"Donald Trump's supporters are getting a stomachache"

0:00Ever since I was young, I've watched people working hard, chasing opportunity, making sacrifices, doing everything they can to build a better life. And now, we're shining a light on what matters most. Our economy, our national identity, our democracy, our future. The stakes have never been higher. It's all on the line. On the line with Alicia Menendez, weekdays at 12pm Eastern, on MSNow. Are you going to the Bittsroom Convention? No, I'm going to be in my district, working to win. Okay. Is there any reason why you decided not to go? Well, because I'm going to district that I think it's more important to be in my district. We're going for my folks. For a public in the Bittsroom Convention in Texas next week. I'm working on my plan for next week. Right now, I've got other things scheduled in Nebraska, but we hope to get there. Okay. I want to get there, but I've got a few things on my son's plane high school football.

1:01I promised I would not miss any of his games. Are you funny? I'm sure I invited him to the convention. No, I'm not. Okay. I'm still DVD. We actually are trying to work out our schedule right now. I have to clean out my car. I'm getting a pedicure. I have to be in the district because in the district is where I have to be in the district. Hi again, everybody. It's 5 o'clock in New York. That wasn't even part of an effort. But if you think of it, like, person who's starving and then served a keeping bowl of gummy candy. It's my typical lunch. Sweets are great, sort of after the main meal, but without anything else in your system. Let's just say Donald Trump supporters are being fed a sugar high and a stomach ache. Because he's been very generous with that empty calorie stuff lately. Just this morning, Trump suggested the straight-of-armoo should be renamed the Trump straight. Just last week, he really did sign an executive order, like a real one,

2:04renaming Lake Ontario, Lake America. These are what you call crazy actions of a weird person on the internet, not the president, or to keep our analogy going, dessert items for his most excited supporters and backers. Servings totally devoid of any nutritional value or substance, refusing to deal with the substantive and real problems that he and he alone has created. Whatever you call the straight-of-armoo's, the Warner-Ran is still raging in the national average price for gasoline is above $4 a gallon. And it was every single day last month, the most expensive August ever, according to AAA. And Lake Ontario or Lake America? Who cares, right? Trump's trade war with Canada is still raging. Reciprocal tariffs are expected to go into fact next week. And by the way, you know who cares, the American people care. And they get it, according to the latest Reuters Ipsas poll, just 14% of Americans support renaming Lake Ontario, Lake America.

3:08What's more, just 33% of Republicans are into it. Again, perhaps if Trump supporters were also being fed substance, real stuff, solutions, something more filling, they'd be more willing to go along with the stupid human tricks. But Trump right now appears allergic to anything more substantive than can fit in a true social post. Take data center construction, for example, it's a complicated issue. And it cuts across party lines in neighborhoods and communities all across the country. Many Americans, including lots and lots of Trump's most loyal supporters, currently feel uncertain or angry about them. And yet, not only does Trump lack policies designed to help Americans, including people who support him, he lacks any apparent interest in empathizing with people's fears or trying to explain his position. Just this week, he hissed on social media that communities that reject data centers would end up, quote, backwards and poor.

4:09Now Republican lawmakers who might have a hard time passing that message on to their deeply concerned constituents are expected to drop everything less than nine weeks ahead of a very difficult midterm, and flocked to Dallas to attend Donald Trump's so-called midterm convention. And on that particular fiasco, Politico is reporting this, quote, A survey of more than 70 Republican candidates and members revealed that most either do not plan to attend or are still weighing whether to go, dozens more declined to share their plans. The 45 Republicans cited a variety of reasons for skipping the first midterm convention, put on by a major party in more than four decades. Some cited prior obligations like fundraisers or events in their districts that were planned before the convention was scheduled in June. Others had personal conflicts like weddings and family events and still others raised quams about the five figure minimum fees that party officials want attending lawmakers to pony up. In other words, GOP lawmakers starving for something popular or anything substantive, many policy items or solutions are staring down at that now grimy bowl of gummy candy.

