"Trump's crusade to transform mail-in voting"

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1:04Which will be very clear Donald Trump wants to disrupt the election to 2026. He's been ordered by by by a court to not move forward on his plans to kind of read to kind of redo how he wants to do what by mail in his own work vision of what he thinks should happen in an election. This is basically the president's attempt to pick and choose where he wants to count ballots. And it's it's a unconstitutional it's illegal and we're going to continue to push really hard on this. Again everyone it's five o'clock in Washington DC. I'm Jackie Alamani in for Nicole Wallace fighting till the bitter end. An November midterm elections are right around the corner and Donald Trump is continuing his crusade to transform mail and voting even as some states have already kicked off their mail and voting programs. His administration filed yet another appeal to the US Supreme Court yesterday following a district court judges ruling that extended the injunction against his executive order. Trump's order if allowed to continue would overhaul how the US Postal Service mails out and

2:07delivers ballots sent in the mail. In her ruling judge Indira Tawani said that what Trump wants to change quote threatens the disenfranchisement of millions of United States citizens who seek to vote by mail. It's a practice that has been around since the Civil War becoming much more popular in the last few decades. Even Trump himself voted by mail as recently as last month. Yet he continues to rail against it saying without evidence that mail in voting leads to widespread fraud. Brookings study last November found that mail voting fraud is very rare. It counts for about four cases out of every 10 million ballots cast. That's 0.004043%. But for this administration that's besides the point. And now the Supreme Court may soon weigh in on Trump's order. Ballots have already been mailed out in North Carolina and Wisconsin for this year's midterms. As many more states will send out their ballots this month. As democracy docket

3:13points out more than 51 million mail ballots will be sent to voters in the coming weeks just from the District of Columbia. And the two dozen states that are challenging the Trump administration's 11th hour attack on mail voting. The pressure that would be placed on election workers and the election systems to adapt to Trump's new rules is something that Judge Tawani addressed in her decision. Quote having considered this series of hurdles for officials against the backdrop of an impending election. And mindful of the end of the fact that any minor malfunction will result in the denial of mail ballots. The court concludes that disenfranchisement for plaintiffs organizations, members regardless of residents is practically inevitable. And that is where we begin this hour with Vogue Beach Senior National Reporter, Diane Nisbaum. And also joining us. Legal analyst Barbara McQuade, she is a former US attorney and now a law professor at the University of Michigan and founder

4:14and CEO of all in together Lauren leader. Thank you all so much for joining us this Labor Day. Barbara, I want to start with you because that language from Judge Tawani, which says it is inevitable that people are going to be disenfranchised. How unusual is it for a federal judge to make a finding like that? And do you feel that it changes at all about the way that the Supreme Court is going to potentially weigh in on this? Well, it's actually an essential finding in this situation because at this preliminary stage of litigation, irreparable harm is something that courts have to look at. And both sides have argued that they would suffer irreparable harm unless they win. On the plaintiff's side, it means voters will be disenfranchised. On the Trump administration side, they won't get the rule they want. When you weigh those two things and you think about the consequences of those harms, it seems that delaying this rule implementation, at least until it can be more soundly implemented,

5:15is our lesser harm than what could happen with disenfranchisement of voters. There was a whistleblower report last week that said that because of the problems that they're having at the postal service, implementing this new portal system, if even one ballot is blocked because of it in proper barcode, it could lead to the blocking of an entire batch of 10,000 ballots. And so for that reason, it very much is appropriate to look at the consequences and the irreparable harm that could be suffered by voters. And Diane, I'm sorry, I accidentally put your last name in this and bomb. Thanks for joining us today. I want to ask you why we're in this very messy and confusing situation to begin with because as we are all aware, as I've read on air countless times over the past few weeks, the Supreme Court already had the chance to shut this down, but they decided not to rule on the merits. Why are they doing what they're doing? As you know, this is a president that

