The Art of the Steal

0:00Late last week, something rare happened. There's growing outrage to a video that President Trump posted last night. Audio that included a racist clip of the Obamas depicted as monkeys. This is totally unacceptable. The president should take it down and apologize. Praying it was fake because it's the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House. The president should remove it. Those are Republicans. That never happens. But the video wasn't just racist. It was filled with conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. and not a peep from Republicans on that. Trump's 2020 obsession isn't a thing of the past.

0:40It's driving new investigations and shaping how the White House approaches the midterm elections later this year. That's coming up on Today Explained from Vox.

1:00Megan Rapinoe here. This week on A Touch More, Gotham FC's Rose Lavelle joins us to talk about FIFA's very first Champions Cup, her incredible year of wins, and some of her greatest pranks of all time. Unfortunately, on yours truly. Plus, with the WNBA's CBA negotiations still stalled, I gotta ask the question, is it time to worry? Check out the latest episode of It's Such More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.

1:32I got in the water in the very early morning before the sun had risen, and the water was pitch black. I started swimming, and I felt the water hollowing out around me and felt like something really big was swimming below. I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is Love. A show about the surprising things that love can make us do. More than 100 episodes, available now on This Is Love.

2:09I'm Estet Herndon. Josh Darcy covers Trump for The Wall Street Journal. I asked him how Trump is keeping the dream of 2020 alive in his current White House. Well, I think more than anything, he's put Tulsi Gabbard, his director of national intelligence, in charge of this. He's basically tasked her with trying to prove that he won the election in 2020. So she's reviewing ballots across the country. The federal government has seized the voting ballots of thousands of people in a raid of the Fulton County, Georgia, election office. The president remains focused on the 2020 election more than five years ago, the election he lost to Joe Biden.

2:46Georgia says they had multiple recounts. They have nothing to hide. She's been in contact with FBI officials the other day after that raid in Georgia. The New York Times reported that she put Trump on the phone directly with the FBI officials who did the raid. And so you have sort of a whole of government approach. He also brought in a lawyer named Kurt Olson. In the 2020 election, Trump hired Olson to try and push his claims of fraud across the country, and they were not successful. But earlier, well, last year now, it's in 2026, and last year he hired Olson as a special government employee to come into the White House, work directly for White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and try and prove election fraud.

3:33He also has told folks at DOJ, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney Todd Blanche, that he wants them focused on this. So when he's returned to office, he's put the power of the government into researching his sort of false claims from 2020. And a lot of that, I think, is now just emerging publicly, but it's been happening behind the scenes for many months. Haven't many of these allegations of fraud already been investigated? I remember when Trump was out of office in the Biden years, this being a focus of so much litigation and just so much conservative activism in general.

4:09President Trump and his campaign have filed a number of lawsuits against key battleground states. President Trump suffering yet another stinging legal setback tonight. A federal appeals court tossing out his election challenge in Pennsylvania. What are the possibly hoping to find that hasn't already been found or scrubbed and nothing was found? Well, they've certainly counted the ballots over and over and over in Fulton County. And, you know, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and others have certified the election, have studied it time and time again. I'm a passionate conservative. And as I've said before, I'm a proud Trump supporter.

4:45Working as an engineer throughout my life, I live by the motto that numbers don't lie. As Secretary of State, I believe that the numbers that we have presented today are correct. They say, you know, that Trump lost in 2020 and there was no wide scale fraud. He hired his own consultants in 2020, his own lawyers, his own consulting firms, his own researchers. They couldn't find evidence for it. So I guess the real answer to your question is that is I don't know what we're looking for in Georgia. I mean, it's sort of too early to say what the we haven't seen the unsealed, you know, affidavit. We haven't seen any sort of court papers that show how they were able to get a court-approved search to go into an area like that, a voting area.

5:33But, you know, everything else seemingly has been looked at many, many times since the 2020 election.

5:42in this Fulton County episode you said that uh Tulsi Gabbard arranged a call between the FBI officials on the ground and President Trump as the investigation was unfolding now obviously that seems unusual at the minimum is this anything other than an effort of intimidation like it kind of sounds like like what was actually the purpose of said call well one of the things we've seen time and time again, I said in this administration, our cabinet officials, including maybe most notably Tulsi Gabbard, who leads DNI, trying to get in the president's good graces, trying to carry out what the president wants, trying to keep him happy.

6:21And what we saw here, I mean, first of all, it's really unusual for the director of national intelligence to be on the scene as the FBI searches a court, you know, a court-ordered or a court-approved search. I don't know that we've ever seen D &I, the director, standing over in a hat and watching and sort of, you know, supervising or overseeing or whatever she was doing there. But that's A, very unusual. B, it's very unusual to put the president directly on the phone with FBI line agents. I mean, it's certainly sending a remarkable message that you put the president of the United States on the phone with FBI agents carrying out a search in Georgia, trying to prove election fraud, which is his, you know, one of his top priorities right now.

7:05What are the other kind of 2020 investigations that the president had launched? Because as you said, it seems like kind of a full court effort. I think you've also seen him go after a number of or have his Department of Justice go after a number of folks who have investigated him. You know, James Comey, they tried to bring charges against him, failed in Virginia. Comey was charged with giving false statements to Congress back in 2020 and obstruction of justice. He pleaded not guilty. My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump. Tish James, they tried to bring charges against her.

