Bombshell: Epstein co-conspirators revealed

26:16I mean, I think this is already something that could lead people to choose not to vote, for fear that they will be harassed at the polls, or their information will be turned over to the federal government, or their secret ballot will no longer be secret. And so this is all part of a concerted strategy by Trump to interfere in the midterms. And that's how we should think about it, not as one thing here or one thing here, but as it all being connected. What do you think needs to be done on the state level or the federal level, although, So presumably there's not much that can be done because Trump is in charge.

26:50But what needs to be done to kind of erect barriers to what's being attempted by Trump right now? Democrats in the places they have power, particularly at the state and local level, need to do everything they can to try to Trump proof the system. So we don't see more things like the ballots being taken out of Fulton County. We don't see more things like Trump issuing an executive order to seize voting machines and people being caught off guard. People need to think through the kind of things Trump might do. And this is not to be alarmist. It's not to be a doomer. But Trump takes things to the very edge.

27:28We saw him do it in 2020. And so people need to be prepared, for example, for him to invoke the Insurrection Act, to claim a national emergency, to say that voting is so crooked. we have to take the machines and the ballots and other things like that. He can't unilaterally do it on his own, but I think we need to be prepared for Trump to push the system as far as it'll go if he feels like he's losing power. And every day it looks more likely like he will lose power, at least his party will lose power, and that's going to make the administration become more and more extreme. Do you have concerns, even as we head toward midterms right now, that we may not have a free and fair election?

28:07I have concerns about how free and fair it will be. I know a lot of people just think that Trump's going to cancel the midterms altogether. I don't have that fear. I don't have that fear. The president can't uniterally do this. But the actions he's taking are very intimidating to people. And when he does things like take 700 boxes of ballots, to me, that's as much forward looking as it is backwards looking. They want these ballots in Georgia so they can say, finally, we found the evidence of fraud, however flimsy that argument will be. Therefore, that's a predicate for us being more aggressive in terms of our actions.

28:46Whether, as I said, it's trying to seize ballots in future elections or take voting machines or deploy ICE or the National Guard or something else at the polls, things that we haven't seen in any previous elections. These are the kind of things that Trump is now contemplating for 2026. I have a theory with regard to Tulsi Gabbard, because obviously she was, you know, she caught a lot of attention because she was at the execution of that FBI search warrant in Fulton County, Georgia. And she shouldn't be there in theory. Well, nobody should be there in theory because that shouldn't have happened.

29:16But she in particular shouldn't have been there because her job as director of national intelligence is to make sure that there wouldn't be foreign interference in the election. And so I have a theory as to why she might have been there. And we've seen Trump repost, you know, crazy truth social conspiracy theories about how the Italians and the Swiss and the Chinese are all, you know, part of some grand conspiracy with Joe Biden, CIA and FBI to meddle in, you know, meddle in our elections. And so we've seen that kind of stuff get propped up by Trump's movement. Do you think that Tulsi Gabbard is there to try and kind of legitimize some crazy conspiracy theory like this so that he then has some justification to be able to say, look, Tulsi Gabbard just told me that that, you know, Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelans and the Chinese and the Italians and the Swiss all conspired with Joe Biden to rig our elections.

30:07And so now we have no choice but to allow me full oversight, full nationalized oversight of our elections so that I can make sure that this this miscarriage of justice doesn't happen again. And then, you know, obviously do whatever he's trying to do, which would ultimately benefit him and his party in the end. Do you think that there's some legitimacy to that theory? Yes, I think that's very plausible because, as you said, the director of national intelligence is prohibited by law from taking part in domestic law enforcement operations. And her only portfolio with regards to elections is stopping foreign interference in elections.

30:42We'll leave a flag to the fact that the Trump administration has completely gutted protections against foreign or domestic interference in elections. But after the raid in Fulton County, there was a very revealing Royer story that said that Gabbard's people had been in Puerto Rico looking for evidence that Venezuela interfered in Puerto Rican elections. Suddenly they're interested in what happens in Puerto Rico, I guess. But the point is, is that that was a good that could have been a great a great moment for the whole country to come together yesterday at the Super Bowl. You know, when we have like finally the administration cares, sees Puerto Rico for something that's important.

