Major update in Trump's effort to ban mail ballots by midterms

24:15Brian Tyler Cohen:To that end, Troy, how can folks who are looking to help your campaign do so? Yeah, I mean, like I said, we get into this late. You know, we got Elon Musk up against us. So resources are important. Jackson for Maine dot com. Five, ten bucks is a big deal. OK, well, I'm going to put that link to your website right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. As Troy mentioned, there is an absolute influx of funding coming from Elon Musk and other right wing figures into this race because they know that if Troy wins this race, if and when Troy wins this race, that the U.S. Senate will go the way of Democrats as well.

24:50Brian Tyler Cohen:So everything rides on what happens in Maine. For those who are watching and listening right now, if you have the ability to donate a little bit of money, this is a race that absolutely can use it. So again, I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description. If you're listening on the podcast, I'm going to throw it in the show notes. With that said, Troy, thank you so much for taking the time today. Best of luck in the campaign trail. Hey, thanks a lot. It's been great being on here. My wife is going to be super, super impressed. Thanks. Thank you, brother.

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26:22Brian Tyler Cohen:That's Z-O-C-D-O-C dot com slash BTC. We now have a massive gaffe at the hands of the official Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina, Darlene Graham. Here's a clip of that moment. My parents worked long, hard hours to make ends meet. We didn't take vacations. If they were sick, they had to get up and go to work because the doors weren't open. We weren't making money. My mother passed away when I was 11 and my father just over a year later. For the past 30 years, I've worked hard for the people of South Carolina. And for the past seven years, I've led a state agency. And I understand the struggles facing South Carolina families because I face them, too.

27:05Brian Tyler Cohen:So I'm joined now by the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina, Dr. Annie Andrews. Dr. Andrews, I have to ask first and foremost for your reaction to this new idea being perpetuated by Darlene Graham and I guess the right more broadly, that what we should aspire to is that Americans will get so sick that they pass away before their kids even reach 13 years old. And somehow that is the message of hope and inspiration that we should have moving forward. Yes. Well, thank you for having me. I don't think Darlene intended to unroll her health care plan on that stage last night, but she certainly did.

27:45And it seems to be what you just said, work hard even when you're sick and then die. I believe that Darlene's parents deserved better than they got. I believe that healthcare is a human right. I believe we need to work every single day to shift this profit-motivated healthcare system to a patient-centered healthcare system. I've seen it firsthand as a pediatrician. I've worked in children's hospitals my entire 20-year career taking care of sick and injured children. This isn't just a policy paper for me. This is real life or death.

28:13Brian Tyler Cohen:Well, to that end, it's not just Darlene Graham who is kind of offering up a disastrous health care plan in real time. We've also seen the consequences play out by Republicans who are actually in power. Measles has now taken the lives of two people in Pennsylvania. Can I have your reaction to the fact that we have our nation's health apparatus, which is being led by an avowed anti-vaxxer, and the consequences of that are as predictable as you could imagine? Exactly, because science is going to science no matter if you believe in it or not. The day RFK Jr. was nominated to lead HHS was the day that I really started to seriously consider getting in this race for the U.S.

28:52Senate, because as a pediatrician, he's been my professional arch nemesis for decades. He's nothing more than a grifter and a conspiracy theorist who's been peddling in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories for decades while simultaneously enriching himself. Over my 20-year career, I've watched his rates of vaccine refusal and vaccine hesitancy climb and climb and climb because of the disinformation that RFK Jr. has injected into our public health system. And, of course, now he is leading the Department of HHS. And because of this disinformation campaign of his, we've seen outbreaks of preventable infectious diseases.

29:26You know, we also had an outbreak of the measles in South Carolina. In Spartanburg County, we had nearly 1 ,000 cases of documented measles. And it's not going to stop at the measles. We're going to have increased cases of flu and RSV, of whooping cough, polio, tetanus. And one that I think a lot of people don't hear a lot about, bacterial meningitis, because we give two really effective vaccines to prevent bacterial meningitis to infants at two, four and six months of age. That has drastically reduced the incidence of this devastatingly often fatal condition. So we need to win in November so that we can get RFK Jr.

30:01out of his current position as secretary of HHS. And it is going to take us decades to recover from the level of disinformation he's injected into our public health system.

30:10Brian Tyler Cohen:Well, I think that's in large part what makes Darlene Graham so dangerous in this moment is because she's shown that she's not particularly competent or qualified for this job. And so the reason that she's there is expressly not because she has anything to bring to the Senate seat, but rather because she would be completely obsequious and pandering to Trump and RFK. And so when they want to put forward some idea, dangerous though it may be, she's going to be there to rubber stamp them because she doesn't actually have any qualifications of her own to back up some informed decisions. Yeah, that's exactly right.