5:22Happy sugar high where we begin the hour with two of our most favorite friends political analysts and host of the board daily podcast, Tim Miller is back. Also with us my dear friend and colleague senior political analyst host of the runaway country podcast author of the sub stack how the hell Alex Wagner sir Tim Miller I took your buys I went on a family vacation a real one so anyone that's mad at me. I wanted to say for the last two weeks text Tim Miller but I have to be back. You can blame me and the viewers can blame me and you look great you look refreshed don't you feel refreshed. I wouldn't use that word two weeks home with my father was lots of things were fresh and wasn't one of them but yes no was so it was so good all that concentrated family time was perfect. And to come back and see that we're doing all the same things I have like renewed wonder at what we're going to look like when they're studying the history of this time I said this to Jim Himes in the last hour like when people study the history of this time they're really going to want to understand why no one did anything right like what Trump destroyed the military well he gutted the intelligence community well he turned DOJ into a personal defense law firm for himself and a political.

6:36Police force to pursue his enemies and the thing with the midterms that's amazing to me is that even even sort of self survival doesn't seem to be waking any of these guys up their lame excuses should be like no I'm not going because Trump is more unpopular than I am and I'm trying to keep it that way I mean what what is what is happening Tim. Yeah look I'm doing this on the fly so forgive me if this is not that apt to metaphor but I'm just listening to you talk about the history part of this like you know a lot of like decades later when you look back at the Nazis there's this like the banality of evil was this thing that came up right that was like oh you thought there must have been like some really you know massively powerful evil force and just turned out that a lot of the evil that happened was just like people kind of going about their lives following orders right and I do feel like there's a little bit of that now but there's also just a lot of things that I'm going to do that. It's just this like the fragility of our system right like it just it felt like it was much stronger than it was and that there would be much stronger counter currents to like this clownish collapse that is happening around us and and I think this is obviously you know you could talk to a million examples of that and we do every week and it's we keep coming back to the Republican party one because it's just the most shocking you know and they're just two examples from today you're talking about the midterms you know

7:55there's no way to mention everybody's like still going aboard with Trump they you know some of them are going they got to wash their hair or whatever they're making excuses. Oh they had a brunch date that they can't reschedule but like others are going like Michael allers going to why you go and there's nobody that's meaningfully trying to distance. The only person that I've seen this week on the Republican side meaningly trying to distance from this running catastrophe is Tom Tillis who's retiring and he said today that he thinks that he's going to be like the big sets should resign in this very long statement but it's like you could have stopped Pete Exeth. You know I talk about just like how how how lack there was just no counter current there's no backbone and all is so fragile it all collapsed so easily. To Pete Exeth was a 50 50 vote any Republican voted for him could have been the deciding vote to prevent him from being Secretary of War. It's not like this was a close call you know it's like it was John Kelly or somebody who could see the argument on both sides. And he was a weekend talk show co host with a history of a drinking problem where you know his colleagues that he got drunk on morning weekend television.

8:59You're going to put him in charge of the biggest military in the world as it was a crazy nomination and Tom Tillis gave it the a okay and now he's like offering a limp tweet saying that that well he should resign. It's like you you missed your chance on that buddy so I just that is kind of the story just kind of like the weakness of the pushback in the face of this. You know kind of collapse around us. Yeah I mean I think that's I think that's everything that's happening and I wonder Alex covering it every day if we miss sort of that forest through the trees right like one it's that we never needed to rely on something more than one norms into the laws of political gravity. I work for a Republican president who was deeply unpopular and no one would let Air Force one land you know near them as their own elections neared. And the what's changed I guess is that the norms don't hold Trump is like openly stealing from the American people he's building ballrooms after judges tell him he can't he's I mean he's breaking laws right in the life you know it's just put your name on currency.