6:17has made voter fraud a cornerstone of his administration and he's been pushing for this since the beginning of his second term. And you know, it comes down to the question that the Constitution gives the power to regulate federal elections to states and Congress, not the president. And this is an issue that the court really has to wrestle with when this came up the first time around. It was sent back on a procedural note because the rule wasn't in place. And while they were writing their opinions, they took them a month to write that opinion, they did issue the rules, and now it's back before them. And in that first ruling, they did say time will tell whether or not we're going to decide whether or not this is constitutional or not. And really, I think the question that Barbara raised here about balancing harms is really the big one here. The administration is saying they're trying to prevent voter fraud. And as you said at the beginning, it's so rare in mail-in ballots that to potentially disenfranchise tens of millions of people voting,

7:22we would think would outweigh the potential for voter fraud and mail ballots. And Lauren, I know that you are often very deep in the cross tabs of polling. I'm wondering if you're seeing Trump's rhetoric around mail-in voting and voter suppression writ large registering it all amongst voters. And if you have any sense of whether or not this is actually going to impact disproportionately, Trump voters, because they're the ones who are listening to him day in and day out, fear-monger over our voting system. Well, you've got to also put this in context, Jackie, which is that he's been doing this as long as he's been in political life. And that is he has used his pulpit from nearly the beginning to so doubt into the validity of elections. And of course, he's never challenged the validity of the elections that he's won. But any election that he's lost, he has doubled down on every wild claim of voter fraud, none of which has ever proven to be true.

8:25And of course, that led to the riots on January 6th. And now he's using the sort of bludgeon of executive power to try to justify leveraging the postal service, which in its entire history has never had a role in regulating the way that elections are conducted. And I think if you read John's, I wish I know most people aren't going to do, but you know, this blizzard general John Sauer in his appeal to the court this morning, and I'm no barber McWade, but I did read it. It's remarkable in its ability to just sort of completely manipulate reality to make a legal argument that is just bunk. And the idea that there are these harms being caused because the postal service has not been able to determine whether the voter rolls and the name on the envelope match. I mean, it makes no sense. And they're completely unprepared to manage this, you know, in a short period of time, or frankly, ever. So it does so doubt Americans, we've seen this line for a while. Americans are

9:25very concerned about the safety of their ballots. And he's just making it worse. And it feels very intentional and part of a very long term playbook that this president has used over and over again. Barbara, I'm wondering if you can try to read the tea leaves for us on what you might be expecting from this Supreme Court. They've obviously ruled very expansively, especially on issues related to quote national security when it comes to executive power, but they also in some cases, when it comes to the agencies actually reigned in Trump's power and what the administration has tried to do if those things haven't been explicitly written in the statute. So what are you expecting this time around? Yeah, it's, you know, it's always a little bit tricky to try to predict what the court might do, but Justice Jackson, who is in charge of appeals and requests out of the first circuit, has given the plaintiffs until September 9th. That's Wednesday to respond. And then I expect

10:28we will get a decision very quickly. I think when it comes to separation of powers, even though this court has taken up a strong unitary executive theory, the Constitution is quite explicit into who governs elections. It's the state and states in the first instance, having the time place or manner as amended by the Congress. And Congress has the right to change the rules if it wants to, as it has done with the vote and rights act, as it is done with the motor voter law and other kinds of things. There is not a role for the executive branch here. So I won't give you any bet on what Justice is a leader or Thomas might do, but I think the majority of the court will rule in favor of the plaintiffs and say that there is no role for the executive branch in the administration of elections. And Diane, I am wondering in terms of a worst case scenario, especially in places like North Carolina and Wisconsin, where mail-in ballots are already out. What happens? I mean, are these votes just not counted? Well, the federal government in their