31:21But finally, we see why why the administration cares about Puerto Rico. That's right. They didn't find any evidence, of course, of Venezuelan interference in the election. But that was a tell that Gabbard is preparing some kind of report for Trump about interference in the 2020 election. I think it's very plausible they're going to have concoct some wild theory about Venezuela interfering in the election. You've already seen people like Mike Flynn, Mike Lindell talk about this. It's in far right election denial circles. They could lean on Maduro himself to admit that he colluded in the 2020 election as a result of a plea deal.

31:56I mean, these things sound crazy, but once she's there trying to access the ballots, look at the FBI raid. it raises a lot of unsettling questions about where this is all heading. And I absolutely think that Trump is going to seize on any kind of accusations to try to interfere in the midterms. And that's why the presence of Gabbard and the raid in Fulton County was so disturbing, because it's clearly a predicate for more extreme action by the administration. And the reality is he has these people lined up. I mean, we know Maria Carina Machado, the opposition leader in Venezuela, is, you know, wrapped around Trump's finger to the point where she even gifted him her Nobel Peace Prize.

32:38Obviously, Maduro's regime, his vice president, who's currently in power, is only there expressly because she's willing to participate in any way that Trump wants her to participate, whether that means gifting American oil companies oil or, you know, laundering whatever bullshit, you know, conspiracy theory gives him some justification to to to engage in some election interference moving forward. He's collected all of these different people around the world who need something from him, need something from the United States. And so we'll be perfectly willing to do what Trump already tried to do once, which is to use Zelensky, for example, to to serve as as a way to launder some dirt on Joe Biden.

33:23Like this isn't even theoretical, to your point. Like we've seen we've seen this happen. Trump got impeached over this exact thing where he's where he's perfectly willing to use foreign leaders to give some information that he can use to weaponize against his political opponents and benefit himself. Yeah, I mean, I think what we know from Trump is that he's 100 percent transactional and he'll use whatever kind of leverage we have. And that's true on the foreign front. And it's also true on the domestic front. And what really makes me nervous is that all the people that might have stood up to Trump in 2020 have been replaced.

33:55I mean, you can't imagine anyone in the White House today standing up to Trump and saying, don't seize the voting machines. Don't invoke the Insurrection Act. All of the crazy things he wanted to do, he was somehow talked off the ledge. Not by a bunch of moderates, but by people like Attorney General Barr, right? Or Mark Milley, or whoever it may be. And Pam Bondi's not going to stand up to Trump. Tulsi Gabbard's not going to stand up to Trump. Pete Hegseth isn't going to stand up to Trump. They were put in there specifically because they wouldn't stand up to Trump. And that's why I think the possibility of Trump interfering in the midterms in a more dramatic way than he tried to do in 2020 is very much on the table because there's no one to restrain him right now.

34:45And he knows that sooner or later he's going to have to leave. And so the last thing he wants is to spend his last two years in office being investigated over and over by a Democratic senator, a Democratic House. You know, Ari, we have heard Steve Bannon, for example, come out and say, damn right, ICE is going to be at the polls. And my concern with these troop deployments across the country is not just that they are dangerous and unconstitutional, but also that Americans become normalized to this idea of boots on the ground. and we know that if Trump had boots on the ground in 2020, for example, when he wanted to seize the voting machines and he had moderating forces like Bill Barr, which is a crazy thing to say, but, you know, Bill Barr wasn't going to participate in this whole, you know, bogus conspiracy theory about there being fraud in the election.

35:36He himself called it bullshit. But, you know, Trump has replaced Bill Barr with Pam Bondi and now he has boots on the ground all over the country with these ICE agents who are a lawless rogue police force that's answerable to him, and they act with impunity. And so do you have any reaction here to what we've heard from Steve Bannon in terms of, you know, using these ICE agents who, again, answerable to Trump, don't feel like the law applies to them, are ill-trained, ill-equipped to deal with, you know, domestic, any domestic disputes, that those people are going to be the ones that Trump decides to deploy to the polls?