10:08I mean there's so many hatchback violations that people stop covering them but it's still a violation of a law meant to keep politics out of places like the Pentagon and the White House and and and other government agencies and I I wonder when you see the American people so far ahead. The politicians what you think is coming in November. Okay a couple things first of all thank you Tim for putting the image of Tom tell us is limp tweet in my head now I needed to make a nation. It was it was right yeah one word for Nicole I marvel yes to your question more more I propose Nicole I marvel not just that the institution that the party itself has been so co-opted but that it's members are so willing to self sabotage I mean that political piece that you quoted where everybody's too busy washing their hair to go to the convention as Tim points out there are vulnerable Senate candidates going to the convention including mic Rogers from Michigan and John who said from Ohio the convention is the day after Trump's idiotic Canadian tariffs are supposed to work the begin the Canadian tariffs are supposed to be in action they're actionable on September 8th you have two guys who are literally at the

11:29front line of fire with their respective states as far as this war with Canada I mean Michigan and Ohio do 40 billion dollars worth of trade with Canada each and these guys who are incredibly vulnerable on one of Trump's most again I can't the idiotic is the only word that comes to mind these guys are so vulnerable on that and they're not only going to show up to this FACCA convention they're going to pay 25 minimum of 25 thousand dollars a piece to attend a convention that will be an act of self sabotage at the same time that the dude who's organizing the convention refuses to spend a dollar of the 400 million dollars he's sitting on in his super PAC that it's supposed to help vulnerable Republican Republican in comments I mean this isn't even becucked anymore I don't even know what the right word is to use it's like they want to jump off the cliff holding hands I do not understand the political calculation at all yeah I mean this is important I think for us to freeze frame on Tim because we've described the motive is one of political fear right why do they go along with charles feel good people on both sides why do they go along with access

12:42Hollywood grad women in the you know what because when you're famous they let you or whatever whenever he said all those years ago so the explanation sort of baked in to political pendigy is they went along with him because their base loved him so much well the base doesn't love him that much anymore and now going along with him could cost them their seats and and so I feel like we've we sort of failed to update the feed we failed to update the story now going along with someone who Trump some voters think is stealing from them and all the grip and reaching his sons we don't really have any experiences defense contractors but suddenly have a whole bunch of defense contracts raising the price of everything from gas to groceries waging a war in Iran that that I don't think half of his base is enthusiastic about lying about the condition of sailors on board aircraft carriers saying quote they're not there long enough when family members say they've been there so long they're under distress and under supplied I mean this isn't stuff that you know owning the lives this is stuff that is own base despises why are they still on the sinking ship

13:47yeah I want to get to the why but I do just want to like kind of a firm that this is just not in our bubble that that people can see this political reality I like literally just finished an interview it'll be up on the bulwark you to later tonight with a poster a mega poster in rich barris who like predicted Trump to win the electoral college in 16 and 24 and and got both exactly right and he told me that he assesses because the mega base has been so betrayed I'm I'm characterizing these are quotes but that the mega base is so unhappy and not going to turn out and and you know maybe who knows some people the vote for Trump and definitely some people vote for Trump who going to be voting for Democrats because they're so unhappy with all the things you just laid out he thinks that the seats in Nebraska and Montana and Kansas the Senate seats are potentially in play he thinks that the Michigan and Georgia Senate seats are off the board like the Democrats are definitely going to win them and this is like I predicted Trump to win in 2016 20 2024 it's a it's a mission against interest and and I don't really talk

14:57like a half hour and it could have been a segment of this show maybe you should have lots of money he's at an indistinguishable from what you just laid out he was just a little less happy about it you know and so like they see it like at least some of them see it I mean he's in their bubble right like they see his posts and like they know that that's what they're saying so then what the question is why are more people distancing and the best answer I can come to is just like lack of personal courage it's hard it's hard to go against the group you know like at first it was political survival but then it's just like you know what at the end of the day I'd rather go down with the ship still get invited tomorrow logo next year still get lot still have them return my calls for lobbying dollars I would rather that then take a risky move against Trump maybe lose anyway and also alienate my cronies like I that would be my armchair psychological analysis and what's happening the my the part of it that my brain just won't accept is that it presumes that that this movement is going to ride on and I think it is so politically toxic that I don't think it's going to be a