11:33motion to this Remkore yesterday said all the votes that go out will not be subject to these rules. So North Carolina will be exempted. Any ballots that go out between now and any ruling that they get will be grandfathered in. But to me, that creates kind of a new question is now you're going to have a bifurcated system where some states are operating under one system, other states are operating under another system. You do have the possibility that some states will refuse to cooperate with the system and not cooperate at all. And then nobody in that state would be able to vote by mail through the USPS. So even the Trump administration admits that there's incredible potential chaos on the horizon, however they rule. And so I agree with Barbara, it seems that in reality, they should rule for the plaintiffs for this election at least. But as we know, this is a court that you can't predict what they're going to do. And Lauren, as you are well aware, mail-in voting isn't the only way that the president is trying to disrupt the way that elections are administered in our

12:36country. Mark Wayne Mullin speaking to Politico on Tuesday, speaking to reporters, sorry, in New York City, said that DHS could deploy agents to polling sites for specific threats. He said that ICE isn't there to patrol the polling places. We're there to enforce specific threats. He added, however, that reports of specific undocumented immigrants at a location could be a reason for ICE to deploy and that the only reason why we would be at polling places is if there is a threat to that polling place or we're serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down. ICE's job is immigration, customs enforcement, that's their job. If we're serving a warrant, we will be where we need to be. Is this helping Republican candidates who are already facing such headwinds with Trump's approval rating and disapproval when it comes to all of these issues that

13:38he's, him and his administration have prioritized by having this administration in the final sprint towards November in these last 60 days. Now going out there and making this a part of their message that ICE is going to be a part of the election system to patrol undocumented immigrants who according to all of the research and the statistics, we know are not fraudulently voting. No, of course they're not and it's actually really terrifying because if you think about the number of people we know that many documented and even American citizens have been racially profiled and picked up by ICE in airports and communities in their cars all over the country. And so if you don't think that has a chilling effect on folks, especially those in minority communities who have been racially profiled, you know, that's, it's really scary stuff and there's real questions about whether or not this is meant to intentionally intimidate people and keep them

14:40from coming to the polls under the guise of national security. We're just keeping everybody safe by sending ICE to the polls and they might have a warrant but also we know that they've been picking up people without warrant. So, you know, it's all part of a larger strategy which is to so doubt and confusion and just enough of it to keep people home. And I think, you know, we, part of what has been challenging, I think, for this Trump administration is that in fact people have been surging to the polls. We've seen really incredible voter turnout over the last several cycles. People who were not willing to be sort of dissuaded from being heard. And, you know, it's unfortunate because I think, you know, it's not a given that just because we have high turnout that Republicans are going to lose, it's just not smart politics. But that's not the point. I mean, they've been doing this for a long time. The president has constantly beaten this drum and many Republicans just continue to fall in line. And I'll just add one more thing I wanted to say, you know, the SAV Act was the other part of the president's strategy to try to manipulate or at least sort of

15:45create some barriers around supposed, you know, fragile voters. What we know with the problem is the SAV Act was is that if you had discrepancies in your name, it was going to potentially disenfranchise millions of women. And that's why it hasn't passed yet because Republicans know that too was deeply unpopular. So this is just another example. And it's very scary that this is happening so close to the election. I hope people are not intimidated and they do still come out and vote or mail their ballots. No better trio to break all of this down for us. We really appreciate it. Lauren leader, Diane Nissenbaum-Barbham-Quaid. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. And when we return, how the Trump Justice Department is issuing subpoenas for voter data in the key swing state of Nevada? But that state's top election official are doing in response. That's next. Also, ahead Donald Trump's trade war with our closest neighbor, Canada is hitting a boiling point. Canadian tariffs are set to go into effect in response to Trump's tariffs. And now, Trump is vowing further escalation, even as high prices are hurting American consumers

16:48in real time. We'll unpack where things go from here. And later, a frightening scene on the campaign trail in Ohio, an armed man lunging at that state's Democratic candidate for governor. What happened in the outrage over the growing specter of political violence later in the hour? Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Stick with us. When your car stops working, we start working. Have car problems. Text lemon to 40333. My Lemon Law Law Group. Text lemon to 40333. You pay zero the manufacturer pays. Visit us at mylemonlawlawyer.com or text lemon to 40333. This ad and content are brought to you by a free YagoTLS square. Downtown LA Law Group, DBA My Lemon Law Lawyer, 540 South Santa Fe, Los Angeles. This ad doesn't constitute an attorney-client relationship. Data and text, SMS messaging service rates may apply. Previous results do not guarantee the same outcome. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Hi, I'm Sean Evans from Hot Ones and I want to

