Transcription
This is Democracy Watch. Mark, I want to talk about the dangerous real reason that Trump is engaged in a conflict with Iran. Something that's getting virtually no coverage on regular media. So, first and foremost, can you explain why Trump has a vested interest at home as it relates to our elections in terms of bombing Iran?
Yeah, so look, let's just start with some basic data. At about 2:30 in the morning on Saturday, Donald Trump posted a video on his social media platform, Truth Social. Now, that's weird in and of itself. And this video announced that uh that we were engaged in military action against Iran. 2 hours later, so it's now 4:30 in the morning, the very next social media post that Donald Trump uh puts out on on True Social is this one. quote, "Iran tried to interfere in the 2020 and 2024 elections to stop Trump and now faces renewed war with the United States."
Okay, so the first thing that went through Donald Trump's mind after he announces that that we are now at war with Iran is to connect that war with his explanation as to why he lost the 2020 election and, you know, his continued fever dreams about 2024. This is dangerous stuff, Brian. This is a signal that it is not just that he, you know, wants to be viewed as, you know, doing whatever he's doing in Iran. It's not all about foreign policy. In the same way as you and I have talked before that Donald Trump is not really just about tariffs or not really just about immigration. All of these things get filtered through the one thing that is unyielding. It is the one thing that never gets compromised. It is the one thing that is always present. And that is Donald Trump's effort to undermine free and fair elections in 2026. And if people don't understand that every other policy, whether it's the economy, whether it's how he handles the Epstein files, whether it is uh inflation, whether it is tariffs, whether it's deployment of ICE and immigration, or even whether it is war and peace, it all connects up in his mind to what does this mean for my ability to stay in power by not letting Democrats take control of Congress in 2026?
I'm going to add to that, too, because about a week earlier, Washington Post reported, I'm going to put an excerpt right here on the screen, proTrump activists who say they're in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting. And so clearly Trump has been on a tear trying to find some foreign country interfering in the 2020 election as a basis to declare these extraordinary powers. Now you and I have spoken about the fact that there is no presidential power over voting or elections. Elections are administered at the state level. But the question here becomes, what powers does Trump think he has that that um pointing to interference from China or Iran or Venezuela or Hugo Chavez or whatever other country he lands on? What what powers does he think he has that he can uh exercise by claiming that we're under attack by foreign countries?
>> Yeah, I'm glad you asked that because uh because that is how Donald Trump sees this, right? He's trying to angle like how does it benefit me to blame China? How does it blame benefit me to blame uh Venezuela? How does it benefit me to blame Iran? I mean, back in 2020, as you point out, he blamed, you know, Hugo Chavez for rigging the voting machines. Of course, Hugo Chavez died in 2013. You know, people in his orbit and and his supporters, they blamed Italy and some cockami theory involving satellites. They blamed Germany. They blamed Cuba. They blamed China. They blamed um Venezuela, right? Like I could go on and on. And the reason why at that time he did it when he was president and this time he's doing it when he's president is because the courts tend to be at their most differential to administrations when it comes to foreign policy and national security. So, remember that Donald Trump's Department of Justice was able to lie themselves through a series of hearings and got migrants who had no connection to gangs deported to foreign goologs in El Salvador. And it took months and months before that unraveled completely that those lies became apparent to everybody. Well, the reason why he was able to get that far is because when the president and the department of justice goes into court and says this is a matter of national security, this is a matter of great important of foreign relations, judges tend to be at their most differential. And so he is bringing into this this this goulash of election denialism of voter suppression. is bringing into that conversation and I believe will continue to use it as a basis for a future executive order as you point out or as an excuse in the future to seize ballots or to claim powers or whatever it is. He's banking on these claims of foreign interference because his lawyers are saying this is your strongest ground.
But here's the thing, Brian, it's not going to work. It's not going to work because it's so transparent. Like Donald Trump tells the same lies about mail and voting that he connects to foreign governments as he tells about Democrats as he tells about that Republicans will never win another election in what was it 50 years, right? Like he he mixes and matches the same remedies. Ban mail and voting, ban certain voting equipment, put in place proof of citizenship, put in place strict voter ID. He mix and matches that between his own craft political interests and his policy interests and his partisan interests and also these foreign policies. So, it's not going to work. Lawyers like me are going to go to court. I sued him the first time he passed an executive order uh uh in 2025 when we won. And I have a lot of experience in beating him in court. And I promise everyone, don't give up hope. This is not a video about not being hopeful. You need to be hopeful. You just need to be aware of what he's up to and you need to insist that the institutions of government, including your elected officials, have a stealed spine and don't back away and get afraid, get frightened from this debate and frightened from this fight because he cites, you know, unspecified national security interests. And and I want to note like I have no doubt that Trump is going to try this. But I also have no doubt that this that the hero of this story is going to be you because I know that as soon as this is attempted by Donald Trump, uh you and your law firm are going to file a lawsuit 5 minutes later and you will do what you always do in court, which is to beat Donald Trump. When if and when that happens, uh I want to make sure that people know about it first right from the horse's mouth. If you are not yet subscribed to Democracy Docket, which is the news outlet Mark founded to focus on everything voting in elections, make sure to sign up because when this happens, that's how you'll find out what's going on. So again, I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video.
So Mark, I guess the the the question here that I'm wrestling with is once Trump hands down this executive order, leg illegality notwithstanding, does it go into effect? like what happens when Trump hands down an executive order that of course we all know isn't legal, but I guess the law is only I guess counts in so far as people's willingness to uphold it. And so if Trump decides that he has a power that he doesn't have, but you have other Republicans who pretend that he does, what happens in the immediate aftermath of him signing an executive order like this?