16:01a mega figure that sort carries the torch I mean I I think Mark Rubio thinks he's going to ride the popularity of the Venice Whalerade to the presidency with gas at $4 a gallon I think he's smoking something other than a cigarette I mean I think I think Alex when you look at how crazy these things are renaming like Ontario being indifferent about data say it's also quintessential Trump to have come out against data centers I mean that would have been a steep ban and like like no brainer right would see ban them and say who cares these like you can you can take their money and and screw them on data centers because the mega voter doesn't want a data center in their backyard like his political Trump's ability to have any sense of what his own voters want is gone over totally I think the AI data centers piece is so exemplary of that and we do have an episode of Runaway country that is up right now where we're talking to a rural Texas Republican someone who worked for Ken sorry Greg Abbott and she cannot underscore enough how serious this fight is and you talk about a world you know the

17:08post Trump landscape you can imagine like the populism that the AI data center says harness like this idea of the public and the tech sector are hopelessly corrupt that the benefits the corporations promise Americans the public never sees that this physical manifestation of tech and corporate overreach which is the the data centers that the fight is so piercing because it's the one of the only ways in which the public can say no we are not on board with all this change no we do not see this tech as essential to our lives no we are not okay with the environmental and social impacts of all of this I mean that fight could be the coalition around that fight could be what happens to parts of MAGA and a post Trump landscape I mean the issues exist there the fact that Trump doesn't want to take that gimme and come out and say AI data centers are not part of the Republican party vision for America is astounding given the fact that you see people like Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton I mean to say nothing of the Democrats fully at one point you know they were they wanted

18:12Texas to be the epicenter of data centers now it's like a complete 180 the fact that Trump refuses to do it because he's either so deeply in the pocket of Tim Cook and you know the tech brole of Arx or just because he hates being wrong about anything it's it's truly his monstrous ego has taken over the party for great great peril yeah or or option number three he never cared about his voters anyway and this is just like another mask off moment I need both of you to stay when we come back it's not just politics or Donald Trump is viewed by voters including many of his own as failing miserably his policies continue to shatter what we thought we were as a country and all the norms of basic human decency after horrific incident involving a Haitian student whose temporary protective status to stay in this country was revoked the outrage to that story continues to grow and we'll tell you about it next also ahead Donald Trump's plan to use the US Postal Service to disenfranchise

19:12voters is one step closer to being operational to being a thing but voting rights super lawyer Mark Elias spotted on the DHS website that could lead to millions of Americans losing their right to vote in November Mark joins us later in the hour. Devin Whitehouse continues after quick break don't go anywhere Ever since I was young I've watched people working hard chasing opportunity making sacrifices doing everything they can to build a better life and now we're shining a light on what matters most our economy our national identity our democracy our future the stakes have never been higher it's all on the line on the line with Alicia Menendez weekdays at 12 p.m. Eastern on MS now a deeply tragic and frankly horrific story is unfolding and renewing outrage over Donald Trump's cruel and inhumane immigration policies

20:22the Ohio State Highway Patrol tells local media that on Monday a Haitian immigrant living in Springfield, Ohio parked on the shoulder of Interstate 70 and that he walked into Westbound traffic and was struck by a tractor trailer he was pronounced dead at that scene his family tells a Washington Post it was a suicide he was just 20 years old his name is Pierre de Moss Bell he had the whole world ahead of him he was a gifted student he was a soccer player he was a cadet in the Marine Corps junior ROTC according to his dad he was a college student who dreamed of studying medicine with the Washington Post reports that quote like an estimated 350,000 Haitian immigrants Bell had recently lost temporary protected status which is given to people fleeing nations that are experiencing disaster and federal immigrant immigration agents had placed an electronic monitoring device on Bell's ankle this dad tells the Washington Post that he felt like he was quote being treated like an animal July Bell posted on social media quote I came to this country to pursue my education