17:48tell you about YouTube Premium. It has offline downloads so you can watch without Wi-Fi, background play, so you can lock your phone and it still plays baby. Oh, and it is completely ad free. Yes, I said it ad free. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. One of you can see what's happening inside your body. Pre-new Vose Whole Body Scans screens for hundreds of conditions, including many solid tumors as early as stage one, all in under an hour. And now you can go beyond imaging with 80 plus blood biomarkers that help complete the picture. This Labor Day, save $300 off your scan when you book at pre-newvo.com. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O.com. Save $300 now through September 8th at pre-newvo.com. Terms and conditions apply. An escalation in the Trump administration's efforts to interfere in Nevada's elections.

18:51That's how the Nevada Independent describes what it reports are seven voter-related subpoenas from the FBI sent to the Nevada Secretary of State's office in the past three months. More from that reporting, quote, the Trump administration had previously sued Nevada, virt's decision to not hand over an unredacted copy of its voter file, which includes voters, drivers license numbers, and partial social security numbers. A judge last month dismissed that lawsuit. The Trump administration had also alleged that there could be more than 15,000 non-citizens on Nevada's voter rules. It later acknowledged that it had only been able to identify 185 potential non-citizen voters so far. I want to bring in Nevada Secretary of State, Sispo Aguilar. Welcome, Secretary, and happy Labor Day. What else can you tell us about these subpoenas? Well, thank you for having me, it's an honor to be here. These subpoenas are just an additional threat to forces into compliance with what the White House wants to do to federalize our

19:56elections. But in Nevada, we're standing up. We're saying, no, this is unacceptable. The Constitution is very clear that state's run elections, not the federal government. They can continue to use subpoenas, they can continue to use the courts. But what we're going to do is completely say no until the judge forces us to act. What the scary part about all of this is this is just an additional layer to everything else that they're doing. Being the fact that I'm up for re-election this cycle, knowing that if I win my election, I will be the one administering the 2028 election, which is the presidential, which we know is the goal and the intent of everything they're trying to do is to seek control, put their thumb on the scale, and ensure they get their individual into the White House. But that's not how elections work in America. I want to ask you a little bit more about this back and forth between your state and DHS over these artificially inflated numbers. I believe the first number that President

20:57Trump threw out there was 250,000. It was subsequently dropped to 16,000 before finally agency admitted that they only were able to find 195 instances. How are they able to piece those numbers together? And what ultimately do you think they want to do with this voter data? Well, first of all, I have no understanding of how they're putting this information together. Even a third grader, when he does a math problem, has to show his work. We're asking the federal government, show us your work. Tell us how you did this. Explain to us how we can better do a job at maintaining our voter rules. We want to make sure that our American system makes strong. But when somebody's taking cheap shots at you constantly and not being honest with you about this process, at some point you've got to call a spader spader and say, this is unacceptable. We're not going to subject the Nevada citizens to this these threats to this intimidation. You cannot do this to our state. It is expensive to go through

22:03this process. You're putting this on the backs of Nevada taxpayers. We know Nevada taxpayers are working hard right now to meet the high costs of living to make sure that they can put food on the table and you're trying to distract them. But we all know what the overall arching goal of this is. We have a president who wants to pick his voters, rather than voters picking the elected, because they want to choose and maintain power. It is mostly an attempt by this president to maintain power and continue to push us forward into these bad policies, which is hurting Americans every single day. Are you worried, though, that this administration, just based on the way that they have so persistently attempted to chip away at the right to vote and the pre-existing laws at state levels and at federal levels and the way elections are administered, that they're going to be able to successfully in some way up end the fact that constitutionally, and it is perhaps the most settled election law that