30:48And I think that's why the entire Republican Washington machine got behind Darlene Graham. They spent millions and millions and millions of dollars. You know, Trump came to Myrtle Beach to rally for her. They really leaned into this because exactly what you said, I think they believe they can control her. I think she's being told what to say. She has explicitly said she supports 100 percent of Donald Trump's agenda. She will be a rubber stamp for this administration. You know, she has completely forgotten the fact that Congress is meant to provide checks and balances over the executive branch.

31:18I've been talking to voters in South Carolina for over a year. I know they deserve better. I know they want better than this. We don't want a rubber stamp for any president or any political party in the Senate seat. We want a thinking person who will work hard every day to solve the problems South Carolinians are facing. And that's what I'm offering them on the ballot in November.

31:34Brian Tyler Cohen:To kind of hammer down that point even further, here's a quick clip that went pretty viral from Darlene Graham's debate, primary debate against her Republican opponent, Ralph Norman. On the national security question as well, Senator, are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States? If so, why? I'm sorry, could you repeat the question? Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States? And if so, why or how? I'm just going to be honest here. I'm not on national security. I'm not that informed on national security. But I do support the military.

32:19My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years. So I will do everything I can to support the military.

32:26Brian Tyler Cohen:So right there, you can see that she's, again, not coming with any qualifications or knowledge about what it is she's going to be litigating and writing laws about, presumably writing laws about. She's just there to kind of be a rubber stamp for this administration. What was your reaction to seeing that moment in particular right there where she just kind of gave the game away and offered up, you know, I don't actually know anything about foreign policy, but here's a boilerplate platitude. I love the troops. Yeah, I mean, it was just it was embarrassing, honestly, and it just shows how deeply unprepared she is.

33:02And being new to politics is not an excuse to being unprepared. I'm a pediatrician, and if I showed up to work unprepared, a child could die. This is a very serious job she's applying for and a job she actually has right now. So if she doesn't know the answers, I suggest she maybe like schedules some study sessions, maybe pulls an all nighter, does the hard work to get prepared for the very important job she has. and the job that she's asking South Carolina voters to give her for six more years.

33:30Brian Tyler Cohen:Why is it important that there is an actual health care professional in Congress at this particular moment? You know, we're witnessing a truly unprecedented coordinated attack on every aspect of America's health care system, whether it's the impending Medicaid budget cuts, the threats to Medicare, allowing the Medicare Part D tax subsidies to expire, the ACA tax subsidies to expire, whether it's what RFK Jr. has done to totally dismantle the routine childhood immunization schedule, the defunding of the CDC or the NIH, all of the foodborne illnesses we've seen across the country. There's never been a more urgent time to elect physicians to all levels of office.

34:12But in particular, in this race, I would be the first ever pediatrician senator. I can go toe to toe with RFK Jr. and hold him accountable for the lies that he's been spreading and the disruption that he's wreaked havoc on our federal department of health and human services. I won't just be a yes vote for healthcare reform. I will bring my lived experience from working within our broken healthcare system to these conversations. I can lead these conversations. And to me, again, it's not just about policy. It's not just about the bullet points in the bill. This is life or death. This is very, very real life.

34:44Every American should be able to afford to see a doctor. Every American should be able to afford their prescription medications. A trip to the emergency department should not send you into bankruptcy. We are the only developed country in the world who hasn't figured out how to build a health care system that actually meets the needs of everyone in the country.

35:01Brian Tyler Cohen:Are you in service in favor of Medicare for all? I'm a pragmatic person. I believe we need a health care system that meets the needs of everyone in this country. I believe with every cell in my body that health care is a human right. But I'm a person who lives and is running in South Carolina. And I know that this country is not politically ready for a shift from this deeply profit-driven health care system we have to a universal health care system. What my plan is, number one, stop the impending Medicaid budget cuts. Number two, reinstate the tax subsidies. Use the negotiating power of this country to lower prescription drug prices broadly.

35:35But then take a really important pragmatic step towards developing a health care system that actually serves everybody. And that is a public option. Because if we offer a public option and people like me who don't have employer-based health insurance can choose to purchase a health care plan from the federal government, that removes the profit motivation from that transaction. The people who purchase that plan will look around and say, you know what, this is actually way better than the plan I was paying for, that so much of my money was just going to pad private insurance companies' shareholders' pockets.

36:02And so there will be a domino effect. More and more Americans will choose this public option, and then we can have a productive bipartisan conversation about taking the next step to the ultimate goal. But again, I don't think we need to let perfect be the enemy of good. We all recognize the system we have now is failing miserably, and we need to talk to each other, compromise, work across the aisle to move the ball down the field.