21:26I did not come here to commit a crime or heard anyone yet now I'm walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience the Department of Homeland Security said this in a statement quote we will not speculate about unverified claims regarding illegal aliens the circumstances of his death remain under investigation by Ohio State Highway Patrol here's what Ohio Governor Mike DeWine a Republican said Mr. Ford, Freddie and Ford, I'm a new young, you have every hearing since I'm out what he can do in his time and what he can contribute to his time I think it's also important for us as our people to think about do we want this being done this last deportation in our name and whether that's do we really support that?

22:29I don't think that's the most emergent support Tim Miller, a little bit more about Bell these are the outfits that he posted himself in on the first day of classes at Wright State on August 24th there he is, August 24th, first day of school I want to tell our viewers a little bit more about him he was a varsity soccer player for Springfield City School District you graduated in May in his Instagram bio he wrote that he was studying physiology and neuroscience in preparation for medical school I want to be a doctor and this is who in our name is Americans all three of us was targeted, started with quote they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs and quote from Donald Trump and ended on a highway but the patient never got an ankle bracelet, your thoughts Tim?

23:30It's so horrifying, a couple of different things there is the hand up back to Hannah Rent and the Vanality of Evil here the ankle bracelet that was put on, I'm not enough people have seen that picture but it's massive it's not like a tiny little eye watch, it's like a very, it's a big square block that we shackled to his leg and so when he says I couldn't play soccer I was being bullied on the soccer field it's like he literally couldn't play soccer with this thing so he's unable to do that when he says that he volunteered to be using the junior ROTC he volunteered to serve the country and he couldn't do that because he couldn't get the uniform pants on because the bracelet shackled was so big so you know this is a kid and you talk about like everything he did and you just lay it out and he shows picture I think the other thing that it shouldn't matter but it's worth saying is that like he didn't, he wasn't a legal immigrant

24:32he didn't swim across the Rio Grande to get into this country he never did anything wrong like he came under the Biden administration under the temporary protected status for Haitians because what is happening with Haiti, this is something we've done since the beginning of the country people fleeing horrible situations can come here it's the shining city on the hill, he did so through a legal process didn't jump anybody in line God here, came, went to school, learned English like did all the things that you hear the mega anti-immigration people say they want right, like he did everything so he does everything correctly and still like we're humiliating him and shackling with his ankle brace for no reason even if you're going to deport him there's no reason for an ankle brace let on he's followed every rule if you just sent him a letter in the mail and said hey you got to be out of here by September 15th he probably would have been out of there maybe you got a lawyer in appeal to them in October 15th or like that's how this was handled forever there's no need for violence there's no need for this you know kind of dehumanization so the only other thing I do want to just say to Mike DeWine

25:32it is nice to hear Governor say that but if you go back to his quote the one thing that struck me there he's like I just want us to take this moment to kind of think about whether we want nasty portations and I think for the governor of Ohio like you're called for a little bit more than thinking right now and it's a nice thing to say I guess but like these federal thugs are in your state like menacing people that are residents of your state that are tax paying residents of your state you could do more your attorney general could sue the administration you could have a more direct confrontation with Trump we've seen other state governors do this and so you know I wasn't really that compelled by Mike DeWine's call for thinking I wasn't either and I guess the only thing that I thought was interesting about it is he is the ultimate politician and even as someone that politically sort of centered to know that the politics on this are a big fat loser

26:33because people have thought about this they they had a chance to do that after a renaissance call good was shot and killed in her car after saying I'm not mad at you dude and after Alex Freddie was shot point blank protecting somebody and what they decided was that immigration is more popular now than it's been in I think like 40 years in the last New York Times poll about how people feel about immigration in general how did it record highs so people were not offended by this young man being this country to pursue his dreams of studying medicine Alex they were not but I think I mean I have so many feelings about this Nicole first first off Tim you know Tim I know you said like he didn't need an ankle monitor the ankle monitor and the humiliation and this the dehumanization is exactly the point here making a young kid who's he's been playing by the rules feel like a criminal is exactly the point

