need to talk to people in your life about this as a critical issue in the same way that you talk to people in your life about other critical issues. Make sure they're checking whether their registration is still active and good. Make sure they know where their polling places. Make sure they know what the rules are for mail-in voting. Make sure you know what the deadlines are. You know, the U.S. Postal Service is not getting any faster. So, make sure they know what the deadlines are. I know what you're saying. You're saying it's only it's only March. Why the hell are you talking to me about this now when this is not going to take place, you know, for for months? Because you need to start making a habit of it. Make a habit of it for the primary elections. Go through the primary elections, whether they're competitive or not, to as sort of a dry run, and then stay on top of it between now and election day. You're going to hear me come back to this over and over again because it is the single most important thing you can do is to make sure you and the people in your circle are not going to be part of the people who are disenfranchised by Donald Trump in this administration because I promise you lawyers like me will be fighting. Media outlets like Democracy Docket will be doing everything they can, but we all need to do our own part as well.
So look, I want to thank everyone who has subscribed. Please leave me a comment. I love reading the comments. I get inspiration from that. It boosts my mood when you say nice things and when you have constructive criticism, I try to incorporate it. So, make sure you are uh you leave a comment. Uh if you like the video, uh hit the like button and make sure again you're subscribed to Democracy Docket. It's daily and weekly. Newsletters cannot be beat. They are free. There are also premium options if you want to support their work as well. Thanks. I'll see you next time.