36:28Brian Tyler Cohen:What is the latest polling show in South Carolina in terms of this race? We have some really exciting polling that we just released today that shows that I'm tied with Darlene right out of the gates. It's 41 to 41. And on the informed ballot, I go up five points. And the informed ballot is just neutral information about me and neutral information about Darlene. Importantly, I'm plus 33 with independents. Darlene, even though most people didn't know who she was six weeks ago, is deeply underwater. Her net favorability rating is minus something double digits. It's not good. So we have a real path to victory here.

37:06You know, this was an unexpected circumstance. I've been in this race for over a year. I never anticipated I would be running against Lindsey Graham's sister, but here we are. She's a really bad candidate. She's a weak candidate. She's unprepared. She's not doing the work. We have a national political environment that is very favorable to Democrats. And then in me, we have a not your average Democratic candidate. You know, I'm overperforming a generic Democrat in South Carolina by 25 points with independents and 19 points with non-MAGA Republicans. So that creates a real path to victory in an environment like this.

37:38Brian Tyler Cohen:You know, I'm sure in campaigning in South Carolina, you've had plenty of conversations with independents and Republicans, or at least Republican voters. What has been the one issue on which those voters are seeing their confidence fall in their own party and instead are showing support for you? The one issue, I mean, honestly, the war really tipped a lot of people sort of over the deep end. People who were already growing really frustrated just by the rhetoric in Washington, D.C., how broken it is, you know, seeing, you know, the behavior out of Donald Trump. But this entry into this war really flew in the face of everything the hardcore MAGA Republicans in South Carolina thought that Donald Trump stood for.

38:21And so that turned them off. And then meanwhile, there's a lot of Mitt Romney, John McCain style Republicans on the center right in South Carolina, Republicans like my own dad, who are just so deeply disgusted by the level of corruption and dysfunction in Washington, D.C. They're embarrassed by what their party has become. They're looking for another option like me. And that is what I am offering them. But I think it's the whole wide range of issues that Trump campaigned on failed to deliver on. You know, you cannot be simultaneously, pardon my language, an asshole and also have a bad economy and expect to win an election.

38:54And that's the situation we're in. The economy is not meeting the needs of your average American. Income inequality, wealth inequality continues to grow and grow and grow. And we have politicians in D.C. who spend their days enriching themselves. Right.

39:07Brian Tyler Cohen:I mean, it would be bad enough having this economic environment. But for a party that had campaigned expressly on bringing down costs only to see those costs surge, a party that had campaigned expressly on releasing the Epstein files only to suppress those files, a party, as you said, that had campaigned expressly on no new foreign wars that's now engaged in a brand new foreign war in the Middle East that's cost over$130 billion that should be going to domestic priorities. I mean, it's not the Democrats who push this idea of America first. That was Trump's campaign slogan. And now watching billions and billions and billions of dollars either go overseas or into his own pocket, I think is sending a message loud and clear to his voters that it's not the forgotten guy that's getting the attention in this administration.

39:50Brian Tyler Cohen:It is the it's the polar opposite. It's the very elites who Donald Trump and Republicans had railed against during the entire campaign. Yeah, and I think there's a lot of signs that everything you just said is exactly right, Right. Because, yes, Donald Trump, you know, supported Darlene, spent millions of dollars in this race. Darlene barely won last night. She only won by five points. She lost in the upstate. Ralph Norman supporters are talking online about a rioting campaign. They're talking about staying home. They're talking about voting for me. We have a really divided Republican Party. Also, I got more votes on my primary night on June 9th than Darlene got last night after millions of dollars were spent on her behalf.

40:27So the Republican Party is not this they don't have this stronghold, this stranglehold on South Carolina anymore because they've lost sight of what they used to be. And we need a healthy two party system in this country if we really ever want to make any progress, because the people on the far left are never going to convince everybody on the far right to think like them and vice versa. We have to remember that there's way more that unites us than divides us. If we ever want to make progress in this country, we need to talk to each other, work across the aisle and move to move the ball down the field.

40:55Brian Tyler Cohen:For those who are looking to help your campaign, where can they go? DrAnnieAndrews.com. They can chip in what they can. Obviously, there's going to be a ton of money poured into this race once Republicans catch wind of the fact that we're tied. Once they settle, you know, come to terms with the fact that they have propped up an incredibly weak, unprepared candidate and that we have a really strong Democrat running in this state. So I need people all across the country to support my campaign, chip in what they can, follow along on social media. And, you know, this is a way we can expand the Senate map that people weren't really considering just a few weeks ago.