23:05there is, be able to try to upend the fact that elections are run by states when all of a sudden done. When you have the layer of the previous litigation of not giving them the personal information of our voter rolls in Nevada, and then you add in the DHS comments, the president going on national TV, the secretary making a direct threat that we would consider present time for those of us that did not comply with their wishes, even though it was against the law, then we have the seven subpoenas that were issued to us by the FBI in Nevada. Those are all opportunities to subdued out in the process. So the day after the election, they can start to attack us and say, we planted this, we did this, we know this, and they want to be able to have an opportunity to challenge anything that doesn't go their way. Look, Democrats are out there working hearts when these elections. Democratic secretaries are working really hard to win their races because we know how critical the 26 is for the 28. But it hasn't stopped that. On Friday afternoon, I received

24:06a letter from the DOJ saying that I was under investigation for everything I've done as a chief elections officer in Nevada. That's an additional threat that was made, I must, and then telling us that we needed to preserve all of our voting records for the 24 election. Again, this is all an action to so-down process, but it's also true to get a large voting base in Nevada not to show up on election day. And that is our Latino community. When you talk about non-citizens, we are 30%, of the voter base in Nevada. We are a strong voice. We're going to determine the outcome of some of these major races. And the candidates know that. And they have to be able to stand up, push back against this administration, say, enough is enough. We're going to be stubborn. We're going to be very strong. We're not going to give you what you want, no matter what you continue to do to us. Well, in Secretary, because you started to paint that picture of what the day after could look like, from the Trump administration, I'm wondering, do you have a day after plan? Because we've talked a

25:09lot about the way you and other secretaries of states around the country are protecting voters and the right to vote in various different ways, from mail-in voting, and to making sure that voters feel safe when they go to the polling place. Do you have as robust of a plan for the day after in the case that this administration does try to actually execute some of these far-fetched ideas of seizing voting booths, seizing ballots, things that we've already seen play out, despite it being four years later, but in a place like Fulton County Atlanta just last year? Yes, we do. Look, Secretary of State, our crisis managers, we have to think about what the potential is for the future of our elections. We have to think about the craziness that this administration will try to pull at a moment's notice, because we know they're not strategic. They're very reactive to everything they do. It's like a bad episode of Love Island. They have no idea, they have no plan, they're just going to react to the moment and then

26:12figure out how they can be the biggest bullies in the room to get exactly what they want. But secondaries are sitting back and saying, okay, here's what we need to know, this is how our elections work, this is what we're going to do to continue to make sure they work the way we need them to work, but also too, if we're going to get these attacks, we have to be responsive to do that. And what we're doing, we have some of the best lawyers in the country on our team. You know, the DOJ is no longer what the DOJ used to be. All of those smart individuals who fought every single day to protect our civil rights, protected our fundamental right to vote, are not only outside, those individuals are angry. They don't like the America that they see today, and they want to stand up and push back against this administration and say, we deserve an America that Americans decide is in their best interest, not a certain group of individuals who think they're entitled to have whatever they want. So yes, we are preparing for these scenarios, secretaries are talking about it, we're saying, okay, we have to be cohesive, we have to make

27:14sure not only to win our races, and that's why we need Americans to step up and say, hey, our democratic secretaries are doing a great job, we need to have their back, we need to support them so they can continue to administer the election, but also win their races so that we can have a strong presidential election in 28. The Vatican Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar, thank you so much for your time today, we appreciate it. Thank you very much. And when we return, we're just hours away from new tariffs taking effect on American products being sold in Canada. We'll unpack the economic destruction of Donald Trump's trade war with our closest neighbor next.

