Republicans pull SHOCKING election stunt in Texas

0:01Brian Tyler Cohen:Republicans continue their voter suppression tactics ahead of midterms, this time as chaos unfolded in Tarrant County, Texas. And I've got two interviews, Robert Garcia and Ro Khanna. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen and you're listening to No Lie. So this is what just happened at a public meeting in Tarrant County, Texas, as Republicans voted three to two along party lines to shut down 92 polling locations ahead of midterms. Here's the deal. Tarrant County, the third largest county in Texas, home to Fort Worth, and one of the most important swing counties in the entire state, is going from 316 polling locations down to just 224.

0:37Brian Tyler Cohen:That's nearly a third of the county's voting infrastructure that's just gone right before an election that Republicans know is going to be brutal for them nationally. Now, one of the Democrats who was on the commission said, quote, it's not about cost. This is about power. This is very political. This is campaigning from the dais, which, by the way, is a pretty remarkable thing for a sitting commissioner to say directly to the people voting on this measure, that you're not administering an election, that you're rigging one directly from your own seat on the dais. Now, the official justification here is that this is about saving money and efficiency, and they've pointed to low turnout in low propensity locations.

1:12Brian Tyler Cohen:And look, in a vacuum, a county could make a boring technical case about resource allocation, but that's not what's happening here. And I think the timeline makes that obvious. Consider the fact that this didn't come out of nowhere. This comes on the heels of Tarrant County's 2025 redistricting fight, which already drew weeks of controversy and accusations of gerrymandering from residents, civil rights advocates, and local leaders who wanted that whole process halted. So this is chapter two of the same story. First, you redraw the maps to lock in your advantage, which Republicans have already accomplished.

1:43Brian Tyler Cohen:Then you make it physically harder for the wrong people to cast a ballot, which they're accomplishing right now. So what do I mean, by the way, by wrong people, the wrong voters? Well, look at who specifically loses access here. One of the sites on the chopping block is the University of Texas at Arlington polling location. That is a campus that has spent years actively building youth civic engagement, which, shocker, tends to skew Democratic. Reverend Ryan Price and multiple community members specifically flagged that these cuts would disproportionately hit communities of color across the county.

2:14Brian Tyler Cohen:In other words, this isn't like some neutral formula spitting out random closures. This is the Republicans doing what they have been doing for years, which is to suppress the vote with surgical precision against communities that don't historically vote for them. And I want to be clear about the scale of the opposition here because Republicans have tried to frame what went on in Tarrant County as some quiet technical adjustment that nobody cared about. That's not what happened. Over 140 people signed up to speak against this. Hundreds of protesters stood outside the courthouse for more than three hours in nearly 100 degree heat.

2:47Brian Tyler Cohen:Public comment ran for over two hours and law enforcement had to physically escort somebody out of the room. So this was not some sleepy bureaucratic vote that nobody was watching. Tarrant County residents showed up in force. They were loud, angry and completely ignored anyway because the outcome was decided before a single person even spoke. And it didn't stop there. After the initial vote, Democratic commissioners tried to bring back a proposal to reinstate 37 of the polling places that have been cut. The Republican majority voted it down two times. The same three to two party line split. So this wasn't a case of like, well, maybe they'll walk it back once they hear from the public.

3:23Brian Tyler Cohen:They heard from the public extensively and they doubled down twice when they were given a chance to fix it. With that all said, it doesn't look like the voters in Tarrant County were willing to give up because here's one clip from one attendee that gained traction online from within that meeting. I want to reiterate what the nice lady before me said. You're fired, Mr. Tim O 'Hare. Matt Krause. I guess maybe you're safe. Manny Ramirez, wherever he is, you guys are out. What could possibly be so important? Mr. O 'Hare, can you listen to me, please? Hello? Hello? Can you look at my eyes, please? I can hear every word you're saying.

4:03I want you to look me in the eyes. You can use your minute hour you choose. I want you to look me in the eyes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, look down. I'm going to. Down is what you're going in November. So keep looking where you're going. Okay. Because this is what we're doing after this from now until November, whether you cut these places or not. We're going and we're knocking on doors and we're bringing people out. And we're telling them where the voter locations are and we're helping them get there. And nothing you can do can stop us from removing you in November. So come November, you better find yourself a new job.

4:33Brian Tyler Cohen:And to Manny Ramirez, who is not here, maybe you can hear me in the restroom. Vote for Nydia in November. So if that doesn't give Republicans pause, I don't know what will. Now, here's the thing that really gives the game away amid all of this. This whole vote that these Tarrant County Republicans passed came just one day after Trump publicly vowed to end mail-in voting entirely. And this was despite the fact that a president of the United States does not have the authority to dictate how individual states or counties run their own elections. Article 1 of the Constitution puts that power in the hands of states and Congress, period.