41:25And it's really exciting for me to be a part of that, for me to help deliver a Senate majority in November so that we can actually do the work of governing on behalf of Americans everywhere.

41:34Brian Tyler Cohen:Well, I'm going to put a link to your website right here on the screen and also in the post description. For those who are listening on the podcast, I'm going to put it in the show notes. If Democrats are able to win this race, Democrats have the U.S. Senate. So this race is monumentally important. Also just as like a point of personal privilege. I am the child of two healthcare workers. And if ever there was a desperate need to have a pediatrician in the US Senate, it's right now. Also, I went to my pediatrician until I was like 23 years old. So I never had like an internist or a general practitioner.

42:07Brian Tyler Cohen:I just kept going to my pediatrician. So I am a big fan of that space. So with that said, thank you so much for taking the time today and best of luck in the campaign trail. Thank you so much for having me. We have some breaking news right here that shows the depths that Donald Trump will go to to protect his own ego. I'm going to put some reporting on the screen right here. According to CNN, the Trump administration is threatening to demolish the Kennedy Center if renovations aren't allowed. The leading paragraph says Kennedy Center may need to be demolished and replaced with an open air performance space if its current building cannot undergo extensive renovations, lawyers for the venue said in court papers on Monday.

42:48Brian Tyler Cohen:I'm now joined by Norm Eisen, who is the founder of Democracy Defenders Fund. You have been litigating against Donald Trump's efforts to rename the Kennedy Center after himself. Norm, can I have your reaction first and foremost to this new news that if Donald Trump can't get his precious name etched onto the building, that he's going to do the adult temper tantrum version of taking his ball and going home and instead just demolishing it. You literally read my mind. I was going to say it's like the kid who doesn't want to play by the rules. I'm taking my ball and going home. This is an example, Brian, of why Donald Trump is so corrupt and he's lost in court so often and he's lost in the court of public opinion where he has historically low unpopularity ratings approaching only Nixon at the depths of his corruption crises.

43:52there is no need to destroy the Kennedy Center. The whole point of this legal fight is Donald Trump can't put his name on it. So now, because the court has said your name has to come off, he says, I'm going to destroy the whole thing. Everybody sees through this. it's corrupt to use government resources in this fashion to destroy a building in a fit of peak it's going to cost the american taxpayers money the court will not allow him to do it we will stop destruction of the kennedy center in court uh if he dares to try it i think it is just a red flag. You know, he wants to get everybody all wound up.

44:47So we, you know, we need to, we need to call it out. And as Barack Obama used to say, judo flip, this is why Donald Trump is hated. It's a sick joke. And we won't allow it to happen. Don't worry, folks. The Kennedy Center is not going to be demolished. It's going to be repaired. It can be repaired while being left open. We've done that before. It is not the disaster. They just had a movie premiere a couple months ago for Melania's movie in there. It was the Kennedy Center Honors. The thing is, it's not a dilapidated wreck. It needs repairs. It's going to get the repairs. We're in court. We got this.

45:35And I don't think the judge will permit the demolition of the Kennedy Center.

45:41Brian Tyler Cohen:Norm, can you speak about the status of the lawsuit against Donald Trump's kind of second iteration of this attack, which is, OK, I can't plaster my name onto the building by renaming it the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Performance Center. But but he did want to kind of take credit by etching his name into the building for renovating the space. Can you speak about the status of that lawsuit? For heaven's sake, we want the lawsuit. I argued the naming issue myself. Congress has said it can be named the Kennedy Center and the Kennedy Center only. The statutes are very clear. It's not one wall.

46:27It's a whole section of the United States Code. And they all the statutes make clear that's how it's got to be. and now he's coming back he says oh essentially here's what he's saying Brian oh no judge you just said my name can't go before on top of John F. Kennedy's on the building so I'll put it below John F. Kennedy's name twice no it doesn't work that way you can't uh rearrange it's not like Scrabble where you move the tiles around you can't put your name on the building Donald We've stopped it. We're going to stop it again. Our client, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, has been very brave in speaking out about this.

47:13She's been bold. Democracy defenders and our co-counsel, Nathaniel Zielinski, and the wonderful folks at the Washington Litigation Group are fighting this. We're going to be back in court again this week. And, you know, this is truly it's like the it reminds me, you know, of a toddler who wants to hurt his parents. So he beats his own head against the wall. I mean, it's so ridiculous. It's so juvenile. You just have to laugh. If he weren't wasting taxpayer dollars on the litigation, why doesn't he get back, Brian, why doesn't he get back to reducing costs for Americans, to having a competent government, to the things he said he would do?