28:47I get ad-free videos, background play, and so much more. YouTube Premium is like YouTube got some extra gains. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Try eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. One of you can see what's happening inside your body. Pre-newvos, whole body scans, screens for hundreds of conditions, including many solid tumors as early as stage one, all in under an hour. And now you can go beyond imaging with 80 plus blood biomarkers that help complete the picture. This Labor Day, save $300 off your scan when you book at prenewvo.com. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O.com. Save $300 now through September 8th at prenewvo.com. Terms and conditions apply. We're going to get to the other side of this. The inflation is going to come back down. It's largely dominated as you said by gasoline. In many states, we're back to around 350. I think we can get back to $300, hopefully, to maybe by Labor Day.

29:52Never before an American history has a gallon of gas costs more than $4 on Labor Day. That is until today. As we mentioned, the record breaking national average at the pump this afternoon, $4.15, and that's just one avenue in which Americans are feeling squeezed. The price is already up, seemingly across the board, hold on tight. It gets tonight just after midnight Eastern time, six and a half hours give or take, those retaliatory tariffs from Canada are going to kick in. $20 billion worth ranging from 15% on some items to 50% on others, affecting some 700 products in all. Still, in aluminum are the headliners, but items like furniture, clothing, cheese, appliances, electronics, and tools will be affected as well. And all that is just so far. Not only is Donald Trump threatening escalation, he's now threatening to quote, end all trade with Canada, along with other countries that have

30:54trade surpluses with the U.S. Let's bring in Justin Wilbur's host of Platypus economics and a professor at the University of Michigan, also with us MSNOW, business analyst, and author of the message of the markets on Substack, Ron, Insana. Guys, I'm really excited to talk with you both today. There's no two other people before this midnight deadline I'd want to be talking to. Let's listen quickly to Scott Besent downplaying these retaliatory tariffs that are going to go in effect tonight because for all the people who are going to be doing last minute online shopping, we're going to need both of you to weigh in on this. The U.S., it is not much of a hit to us if any, if any, because we're hearing all these stories inflation that it is negligible. I would like someone to show me the statistical significance of

31:55these the Canadian tariffs on U.S. prices. And I'm happy to debate them. Okay, so Justin, I would love for you to answer what the statistical significance is and Ron, please tell us what other events deal in aluminum we should be stockpiling in the next six and a half hours. I just love being asked by Treasury Secretary for statistically significant results. It's the first time ever. And he's really clever this Secretary of ours. He said he wants statistically significant results for a set of tariffs that haven't gone into effect yet. Of course, no one's got them. But look, if he really thinks that the Canadian tariffs aren't hurting America, why is he retaliating? It's absurd on its face. Look, everything that's coming out of this administration around Canada is absolutely nuts. It's bonkers. It makes no sense. They're our friends. They're right there. And it's not just that I can come to you as an economist and say, this is bonkers. It's if you actually look at polling of Americans, turns out Americans know Canadians and they like

32:58Canadians, turns out Americans believe that Canadians are dear allies of ours. And it's not just that the American people are against the Trump tariff regime. They're especially against the trade world with Canada. And in fact, they support. This is amazing. They support Canadian retaliation against the United States. Most Americans, this is crazy. A cheering for the Canadians in the trade war. That's just polling data. It's bonkers. Ron? Well, I'm not sure, Jackie. Anybody needs to stockpile anything per se. The problem here with respect to imposing new tariffs on Canada, threatening to halt trade, as you mentioned, with the 97 countries with which we have a trade deficit, first of all, that latter piece would throw us into a global economic recession or worse. It would exacerbate inflation. It would do all those things that no one wants to see happen, having hyperinflation and a recession happen simultaneously.

34:02With respect to Canada, our situation with them continues to deteriorate. And every time we add new tariffs, we're just putting more and more of a floor under inflation. So the prices of goods, despite what the administration keeps saying, will not come down, whether it's dairy products, whether it's steel and aluminum, in particular, or other electronic goods. The other part of this is that we have an important relationship with Canada when it comes to the automobile supply chain. Parts and pieces of US cars go back and forth across the Canadian and Mexican border multiple times before they're ever put into a US-made car. And so again, it's shortages and it's keeping a floor under inflation that the Federal Reserve may be forced to fight at some point with higher interest rates. And I think that's really ultimately what the American should be focused on right now, is that as long as they keep doing this, inflation won't come down in a meaningful way. Okay, so maybe potentially buy a car this evening. That's what I'm saying.