36:09Yeah, and my concern is that ICE doesn't even need to be at the polls for it to have a suppressive effect. If ICE is doing operations in blue states and blue cities, basically making them occupied territory in the run-up to the election, that's going to scare some people away from turning out. And so having them at the polls would be a dramatic escalation and one that I think would be very questionable legally in terms of their ability to be there. But even just having them around now, but certainly in the run up to the election, is something that's very concerning. And I believe that that's something that Democrats should add to their list of demands in terms of agreeing to any kind of DHS funding deal.

36:53They should say, make clear that ICE has no role with regards to elections, but also we can't have ICE operations in the run-up to elections. There's things on the books, for example, like in the National Voter Registration Act, you can't remove people from the rolls 90 days before the election. They should have the same kind of thing with ICE, to say that we don't want any ICE activity in the run-up to the election. We've already seen how Trump's going to deploy this. He's going to specifically deploy it in Democratic areas and swing districts to try to suppress people from voting. And it's going to be really hard to quantify how many people don't show up because they don't want to deal with that level of harassment.

37:30Last question here, Ari. What does success look like for this midterm cycle? and what does a lack of success look like in this midterm cycle? What are you looking at to determine whether we've had free and fair elections? I mean, success looks like people being willing to come out and vote, a process by which they can vote, and a process by which their votes count. Now, that's how things have been throughout our history. But I mean, there's a real question about whether that's going to happen this amount of time. And I think it's very, very clear that there needs to be an extremely high level of turnout and mobilization to make those kind of things happen.

38:11That if it is a very tight election or it comes down to one state or one district or something like that, it's going to be a lot easier for Trump to interfere than if it's an overwhelming victory. The way it wouldn't look like a free and fair election is people are afraid of turning out in the first place. There's all sorts of barriers put before them to cast a ballot. And then ultimately, once they cast a ballot, those results are challenged if Democrats win. And either the result is somehow overturned, or we see a replay of 2020 where the results hold, but an extreme amount of stress is put on the system.

38:51And honestly, I don't think the American system, given where we're at, can handle another 2020 right now. All right. Where can folks who are watching and listening see and hear more from you? They can read me at motherjones.com. They can buy my books, Minority Rule, and give us the ballot wherever books are sold. And they can find me on Blue Sky at Ari Berman. Well, I would highly recommend all three of those things. I do all three of those things. I've been following Ari for the entirety of my own career in digital political media, and I could not recommend highly enough. Ari, you do amazing work.

39:27Thanks for all the work you're doing. and I appreciate you taking the time today. Thanks so much, Brian. Always great to talk to you. Keep up the good work as well. I'm joined now by politics reporter at the Texas Tribune, Alejandro Serrano. Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. You put together a great article that talks about the Latino situation right now in this country. We saw a realignment in 2024. We're seeing something of a new realignment right now. So I want to talk about that, especially when I talk about it in the context of how this kind of came to a head, culturally speaking, with this Bad Bunny Super Bowl show and how that kind of became a politicized event unto itself.

40:03But before we dive into all that stuff, can you talk about what the lay of the land is right now in terms of where the vast majority of Latino voters are as part of this political coalition? Yeah, so I think, thank you for having me. I think one of the big reasons that this special election for the Texas Senate has gotten so much attention is because people are kind of pining for a measurement of what you just described. You know, how will voters react to the president's policies? And it's difficult to assess that specifically with Latinos because, you know, it's a big group. It's not a monolith, as we often like to say.

40:39And any number of Latinos will do any number of different things. But I think what was remarkable here in this election is that some of the biggest shifts and the swings occurred in precincts that are majority Hispanic. And they were big swings. You know, by one estimate, Mr. Taylor-Renick captured 79 percent of the Hispanic vote in this district. And why that might be, there's, again, any number of reasons. But some of the reasons that people have pointed to is the president's immigration policies, perhaps the economy, you know, sold this idea of, you know, the economy stuff will fix it. And some folks may not be feeling that.

41:13I have not read much, I guess, analysis of specifically Texas related. But, you know, nationally, there has been some surveys that Hispanics are souring on the president, so to speak, as people sometimes put it. So would you say that that the that the realignment we saw in 2024 has snapped all the way back to where it was in pre 2024 levels in terms of support for Democrats versus Republicans? You know, it's it's tricky. I don't know. And I think it's difficult to know if it's a realignment because of how remarkable it was in 2024 for the president. But, you know, at least speaking for Texas or like analyzing Texas, the Texas GOP had made inroads across the state.