27:36is the destruction this is all nominally about immigration but really the destruction of black and brown lives is essential to the project of white supremacy and white nationalism and that's what's going on here and there is a reason that they take people to detention centers and give them dirty water and inadequate medical care and you know not enough food it is to make them feel like they have there is no hope for them there's a reason that they separate parents after they've dropped their children off at the school bus stop so that their kids return home to no one in the house it's to rip those parents hearts into and keep them apart from their children maybe forever I mean there's a reason they are doing all of this and it is not just to get people out of the country and get them to self support it's not just to you know put Cuban refugees from Florida in countries in Africa to make them disoriented it's to destroy their lives and that's exactly what's happened here and I know that Mark Wayne Mullin and Stephen Miller would never own this but that's an essential part of the broader project which is to bleach the country and like you know one's going to come out and say

28:38well that's the intended effect is to have a young promising man walk out into traffic and kill himself but they absolutely that's part of the calculation is to make it so insufferable to be here that this country doesn't have people like that in it anymore and I would say you know I spoke to a Haitian nurse who has been here since she was five years old with a child that was born here in America who got the same deportation notice to ask these people to return to Haiti is unfathomable they have no relation to the country it is more dangerous than it ever has been and honestly shame on all of us for not being in the streets the same way that we were for Alex it's a very big deal because of the fact that the other party in Renek Nicole good just because this isn't caught on camera and this involves black people I mean it is really it is a national stain on our conscience how do we keep it in the spotlight Alex I mean you're doing the right thing by putting it on national television because too often this is just a headline like a Burmese man who freezes to death outside of a Tim Wharton's

29:38and we don't talk about it and this is the collateral damage of this policy and it is not a policy it's really actually a project can we keep talking about it here the three of us yes okay are you guys are sticking around I do want to say this because of what we've been talking about it's a flooding and if you're watching and you know someone who's experiencing any sort of mental health crisis there is help available you can call our text 988 to reach the suicide and crisis lifeline when we come back there's just less than nine weeks to go before you can render judgment on everything we've been talking about in the midterm elections but the wrinkle is this the right to vote in our country is reaching a crisis point voting rights attorney Marco Lyos is our next guest and I'll tell us what he spotted on the Homeland Security Department's website and why it should be setting up alarm bells all over the pro-democracy coalition in America right now this is not a test or a war game the lights are not flashing yellow it's happening

30:50Donald Trump is right now using every tool at his disposal as the president of the United States of America to try to take over us elections ahead of November's midterms aiding Trump's efforts to control who's on the voting roles is the country's Department of Homeland Security set up after 9-11 to protect the country they've now published a webpage they did this yesterday intended to be the home of a national voter registry the website is dubbed the state citizenship list portal and it claims that lists of eligible voters in all 50 states are quote coming soon according to a memo released in June DHS plans to have the portal fully functional by Friday Trump has tried to claim that the lists are needed to prevent non-citizen voting which is incredibly rare and already illegal in his own administration could can find an example of it democracy docket points out this quote the list sought by Trump would amount to a nationwide voter eligibility database and the election system is not the executive branch

31:55privacy experts have also warned that the Trump administration would likely violate privacy laws in centralizing Americans personal data to compile the list after democracy docket reported on the creation of the web page the web page disappeared was taken down by someone turning our conversation voting rights attorney and democracy docket founder Mark Elias is here Tim and Alex are still with us Mark this is not constitutional this is not legal is that correct it's not constitutional it's not legal it's not normal and it's extremely dangerous I mean the level of alarm that people should have has increased dramatically in the last few weeks where you have the US Postal Service which has always been neutral with respect to what mail it carries or doesn't carry you know if Tim sends out one of his newsletters