35:04Yes, you have some time if you can find an open dealership, yeah. Well, and actually Justin, because Ron just brought up higher interest rates, this wasn't on my list of questions for today, but that is a question, an important one, that the Fed is going to be facing in the next few weeks, along with an inflation report, that we are all going to be voraciously reading, I believe, later this week. Do you have any predictions? What are you hearing? Yeah, look, it's a very important couple of days. Right now, if you look at FedRFUN's futures, which is where people bet on what the Fed will do, they're saying it's a 70 or an 80% chance that there will be a rate rise before the next election. That actually led to what is probably my favourite out of an incredible set of greatest hits of the craziest Trump social media post, which is last week, he said, and this is not a joke, the man actually wrote it down, that if Kevin Warsh didn't cut interest rates, he was going to prevent the United States from

36:07trading with any other country, which we have a trading deficit. So he's now threatening the Fed, which by the way, he just appointed that bloke, he's threatening the Fed with tariffs, and not even tariffs, because the court said that would be illegal, it's that he would cut off all trade. By the way, let me just make one point here, Jackie. He has said he's going to threaten to cut off all trade to the United States in order to help the United States, a country he loves. Last week, we had economic D-Day where he said he'd cut off all trade with around a country he hates. So people he loves, he cuts off from trade, and people he hates, he cuts off from trade. What can't this tool do? It's incredible. It is his favorite go-to tool. Ron, we've talked a lot today about the historic record, this administration has achieved with gas prices, $4.15 a gallon. Can you talk a little bit about

37:09what that actually means in practical terms, why we are talking about the significance of it, and how long you think it's going to take for that to come back down since that's something that cabinet officials in this administration are not willing to answer going forward? Yeah, Jackie, look, we're still stuck in this ongoing military conflict and however you want to characterize it, war with Iran that is limiting the amount of oil that gets around the world and the price of oil is set on global markets. So the futures market tonight, we have London oil trading at $97 a barrel here in the States. It's at $92, which means we're not coming below $4 anytime soon. This is going to persist as long as we have concerns about the availability of oil worldwide. On top of that, the price of diesel is at a new all-time high. It's approaching $6 and that's used in all kinds of shipping, which includes groceries, which includes your Amazon trucks coming to your door and delivering goods. So that, again, is pleading into inflation.

38:12So this entire energy picture feeds into what Justin was talking about, which is inflation, not coming down. And when we get those numbers this week on wholesale and retail inflation, that will likely be reflected in them. Justin Wolfers and Ron Insana, thank you so much for connecting all of these pretty complicated dots for us. And a head for us. What happened when an armed man lunged at the Democratic candidate for governor in Ohio? We're going to live report after a quick break. Police in Ohio have arrested an armed man accused of lunging at the Democratic nominee for governor Amy Acton. It happened Sunday at the Canfield Fair in Northeast Ohio. Acton was unharmed, but multiple people are injured after the man knocked them down, charging through the crowd to reach her. Officials say that the suspect, a 38-year-old, had a taser, two pistols, and

39:13brass knuckles. The Ohio governor's race is one of the most high-profile races this year. An acton has been locked in a tight race against Vivek Ramaswami. In a statement, her campaign said, this kind of violence has no place in Ohio, and that acton will, quote, always stand up to chaos, hate, and vitriol that pits us against one another. Let's bring in our reporter on the ground in Ohio. Namedi Iguonwu, Namedi. What can you tell us about the suspect and how close he got to Amy Acton? You know, one thing that's been clear today at the Canfield Fair just as we've been talking to people seeing exactly where this happened is how close he got. He was within arms reach. Just a little bit of background of what happened here. A 38-year-old assailant who was dressed in all black according to witnesses, that was surveying the Mahoney County Democratic Party booth. That is where Amy Acton was actually holding a campaign event yesterday, interacting with supporters as many candidates do at state fairs. Initially, it was actually another state representative who