5:04Brian Tyler Cohen:But when you connect the dots here, Trump attacking mail voting, Texas Republicans stripping in-person polling access at the county level, you start to see an actual strategy. It's not one tactic. This is a two-pronged squeeze. Make it harder to vote by mail and make it harder to vote in person and hope that within that gap, enough of your opposition just doesn't show up. And that really is the tell here. If you actually believe that you could win the argument on the economy, on health care, on any of the issues that matter in people's lives, you don't need to spend your political capital on shutting down polling places at colleges and community centers.

5:39Brian Tyler Cohen:You just make your case and let people vote. The fact that Republicans in Tarrant County chose this fight instead shows that they've already done the math and they know they lose if everybody gets an equal shot to show up. Next up are my interviews with Robert Garcia and Ro Khanna. No Lie is brought to you by SimpliSafe. So security is, of course, a big issue for me considering politics isn't as safe as it used to be. But as I was considering home security systems, I realized that all of these home security systems are built for after. After the window breaks, after somebody's inside, after you get the notification, after the police come, SimpliSafe is the first system designed for before.

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7:30Brian Tyler Cohen:So right now I'm joined by the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia. Congressman, can you explain what the Oversight Committee is doing right now in light of this new development? Right. So just last night, we actually, our team met with the whistleblower and those conversations are ongoing. We, of course, have this report that was just released today. It was sent out, worked on through both the Senate side, our partners there, as well as us on the Oversight Committee. And so the whistleblower and the whistleblower's representatives are talking to both committees right now just to give us all the information.

8:07There is more to come, I will say, on this topic. And I think there is more that the whistleblower and others will likely bring out, which is really concerning. And I think what for us, the most important thing was immediately to ensure that the whistleblower has protection and the information is out to the public. That is right now the most important because this is an issue that will likely be heard, whether at the Supreme Court, most likely, but still going to be heard. I mean, right now there's a stay, but the Supreme Court hearing this is, I think, highly likely. So getting the information out to the public, having folks talk about it, it being reported on right now is the most important piece.

8:49Brian Tyler Cohen:Are you able to preview anything else that's about to be released at the hands of the whistleblower? I can't say anything beyond what has already been released, but what's been released is really serious. And we're talking about essentially Donald Trump and the administration creating a system within USPS to kind of pick and choose on vote-by-mail ballots and trying to possibly slow down vote-by-mail, certainly cause havoc in the vote-by-mail process, removing ballots from being counted. And this is incredibly extreme stuff and things that Donald Trump has been wanting to do from day one. We've been saying he wants to rig the 2026 midterm.

9:30We were aware of this. This is the good impact 2028 as well. And so we have to push hard. And now that there is somebody within the USPS, and quite frankly, it is a, as we've described it, an official within USPS that we believe is very credible and more to come. But we have to ensure the courts are aware of what Donald Trump is trying to do within USPS right now.

9:59Brian Tyler Cohen:Is there a way to bring the Postmaster General and or other USPS leadership that was responsible for this in front of Congress to testify about what had taken place? And kind of a follow-up to that, I presume that would require buy-in from James Comer. Do you know one way or the other whether he would be a willing participant in that? Yeah, we're not aware that there will be some actions in the next few days that's going to hopefully get us more information. But I think James Comer has been unwilling really to do any sort of real oversight within the Congress. That's not something that we're expecting.

10:36But certainly, we are going to continue to push Johnson, Comer, Republican leadership to actually do the right thing. I mean, vote by mail is happening not just in states where Democrats typically do better, but also in states where Republicans do well. They're used widely by rural voters, by Republican voters. I mean, the president himself votes by mail and did so in this last primary election in Florida. And so the fact that Donald Trump now is putting in place things he's verbalized, right? He has tried to stop votes from happening. He's made calls to election officials in states. He, of course, denies that he actually lost the election to Joe Biden.

11:16These are all concerning actions. And now we know there is an actual real system in place, which, by the way, per court order, there should have been no execution of his executive orders. Right. But the fact that has been moving forward against those those court cases, we believe first and foremost strengthens our arguments in the courts and ideally, hopefully puts this to bad once and for all. Donald Trump should not be allowed to move forward with this system.