>> Yeah, that's why this litigation is so complicated, right? Part of it is just beating him on the merits and in some ways that's the easy part. But there are two other realities. The first is you have election deniers at the county level, right?
>> You have state judges in very red areas who, you know, you and I have done lots of videos about judge shopping and how Republicans will try to go to very local areas and how Republicans try to recruit election deniers to run offices. And then of course you have, you know, Republican governors and secretaries of state and AGs who are constantly sucking up to the man, right? Like they're constantly saying everything he says is the gospel and and and needs to be implemented. So, we have to be willing to not only challenge the executive order like as a discrete legal matter, but we then need to be able to go quickly into all of these state and local courts and all of and challenge all of the people who are like voluntarily adopting it or building their own equivalences. So, like right now, you know, my law firm right now is involved in 86 cases in 41 states. And that's going to jump, by the way, to over 90 because the Department of Justice just sued five more states for their voter file uh sensitive information.
Um, and you know, one of the challenges that we have is that that doesn't even account for the places that may have just like voluntarily turned over the voter file information, right? They may just be like, "Oh, Donald Trump wants it. We're not even going to fight." So, so that is the complicated thing here is how do we identify all of the manifestations of the big lie? How do we then combat them in court at the sort of top level like invalidating executive orders, but then how do we chase down all the sort of smaller tributaries of the big lie that flow through our election system? But that's what look that's the work I've been doing my career. That's the work that I will do in 2026. And look, Brian, it's fundamentally why you and I have now done hundreds and hundreds of videos because you and I talk about all of not just these topline ways that we have to fight back, but all of those tributaries. Like we just did a video about the efforts by Republicans to judge shop in Virginia to try to stop a statewide referendum that will allow the drawing of a new congressional map. And like we're not just talking about like the one case filed in Richmond, right? We're talking about the two cases filed in Tazwell County and the case filed in uh in Lynchburg, which is where Liberty University is. We had the same conversation about about the California ballot initiative. We didn't just do videos, Brian, as you know, about like the ballot initiative in California and what was happening in Sacramento. We did videos about the lawsuits that Republicans filed in Texas in Texas to try to stop it. And so everybody, if you got to if you want to understand how all of this es and flows and how it all fits into a coherent political hole, you need to be subscribed to Brian's channel. I mean, there are more than 5 million people have already done so, and you ought to be want become one of them. And then hit the bell to make sure you're alerted because Brian and I post a lot of new content on a breaking news basis. A lot of the stuff Brian and I do is like stuff that is just happening. and that is true for his other guests and his other uh shows. But just speaking for myself as someone selfishly who wants to get this information out, the best way to do it is you subscribe to the channel and hit the bell so you get that alert when we post new stuff.
>> I appreciate that. I'm going to put that link right here on the screen. So for folks who haven't yet subscribed, please go ahead and subscribe. It doesn't cost anything to do so, but it's a great way to continue watching this series. Mark, what about the amount of time that you expect to elapse between Donald Trump attempting this, attempting to hand down some executive order, usurping all of these grand powers that he's decided he has, and the actual lawsuit, and whether you expect there to be some temporary restraining order, for example, or if a court will recognize the urgency and actually try to litigate this thing or adjudicate this thing as quick as possible so that it's not something that's hanging over the election where certain red state county clerks decide to adhere to this, certain blue state county cler clerks recognize that it's complete and it's just chaos.
>> Look, Republicans hate me for a number of reasons. Number one, I fight and I never back down. Number two, I never settle with them, right? Like, like people who think like, oh, there are these lawsuits get filed and then everybody eventually settles. I never settle. The only thing I ever settle with the Republicans is how much they should pay me in legal fees for for the cases they lose. But I don't settle these cases. But the other reason why Republicans hate me is because we sue and we sue fast. And so I can promise everyone that if Donald Trump signs the executive order in public, right? Like sometimes he does these in the Oval Office where there are a lot of reporters. If he does that, we will be on file with a lawsuit before his press conference is over, like before he is done with all the the the bells and whistles. if he signs it in private, which we increasingly run into. You know, when Ronda Santis signed his voter suppression law in 2021, we sued six minutes later. And after that, what we found is that Republican governors no longer want to do public signing ceremonies because they know we will sue during the public signing ceremony. So now they sign these things in private. And so it would not surprise me if Donald Trump doesn't sign this in public so that he gets a clean news cycle. But as soon as we find out about it, we'll be in court and we will ask the courts to move heaven and earth to move as fast as possible to block this thing because as the last judge said, presidents have no role in the administration or setting the rules for voting. The states set the time, place, and manner. Congress is given the authority to overrule the time, place, and manner by legislation, but there's no role for the president acting unilaterally. So, so we'll try to file, you know, while he's while the ink's still uh still still wet. Uh but if they hide it from us, I promise you the moment we find out, we will be on our way to the courthouse doors to file the lawsuit.
>> And that right there is exactly summed up in in one sentence why everybody here watching uh should make sure to subscribe to Democracy Docket to make sure that you find out exactly when it happens from the source uh from the person who is protecting democracy on the front line. So again, the link to democracy docket is right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. If you're not yet signed up, please help support independent media, help support Mark and his team, and help protect democracy by making sure to elevate the voices that need to be elevated. And of course, if you want to see more episodes of Democracy Watch, the subscribe button to this channel is on the screen as well. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen.
>> I'm Mark Elias.
>> This is Democracy Watch.