32:59the US Postal Service carries it even if it's critical Donald Trump if MS now wants to send a letter to the White House protesting treatment of one of its reporters the US Postal Service delivers it if democracy docket wants to publish its own content by mail it gets delivered well all of a sudden now when it comes to ballots when it comes to ballots the US Postal Service is imposing restrictions that will require states to turn over sensitive voter information to the federal government and then on top of that you have this you have the US government sending to the states or creating a portal so that it will tell the states who it believes is eligible to vote and if you're not on that list and a state official lets you vote anyway well Todd Blanche has been instructed to criminally investigate and to prioritize criminal investigation of state officials so I ask you what states what local officials are going to defy that list even if they know it's an error even if they know it is disenfranchising voters

34:06well they've done this because they've lost in court right they tried to get all this they tried to get the states to give them the data and they lost right 23 cases so where is the data coming from what are they going to what's going to populate their page if they put it back up you know to go I'm so glad you mentioned that and it's one of the pleasures of being on your show regularly because it feels like we can pick this conversation up from from top it from day to day yeah for people who have been watching you and I discuss this for a year we they would know that that Donald Trump had the department of justice ask for all 50 states to turn over their most sensitive voter data these unredacted voter files they wound up suing 30 of those states my law firm and I we intervene to defend voters and all those as of today the department of justice is 0 for 23 seven states have not yet had it ruled upon but every court that has reviewed this has refused the department of justice that has been a different department of justice is request that includes judges appointed by Donald Trump by Democratic presidents of all of all sorts

35:10they've all been unanimous that that the federal government is not entitled to this data so what happened in March is as this humiliation was building Donald Trump and I think it's an executive order to try to get this data a different way and that was to course the postal service or to core states via the postal service to turning over at least large chunks of this data if they want their mail-in ballots delivered to voters you know state can say nope I'm not going to give it to you but the officials are say fine we won't carry the mail-in ballots that you want us to send to voters now the good news is that's now been blocked by a federal district court judge in in Massachusetts and and we are awaiting to see if this case goes back to the Supreme Court but you know the escalation of tactics that we are seeing here still more than 60 days before the election is really like nothing we've seen before and I say that as a veteran of the 2020 election when I was representing you know various voting organizations and Democratic party before the election and then President Biden and the Democratic party afterwards.

36:15I want to I want to pull Tim and Alex in and just talk about with the public can do because I think this is one of those stories that benefits Trump if people for their hands up in the air and feel despair so we'll have that conversation on the other side of a short break don't go anywhere. Join MS now live in Texas for our biggest event yet with Rachel Maddo Chen Zaki Michael Steele and more MS now live together in Texas September 26th get tickets today at MS dot now slash together. Rebecca Mark Tim and Alex Tim Nickerson the New York Times drop this story this afternoon I'll read some of it to you. Trump administration begins blitz to find elusive voter fraud ahead of midterms quote hundreds of federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security have been assigned to an intensive weeks long hunt for non citizens among the nation's registered voters despite an absence of evidence of widespread fraud according to documents and training videos reviewed by the New York Times.

37:19Agents are scouring voter roles managed by the states and are using personally identifiable information about individual voters such as their dates of birth and partial social security numbers to look them up on those roles according to the documents the extraordinary operation reveals the extent to which the Trump administration is searching for evidence of fraud ahead of the November elections the government is privately calling the effort the unlawful voter initiative and is pulling agents from their normal duties which includes investigating such serious crimes as human rights. And so I guess a couple of questions bill bar called this hunt quote bullshit and then this Trump 2.0 group when I think Christine known was in charge of DHS went out looking for the same thing that bill bar call bullshit and they found no. And so now this is another unit that's supposed to be protecting the country from let me get this right human trafficking and terrorism looking for something that bill bar couldn't find and Christine know him can find make that makes sense.