40:17spotted the 38-year-old assailant. He just was, we were told, coming off his brother suspicious, and alerted Amy Acton's security detail. It was Amy Acton's security detail who actually approached the gentleman. That's what prompted him to get up, storm through the crowd, knocking over to elderly people during the process, and phone in hand, try to make contact with Amy Acton. Of course, if security detail prevented that from happening, but later on authorities discovered he was armed with two pistols and brass knuckles, leading to a lot of fear for many of the people. We've spoken to today about just how tragic things could have gotten if it wasn't for the keen observations of some of the representatives and the security officials that were present yesterday. As far as we're saying today, investigation is ongoing. The 38-year-old assailant has been charged with two counts of assault for those two elderly people he knocked over and one count of disorderly conduct for the incident itself. No charges and connections to his weapons, because according to the local sheriff, they appear to have all been legally registered. It's unclear at this point if

41:19he has an attorney, but what we do know is his first court appearance is going to be tomorrow evening at 5 p.m. In a non-day, we know a lot about how social media has intensified political violence and political polarization that we're seeing, but I'm wondering in terms of the conspiracy theory pipeline, you had people like Laura Loomer as soon as this attack happened, going on social media and falsely claiming that Acton was fabricating her name and this attack and exaggerating what happened to her. I'm wondering in your conversations today, you know, are you seeing this pipeline come full circle where voters are propagating what Loomer is falsely claiming? Luckily, at this point, no. Voters, these folks and Republicans and Democrats alike as well as officials in this state have come together to condemn this as what they have cited as being the latest and what is a rising or increasingly common incidences of political violence.

42:21So it's been condemned pretty roundly, including by Acton's opponent this race, Vivek Ramaswamy, who came out with the statement yesterday, essentially saying, look, candidate should be able to go interact with voters without risking their life. Ramaswamy himself, someone who said he's been a victim to numerous death threats over the court to this campaign. So we're not hearing Loomer's rhetoric on the ground, but we are hearing our concerns, our rhetoric like hers is in part what is fueling this rise in political violence that we're seeing. Nandhi Iguanwu, thank you so much for bringing us you're recording today. And a quick break for us. We'll be right back. The Cole's guest on this week's episode of The Best People Podcast is Julia Curly, a name that was never supposed to be familiar. Julia is the former CIA analyst, the first CIA officer to transition openly and continue serving in the agency. Though it's spoken out about being

43:22fired during the second Trump administration, even after having served in the first administration as then Vice President Pence's briefer. Here's a part of her conversation with Nicole. I didn't really see it. I regret and tell it like hit me. Tell it, tell it was me who was being the one purged. And that was a hard reality to face that we tell ourselves in the country that you can rise as far as your talents can take you. We teach our young officers that even you comes from nowhere can rise to serve a president in the United States. But at the end of the day, it was titled my piece. I was the wrong kind of American. What do you do to stay in love with your country? Why didn't it love you back? You get a lot of reminders of what an amazing country we are when you look for it.

44:28One of the things I said all those years after I briefed Vice President Pence was I would kind of cryptically tell people, you know, we're a better country, we're a more tolerant country than we sometimes appear on television. There's a secret tolerant America. It's in the closet. I've seen it. I've seen it. I've lived it. I've lived in this parallel reality. You know, we're Mike Pence, I'd a gay trans P. B. Brewer, and nobody cared. Does anyone ask better questions than Nicole? It's a must listen conversation, and it's out now. Just scan the QR code on your screen to listen or download the best people wherever you get your podcasts and other break for us. And we'll be right back. Thank you so much for spending this Labor Day with us. We are grateful. Nicole, we back to tomorrow. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. From roof repair to emergency plumbing and more,

45:33when you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust, find a pro for your project at Angie.com.