48:08Instead, gas is more expensive. Health care is more expensive. There's a housing affordability crisis. And he's having tantrums about putting his name on the Kennedy Center and demolishing it. Maybe it's a fantasy because, you know, he's demolished the East Wing. He's building that hideous ballroom. But we're litigating there. We're litigating here. And here we won. And his name is not going on the building and he's not going to demolish it.

48:41Brian Tyler Cohen:Well, you know, two things on that point. One, in a way, he's giving an interesting playbook to Democrats who, I don't know, may or may not want to rename the Donald J. Trump ballroom the second he leaves office. So if Donald Trump is proving himself to be, you know, the person who establishes precedent for renaming structures that were otherwise named by previous presidents, I am so excited to hear what he thinks about the subsequent Democratic president renaming his precious ballroom. I assume he'll be in full favor of it, given the fact that he is falling over himself to rename John F. Kennedy's structure.

49:20I think we should, yeah. But the second point— I think we should save the money from demolishing the Kennedy Center, put it in escrow, and use it to tear down that hideous ballroom.

49:30Brian Tyler Cohen:100%. So the second point I wanted to make, though, is that when Donald Trump has a desire to do something, he's showing that he'll stop at nothing to do it. Like we are on month. I don't know. I don't know what of this saga to try and get his name on the Kennedy Center. So when it's something that's his priority, he stops at nothing to get it done. He won't let the court stop him. He won't let prosecutors. He won't let judges. He won't let attorneys. He won't let other branches of government. We've stopped him hundreds of times. Look at the democracy defenders. We have over 300 legal cases in matters.

50:06Birthright citizenship. We stopped him. The firing of Dr. Lisa Cook. We won that in the United States Supreme Court. His$1.7 billion slush fund was an endowment for insurrectionists. 35 federal judges went to court. We represented him. We stopped that. The Kennedy Center naming has been stopped. It's going to be stopped again. It's like all the other cases. They said, oh, the reflecting pool. We got that case thrown out. He's pushing the Paramount Warner's merger. So we got that case, supported the AGs in getting that case. They said, we're going to close the merger. No, they've got to wait for a year.

50:49And on and on and on. He doesn't get everything he wants.

50:53Brian Tyler Cohen:But I think the point that I want to make on that is that when something is his priority, he'll stop at nothing to try and see it through, which goes to show that when he doesn't do something, when he doesn't lower costs, when he doesn't release the Epstein files, when he doesn't bring gas prices down, when he doesn't end foreign wars in the Middle East, it's not because he can't. It's because he doesn't care, because when he does care, he's broadcasting the lengths that he'll go to to get those things done. So when people are hurting in this country, it's only because Donald Trump doesn't have any care in the world to actually lift a finger to help you.

51:31He should be focusing all of this energy on helping people with the cost of living in crisis, the competence driven by a competence and a corruption and a chaos crisis. instead he's bogged us down with a can't win war a morass in iran driven gas prices up cost hundreds of americans lives or casualties um he's um driving prices up with his nutty tariffs like canada you know these huge tariffs gonna make life more expensive for Americans. He's alienating our allies. It's a mess at home with these corrupt vanity projects all over D.C., squandering the money that should be helping the American people.

52:23And it's so counterproductive because every time he does this, Brian, he just deepens the hatred that the American people have for him. Record low popularity for an American president approaching Nixonian modern American president, approaching Nixonian lows. It's self-destructive. He's helping nobody, including himself, by threatening to destroy the Kennedy Center. Absurd.

52:55Brian Tyler Cohen:Yeah, putting on full display what his priorities actually are. Norm, as always, I want to promote the Democracy Defenders Fund, which has been doing invaluable work with countless lawsuits across the country to make sure that this administration is held to account for what they're doing. So that link for those who are looking to support that work is right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. The indefatigable Norm Eisen, thanks for taking the time today. And thank you, as always, for the work that you continue to do. Brian, I'm going to get off our visit and I'm going to file our brief, just like birthright citizenship.

53:30Remember, the Supreme Court said on a procedural issue, rejected the first birthright case. We brought the second birthright case and we won. We're about to bring a case with wonderful partners. We're on this USPS executive order. We're going to go to court and we're going to win, including working side by side with others in parallel state AGs, our friend Mark Elias and many others. So I'm going to go get back to it. Maybe you'll have me on next time to talk about how that case is going.

54:03Brian Tyler Cohen:Done deal. Norm, as always, thanks so much. Thanks, Brian. Thanks again to Norm Eisen, Annie Andrews, and Troy Jackson. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Sunday. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesley, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to BrianTylerCohen.com to learn more.