38:21Yeah God willing there's no real threats to the country over the next few months I mean it's crazy everything has been some what's been lucky everyone's knocking on wood right now it's not just this by the way in a ton of people have been rerouted from DHS and FBI positions to do and random immigration checks and you know doing perimeter. On home depot raids and other nonsense so is happening across the board like to your question from before the break I do think they're a couple of different like their role different roles for dealing with these threats right now and I think that obviously what Mark is doing is so important and like fighting this out in the courts and getting ahead of it and playing whack them all somebody's got to do it I'm glad it's Mark and not me but the other part of this role is I do think that. That if they fail in their efforts to like really rig the system right like if they only are able to achieve things on the margins I like this is example in Texas telleriko is pointing out today about how like one of the biggest counties there only three places to vote and and that just isn't as much access in this blue county to voting is there only situations like that I do think there can be backlash to this if it if it is loud enough and there is evidence about that in the day.

39:35And in the political science that sometimes voter suppression efforts fail to draw attention particularly in these off your elections and I think that is key for people in the communications business and like I said I saw telleriko pushing on this today and I think that's going to be important for the Democrats go ahead to the fall. I mean Alex it it you know the tactic is a message and messages the tactic they don't want you to vote I wonder why what is your sense of where the country is compared to your trip to hungry ahead of that complete rejection of our bond. Well I would have learned both in hungry and in the United States is the more you try and take the an essential vote a central right away from people the more they want to hold on to it dearly I mean you're seeing protests and for worth when they're trying to close polling places you see. You see amazing organization on the ground in the south as they've stripped the voting rights act of any of its teeth and they've tried to disenfranchise millions and millions of voters of color I mean I think you see you see you know projects like the votes a America act which are not act votes a America project to ensure that people are intimidated at the polls I mean people are taking the initiative and preventively trying to ensure that people have a free and fair election that this democracy stands up in November and I think you know I was talking to Simon Rosenberg.

40:52I'm a podcast if you feel like your mail and vote isn't going to count if you're not confident make a plan to vote in person and vote early I mean I people aren't going to take this lying down at least I'm optimistic that they don't because the Trump Trump is telegraphing what he's trying to do which is to steal the election and manipulate the results to disenfranchise maybe as many as a third of mail and votes in this country and people see that people understand what the right to vote means and they are not going to go quietly into that good night and on that front I'm optimistic and of course very thankful for the efforts of Mark and his group and also thankful that Tim Miller isn't running them. Yeah I mean I think you're at your point like when all your voters are pushing is showing you have a different problem then you think you're solving Tim and Alex thank you so much for spending the hour with me we'll get Mark Elias the last word after a very short break stay with us. Mark and Mark Elias Margas that carousel was your posting about you know changing Dr. go to your browser after Lake Ontario debacle I downloaded mapquist because everyone else seemed to have cave to the most ridiculous Trump request it's one thing to ask law firms to capitulate because he's mad at them it's another to rename Lake Ontario it's just it's just

42:11autocratic on top of bleep and stupid what is the thing that people can do to take initiative about with the post-ill services doing. So I think the biggest mistake people make is that they think that Republican election officials are not responsive to the public and that the courts are not you know courts are just judges who live in communities they go to their kids soccer games they are in their communities and hear from them. That's not to suggest that you're doing anything wrong it's just the overall environment matters so the biggest thing I tell people to do is this not stay quiet but rather to stand up in their town square and delivery message that is loud and clear that they are insisting that the institutions of our country protect free and fair elections that they're they will work around them if they have to they will do all of those things that you know we say you know you can always do this rather than that but but before we get to that we need people to and stand up and not move the goal post and insist that democracy function and that the courts do their jobs that elected officials do their jobs that election officials do their jobs and I think if that happens we will be more successful than people think.

43:26It also makes people feel better you know like it was just this little thing but switching my mappons switching my browser made me feel like I I done my little thing Mark away as you do all the big things thank you for spending time with us today one more break will be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes we are grateful. Home to the Rachel Maddo show morning Joe the briefing with Jen socky and more voices you know and trust MS now is your source for news opinion and the world learn more at MS dot now.