41:57And last year, the border got a lot of attention, rightfully so, because the president nearly swept border counties. You know, in Texas, he won 14 of 18 that are closest to the U.S.-Mexico border. But we also know that the GOP here has been making a lot of inroads in urban areas, like in the suburbs or some of these precincts that had been, you know, Democratic bastions and slowly made progress in courting those voters. So I think it's going to be probably one of the biggest questions this year going into November. Like, is it going to hold? And if not, what does it mean? You know, one person kind of described to me as Latinos who make up the majority of the population in Texas are kind of like the power brokers who don't know it yet.

42:39And I think this election is definitely going to demonstrate how that is. In your reporting, have you heard from any Republican officials who have expressed some degree of alarm over the situation unfolding right now? Yeah, there's been all sorts of takes, I think, from both sides of the aisle in response to this election. But I think one thing that has become kind of clear from from it seems like Republican leaders is that it can't be ignored. Right. Like special elections are unique. And especially this one was on a Saturday following very cold weather in Texas. You know, we were kind of like locked in because everything was frozen for a few days.

43:16So that affected campaigning that affected early voting. But it was just such a big swing that a lot of people are sort of recognizing that it can't be dismissed. Can you speak about the prospect to that end of the new map in Texas potentially turning into a dummy mander? Because if we see the same margins that we saw in SD9, for example, kind of replicate themselves across the state, then we may be in a world where not only did Republicans not net the five seats that the map was redrawn to net, but Democrats might actually see a net gain of seats because the districts were drawn too thin. Well, yeah, I'll tell you that.

43:55The Democrats are definitely feeling good about the prospect that it's a dummy mander. The state party had a press call last week to kind of go over this, and they see all those seats being competitive, especially even one sling in the Houston area. There's one, and there's another one in the city, but their approach right now is kind of like, we're going to fight and see what happens. So I think that there is a possibility, but I think you know, there's any number of variables that go into each election and it's gonna, I don't want to be predictive, but I think the party is definitely feeling good about, I think, the prospect of that happening.

44:32As it relates to Latino voters, I think that a lot of us had thought wrongly in the beginning that the only issues that Latino voters care about were issues like immigration. That was like 10 years ago, cut to last year, you know, Latinos kind of fell into the same bucket as everybody else, where it was like the principal issue was the economy. And so I think that the administration, you know, if I had to guess, I would think that they would have thought that they had more leeway to engage in what are pretty brutal immigration tactics because it wouldn't have any impact on these Latino voters who have a lot of strength in the election because Latino voters, much in the same way as white voters and black voters looked at the economy and economic issue as the principal driver of where they put their votes.

45:19Do you think that was a misstep? Because now we're seeing that, in fact, it does have, you know, some impact on Latino voters, how the immigration situation is handled in this country, very much in the same way that it has some impact on how on how white people and brown people perceive this administration and perceive the overreach of this administration, but that that, you know, they weren't going to be given a free pass by Latino voters just because Latino voters might have ranked the economy above immigration? You know, it's curious because I think, again, in Texas, how it's different. There's any number of things that make Texas unique, but the border was curious when it came to what you're describing, because I think immigration, like people were kind of voters, some voters were fed up with immigration.

46:03You kind of had a situation where, you know, it's their backyard. You look at cities like Eagle Pass, which became this sort of epicenter between Texas' instigations with the Biden administration and its immigration policies and states' rights to implement any number of immigration measures or to try to combat it. you know and I think people I remember I lived in equal class for half half of the year reporting on immigration whatnot and you know people of all political beliefs did feel kind of neglected and how that the Biden administration had not taken the issue seriously and I think that kind of also contributed to those swings we saw in 24 but I think to your point like the administration the Trump administration assumed that would give a free pass I don't know i think it's also a combination of things because it's also the economy and the two are intertwined especially in texas i mean you look at the workforce and you look at especially down in the border like big industries like construction are starting to have um impacts from raids and fear just general fear in the community my colleagues had a story a few weeks ago how you know some some companies can't even get folks to show up to work out of concern um so i think that all this is going to lead to more clarity maybe in November to see how people do vote and if there is a response to that.