11:41Brian Tyler Cohen:And you're exactly right. There are two issues at play here. One is the fact that he went forward with this despite initial injunctions. I think the first one was handed down on August 27th. Then Judge Tawani issued the temporary restraining order. Still, this whole process moved forward despite all of that. And by the way, I should also add, despite the fact that the DOJ is 0 for 23 right now in court cases where they're trying to get the voter rolls sent to the federal government. So I don't know how he can look at this and see a mandate when he has quite literally never won a single case on this issue.

12:13Brian Tyler Cohen:And the other one is the system itself that seems almost designed to fail. But on the first point, you just alluded to this. Can you can you speak on what you expect the judge will do, given the fact that her order here was outright flouted by Trump and the USPS? Well, look, I think that I think it's very I think it's pretty clear. I I think that the judge in this case, but also other other judges and other court officials that are reviewing more broadly these actions by the executive order, the actions by the president. There is no question that this is a complete disregard of the opinion and the order.

12:54There's also no question that if this gets to the Supreme Court, this will be a huge part of the argument. And certainly the argument is going to be made to not implement, not allow Trump to give him the ability to actually implement all these actions. Look, we should be very clear. Donald Trump wants to disrupt the elections of 2026. He's been ordered by a court to not move forward on his plans to kind of redo how he wants to do vote by mail and his own warped vision of what he thinks should happen in an election. And yet he continues to put in place a system at USPS to drastically alter the way ballots can be counted and the way ballots are actually reviewed.

13:35I mean, in some cases, we're finding out from the whistleblower that if there was a concern with a ballot, that USPS officials would have the ability to then throw out that entire batch of ballots, even though there were likely no issues with all the other ballots that were being reviewed. And so this is basically the president's attempt to pick and choose where he wants to count ballots. And it's unconstitutional. It's illegal. And we're going to continue to push really hard on this. This is an incredibly important fight right now that all Democrats would be engaged in.

14:09Brian Tyler Cohen:Do you know if there's any legal exposure being shouldered by USPS officials who decided to move forward with this process despite the TRO or the federal injunction? I think that there is going to be an incredible amount of exposure for anyone that is involved in this. And you can rest assured that certainly in a majority, we are going to dig into this and understand who gave what order. But between now and the election and the time we get, you know, we're able to have our own hearings, we've got to stop this program that Trump's trying to implement at USPS. That's the most important thing. In terms of the Purcell doctrine, this idea that you can't make changes too close to an election, otherwise you would cause chaos.

14:47Brian Tyler Cohen:You know, that that's that's a doctrine that's been exploited by Republicans in the past. And so they will slow walk cases where Democrats are challenging unconstitutional maps and they'll they'll only get a result or a decision or ruling too close to an election so that a judge will finally say, OK, we've made our decision. you're right these maps are unconstitutional they're illegal gerrymanders whatever they may be but it's too close to the election the Purcell doctrine kicks in so we'll have to look at it in the next term and in effect they they basically get to steal a couple of seats every election cycle because they rely on this um do you anticipate that the supreme court will still find Purcell um uh an important doctrine in all of this now that it's something that could be used to curb Donald Trump's willingness or desire to block Democrats from being able to use mail-in ballots?

15:42Look, it's hard to, I think it's hard to predict what the Supreme Court will do. I think your point's an important one. I think, and I do think that broadly speaking, the court has more time you know on enough occasions um sided with the broader view that the vote by mail system is secure and that and that and that um voting in general should is a is a a right and something that needs to be preserved and the integrity of the vote system needs to be preserved and Donald Trump has made attempts to go to the Supreme Court as we know on a variety of different issues a bunch of courts as we know on this very issue and is not successful So we expect the Supreme Court to do the right thing here, but we have to raise the alarm so that not just the Supreme Court, but currently also the judge and those that are currently involved in the state orders, everyone has to know exactly what Donald Trump is actually trying to do.

16:39And that is rig future elections and picking and choosing what vote by mail ballots actually will count.

16:45Brian Tyler Cohen:So there's two issues that we have to reconcile here. One is the severity of what he's trying to do, which you just put on full display. But the other is that there is, you know, this in and of itself, us talking about this is in a way lending itself to the voter suppression efforts that Donald Trump is trying to carry out, because if more people are uncertain about about the confidence that they can have in in the elections, then there might be folks who decide not to cast ballots or not to cast ballots in certain ways. It's not dissimilar to what happened in Georgia when Trump himself undermined confidence in the elections, which led to John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock winning both of their races because he had spent so much time basically telling his own voters that you can't even bother trusting the election results.

