Transcription
A furious Donald Trump is demanding that they rig the midterm elections for Republicans right now. Trump has seen the midterm polls clearly, and after throwing ketchup at the proverbial wall or throwing proverbial ketchup at the wall, or maybe throwing real ketchup at the real wall. His response was to demand that Republicans change the voting rules before Americans can throw them out of power in November. This is what Trump does whenever defeat is possible: attack the election in advance. Restrict how people vote. Prepare to declare the results illegitimate if he loses.
And now Donald Trump is publicly pressuring Senate Majority Leader John Thune to require proof of citizenship and voter ID, while largely throwing out an eliminating vote by mail, which Trump does. Trump now regularly votes by mail. Now, Trump has a name for this disastrous scheme. He calls it the Save America Act, because Republicans always seem to give their most destructive ideas names that sound pretty good. Instead of saving America, it should be called the Destroy America Act. Remember the Patriot Act, one of the least patriotic pieces of legislation we've seen. Citizenship is already required to vote. Widespread noncitizen voting is imaginary. The Save America Act addresses an imaginary crisis by putting in place really serious obstacles for those who are planning to vote legally. It requires documentary proof of citizenship to register. It imposes these strict ID rules. It eliminates almost all mail-in voting. And what House Republicans have now proposed are $10 billion in grants for states that adopt these restrictions themselves. They're essentially trying to pay states to make voting harder.
Now, Caroline Leavitt says Trump's patience is running out. Oh, he wants this done before Congress leaves for its August recess. Why? Well, there's a new Fox News poll that has Democrats leading the House ballot, 53 to 46. This is the highest percentage either party has received in generic ballot polling from Fox News since 1996. Democrats lead Republicans by nine on the economy, and they've even pulled ahead on immigration. Trump is right to see this as a political disaster.
There are two problems with his supposed solution. Number one, Senate Republicans don't seem to have 50 votes. John Thune says they just don't have the votes. The restrictions in the bill may not qualify for budget reconciliation, either. Calling voter suppression a state grant doesn't magically turn election law into budget policy, meaning they may not even be able to pass this with 50-50, a simple majority if they had it.
Number two, this could backfire and end up blocking or haranguing Republican voters as well. About 12% of registered voters may lack the required documents. Married women may have different names on birth certificates. Rural voters might have to travel for hours to present documents. Older Americans, military families, Republicans in states like Florida. These are folks that rely on mail-in voting, and many of them vote Republican. So Republicans are effectively saying, we have all these arrows. Some of them may hit some of our own people, but we think that the arrows, arrows will hit more of your people.
And one kind of interesting observation is that if voting in the courts were powerless, Republicans wouldn't be working this hard to weaken voting and the courts. I believe that's the emergency here. Demanding Congress pass a terrible law is not, in and of itself, a crime. The bigger danger is Trump establishing his excuse for what comes next. And if the Save America Act fails and Republicans lose, Trump can say, "Listen, I was warning you guys. The election was rigged. Congress refused to protect it." And then come the lawsuits, the pressure on election officials, attacks on certification processes, maybe even demands for law enforcement to intervene. We already have heard from Trump that he plans to have ICE in and around polling places.
Now, will those efforts succeed? Probably not. Elections are administered by states. Presidents can't cancel them. But what we learned in 2020 is that you can have a failed authoritarian scheme and still do a lot of damage. Trump is not acting like a president confident that voters support him. He's acting like a guy who has seen the verdict and he wants to interfere before it can be delivered.
Now, what should the average person be doing to be ready? Well, listen, first of all, verify that you are registered and your polling place. This is every election, by the way. This is not in this particular situation. But the starting point is verify that you are actually registered. I believe that Vote.org has all this stuff. You can make sure you're registered. Know what's on your ballot before you go, especially if things get hectic or wacky. You don't want to be surprised by things on the ballot. This can include ballot referenda or other things. Figure out your polling place. Track your ballot if you voted by mail. And then there's a bunch of other relevant information. Have a plan. Understand the ID rules in your state. One thing you don't want is to show up believing that the requirements are A and there actually be B. But just as importantly, you might correctly assess, "I don't need certain documents to vote." And then one of these provocateurs might come up to you and go, "Hey, you know, you need X, Y, Z in there, right?" And if you don't have the information, maybe you fall for it. Maybe you go home. So the point is, information is the most important thing here. And Vote.org, as well as a bunch of other resources, can help you find that.
Now, in terms of what can we do from an activism perspective, that is a much longer-term and difficult conversation. We recently spoke with attorney Marc Elias, and he is doing a lot, including a whole cadre of lawyers out there hoping to protect these elections. But there are groups working on this. What, what I actually suggest is get involved yourself at the state level. You can be the person making sure that these people don't screw with the election. Learn about being a poll monitor, get trained, and you can sign up in most states. Depends on the municipality and the state, exactly what the rules are. But in a lot of places, you can do this, and then you can actually be there informing people, which I believe is extraordinarily valuable. So we have tools. We have tools. Let's not let them get away with this. Appreciate you watching. Stick around for this next video and don't forget to hit subscribe so you actually see our uploads. You can also catch the full podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.