47:21And obviously, you know, it's hard to mention kind of everything else that's going on, not just, you know, kind of like in Minnesota or in Los Angeles or in Chicago. Like there's been, I think, a lot of action on top of the first year, which was kind of like a remarkable like blitz of policy changes that changed immigration in ways that are still being revealed to see, you know, through through time. So I think I hope we have more clarity on that question in the coming months and especially in November. Have you heard anything from Republican officials right now or Republican leadership in terms of how their strategy might change to be able to to grab back some of, you know, what very much looks like a rapidly a departing contingent of their coalition?

48:11Yeah, there's been mixed signals. I mean, one thing that we're starting to see here on the ground covering Texas politics is sort of affordability and labor. Like it's something that both parties are talking about, which is kind of new. You know, like the governor just rolled out some endorsements from unions and is celebrating them. And then in some instances, when just looking at the GOP side, there has been some doubling down on the sort of MAGA messaging, which is also interesting. I mean, it's a primary season, you know, so it kind of makes sense. But also some criticism some people had of the SD9 race was that, you know, the GOP candidate ran it sort of like a primary, even though it was more of a general election type of situation, meaning, you know, socially conservative issues and whatnot.

49:01So that doubling down has been curious. And I don't know if there's a bigger strategy shift, but it does seem like this election at the very least changed the conversation. So we watched as the whole Super Bowl situation, the halftime show with Bad Bunny. Republicans basically tried to negatively polarize the halftime show. And obviously they held counterprogramming with Kid Rock. There was a very obvious race-based component to all of this. Megyn Kelly is on her crusade saying that, you know, you got to speak English and we don't want to see any other flags and it's America first, rah, rah, rah.

49:43So do you think that's going to complicate Republicans' plans in Texas, for example, where instead of making inroads, you know, they're taking one of the biggest Latino superstars in the world, but certainly among, you know, the Spanish-speaking community, which also exists in Texas and turning him into the enemy? Yeah, I don't know if it's going to affect election results, so to speak, but it does appear, you know, like everywhere. Bad Bunny is really popular here. Just, you know, having lived here, whenever he comes through, he sells out concerts. And I think it also kind of gets to the, like the nuance of voters, right?

50:18Like, I don't know if that's going to be the issue that changes anyone's mind, but I do think it is kind of almost another example of all the tensions going on right now. Because, you know, especially our state leaders, some of them were communicating, you know, posting on social media for people to turn into the counter programming and whatnot. So yeah, we'll see on that. I mean, one might think from a political perspective that if you are seeing swings as high as, you know, 50 points from voters who had previously voted for you now are defecting to the other party, and they're becoming one of the largest voting blocks in the entire state, that taking like the biggest musical artist in that community, of that community, and vilifying him doesn't seem like a very sound political strategy in an election year, no less.

51:05Yep, we'll see it. We'll see what happens if there's any shakeout. And also, I mean, it's a long way till November. Yeah. And finally, let's finish off with this. Are there any races that you're keeping an eye on that might also offer some insight into these shifts? in very much the same way that this Senate District 9 race did with Taylor Remitt winning prior to midterms so that we just have a little bit more data points than we had before? I mean, I think writ large is all the statewide Texas races. You know, no Democrat has won one since 1994. And the last time they came close was in 2018, which was also the midterm year in response to, you know, the first Trump administration when Beto O 'Rourke came real close to unseating Senator Ted Cruz.

51:47So I think that, you know, there's numerous. There's obviously the top of the ticket with the senatorial race, the Senate race. But, you know, there's also other contested elections to lead state agencies that are kind of coveted roles here. You know, some elected officials win those and then stay in those positions for a long time. And Democrats are hoping that this might be the year. All right. Well, we will leave it there. Alejandro, for folks who are looking to read your work, where can they go? Sexistribune.org. Great. Well, I'll put that link on the screen and also in the post description of this video.

52:19Thank you so much for the work you do and for taking the time today. Hey, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

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