17:33Brian Tyler Cohen:So why bother even voting in the first place? And so how do you reconcile those two things where people are going to be worried about voting, But at the same time, that is exactly what Trump wants out of all of this. Look, I think I'm concerned about this as well. I think the more chaos and kind of confusion that Donald Trump causes, it will cost some folks to rethink what should I be voting by mail. As we know, vote by mail is sometimes the only way certain people can vote for a variety of different reasons, whether it's overseas, whether it's they might have some type of disability or access issue.

18:08people that are working class people that are working all day on election day. So there's a lot of barriers to voting that still exist in this country, including efforts that are ongoing and trying to limit the amount of polling places on actual election day or limiting the early vote in certain states. And so those are all real concerns. However, we have got to ensure that when Donald Trump takes these actions, we can't just hide, right? We've got to come out. We've got to ring the alarm. I'm hopeful that there will be clarity on this issue long before ballots start dropping in any of these states.

18:43So the sooner this is cleared up, I'm hopeful that in the next few days, we're going to begin to hear some of the actions possibly of a response to this. That is our intention. We want to raise the alarm, get the information out, make sure that you and others are covering this, that we're raising attention, and then hopefully the courts will do their job.

19:02Brian Tyler Cohen:Last question here. When can we expect some other announcement from the House Oversight Committee or at least the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee as it relates to the whistleblower? We're having ongoing conversations with the whistleblower. And so when there is more information to present, which we think there will be, it'll be quick. Awesome. Well, I'm sure we'll have you back then. So I appreciate you taking the time today. Thanks for the work that you're doing on this issue. Thank you.

19:31Brian Tyler Cohen:We now have a major update here as far as the Epstein files are concerned. This is amid continued obstruction by Donald Trump's DOJ. I'm joined now by Congressman Ro Khanna. Congressman, can you explain the new avenue that you and Thomas Massey are taking to try and force some more disclosure here? The first Epstein Transparency Act we passed released millions of documents. It led to the arrest of dozens of people around the world, including former Prince Andrew and one of the sultans in Dubai. It led to resignations of dozens of people in the United States. But there are still millions of documents that the FBI has which name names, and they are totally redacted.

20:13And these should have been released under the first Epstein Act. The survivors need them. Sometimes the survivors need them to understand what happened to them, and they still have no access to them. And this is a violation of the law. But our new law would give states attorney generals the right to these documents so they can prosecute the people in these Epstein class. And it would give the survivors the right to sue for these documents. We now have a discharge petition similar to what we did for the first Epstein Act. And we're hoping to build the same coalition to get this passed a second time.

20:48Brian Tyler Cohen:OK, so why wasn't this included in the first round, in the first Epstein Files Transparency Act? And if it wasn't included because of political reasons, why do you have confidence that it could pass this time around? It wasn't included because it would have been hard to get initially Republicans to go along with a private cause of action. And we wanted to have the least path of resistance in getting it through. We also did not anticipate that the Justice Department would have the documents, have creditable evidence and just not prosecute. And so that the state's attorney general's prosecuting is something that was a new avenue that we discovered along the way.

21:40Now, now, when you've had all of this media attention on it, when public opinion is 9010 saying let's get the Epstein class, there is much more awareness. We passed the first bill. There is a chance that we could get Republicans on board with the second version. But if we had tried this initially without any momentum, without any survivor stories, it would have been almost impossible.

22:06Brian Tyler Cohen:So to that end, what does the coalition look like in terms of who you're targeting to sign on to this second discharge petition? Well, we've lost Marjorie Taylor Grange. She's no longer in Congress. Nancy Mace will, I think, sign. Lauren Boebert is on the fence. We have a chance with Ralph Norman. He initially had supported some of our work on Epstein. He didn't sign the original discharge petition, but he's lost his seat in South Carolina. He lost his seat, by the way, to somebody who Trump endorsed. So the fact that Darlene Graham will be running for the U.S. Senate seat in South Carolina and not Ralph Norman is, you know, in large part thanks to Donald Trump himself.

22:48Brian Tyler Cohen:So in theory, the motivation that he would have, the incentive that he would have to protect Donald Trump would probably not be that high. Exactly. Exactly. And and then we have the retirement caucus after November, who people Republicans are going to lose or would have lost their seats, who may join. Now, I'm hopeful we can do it if we can't do it next Congress. Certainly, we would be able to pass this. And I want to give Teresa Fernandez a shout out to she is a Democratic representative. of New Mexico is a co-sponsor with Massey and me. We would pass it to the Democratic House. And then I would imagine it would still pass in the Senate because I can't imagine Republican senators wanting to filibuster this kind of a bill.

23:36But, you know, we're hoping to pass it before we take over.