7:39James, who has also pleaded not guilty, was charged with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. This justice system, which has been used as a tool of revenge against those individuals who simply did their job and who stood up for the rule of law. You also, you know, see him wanting to go after Adam Schiff, who investigated him over Russia. I'll tell you what, I think Adam Schiff is one of the lowest of the low. I would love to see him brought to justice. You see him, you know, saying that Jack Smith, a former special counsel, deserves to be charged. But what they did was criminal.

8:15Deranged Jack Smith, in my opinion, is a criminal. There are people at Left and Right who he views sort of his proverbial enemies, who he's looking to see face the wrath of the Department of Justice. But why is he still obsessed with proving the Biden election to be false? Like he won in 2024, has virtually erased much of the Biden legacy, has spent much of his first time erasing the Obama legacy before him. Like he seems to actually like get the outcome he desires by returning to power himself. Why is it necessary to him to invalidate the 2020 win?

8:58I mean, he said yesterday at the National Prayer Breakfast that he had to come back and win in 2024 for his ego. It wasn't easy, you know. They rigged the second election. I had to win it. Had to win it. I needed it for my own ego. I would have had a bad ego for the rest of my life. Now I really have a big ego, though. You know, 2020 losing, I think, was a big stain on his ego and his legacy. And he did not want to be viewed as a president who ever lost. Right. I mean, for Trump, there's a relentlessness there. I mean, you see him now going back again, like the things that happened in 2016 and 2017 and trying to get history rewritten.

9:40I mean, look what he did on Jan 6. I mean, in the aftermath of Jan 6, I think Republicans and Democrats alike viewed it as a dark day for the country and saw what really happened and how bad things were. And look how he's changed history over, maybe not history, but changed how many people see it over the years, you know, since then. He's sort of rewritten his own narrative. 2020 election is the same thing. You know, he's never given up on the idea that he could convince people that he won, and he's still working at it. I mean, Trump is always bending a narrative, always selling the idea of him as a winner, him as all-powerful, him as a person who, you know, does not lose, frankly.

10:20And that's what he's doing here. I mean, what do we think about the other folks in government when it comes to things like his election denial and consistent conspiracy on this front? Is everyone else on board? Are they willing to be on board just to maintain his favor? Or is there a limit? I mean, I guess I'm asking, is there a Mike Pence of the second term that might say, hey, we may be going too far here? Do you see one? No, I certainly don't. But you know it better than I do. I mean, I think there are people, look, there are people in the White House who certainly think it's not the best use of his time, right?

10:55And they certainly do not love, I think there are elements in folks who work in the White House who do not love spending part of their time on this. But is there anyone who's willing to go into the Oval Office, sit down with him and say, we're wasting our time on 2020. You lost. Let's move on. You won in 2024. I don't think that's happened. No. So there has been a lot of evidence, even the data and the amount of kind of election deniers, not Dame Trump, who have lost their races, that this does not play well with voters. That although maybe the most ardent parts of the base agree with Donald Trump, there's not necessarily been a winning issue for them.

11:29Has there been any concern in the White House that Donald Trump's policy crusade on this front might hurt Republican politics in the midterms here? Certainly. I mean, I think a lot of Republicans believe that the focus on 2020 is not helpful in the midterms. They, you know, believe a lot of the things he does are not helpful for the midterms. A lot of things have been happening with ICE in Minneapolis. Yeah, you're right. One of many. He posted a video on Drew Social that depicted the Obamas as monkeys. Yeah. And he took it down a bit ago. But after widespread outrage, I mean, sure. I mean, I think if you talk to most senators, most members of Congress, most operatives across the party, no one would say, you know what really helps us win in 2026?

12:13A relentless focus on the 2020 election. But, you know, Republicans have been trying to tell Trump what they want him to do for years or what's not helpful, quote unquote. And usually he does basically whatever he wants. And frankly, I don't see that changing here.

12:38Josh Dossie, Wall Street Journal. Coming up, Trump's got plans, but they involve influencing the 2026 midterms.

13:04I'm Marshall Cohen. I'm a senior reporter at CNN. And this year I'm focusing a lot on election integrity and potential attempts by the president or anyone else to interfere in the midterms. Well, as we just learned, that makes you a busy man this year, considering Trump has not let up on his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Is there some sense that the claims of 2020 election fraud are influencing how he sees the 2026 midterm elections? To this point, what we've talked about has been backward looking. But from what it sounds like with your beat, this is still an act of live ball.

13:40I mean, I think you should interpret everything he does this year through the lens of what he tried to do back in 2020. And I think he's very influenced by what he considers his shortcomings in 2020, where he didn't succeed in overturning those results. I think he doesn't want to get to a place this year where he has to overturn a result. He might try to put his thumb on the scales, use government powers, use federal authorities to try to influence the process. What has Trump been saying about the midterm specific to the question of election integrity? Well, I mean, he made a lot of news just a few days ago when he went farther than he's ever gone before.

14:27The Republicans should say we want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. He said 15 states. He didn't say which ones. I think we can guess. He said that he was talking about the states that have the big fraud problem, which presumably is a lot of the states that he lost in 2020 that are many of them run by by Democratic governors and stuff like that. So that's the big rhetoric instead is that he's been saying that it should be nationalized. That's really not constitutional or even practically viable, but it shows you where his mind's at.

15:08If they can't count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take off. But the Constitution says it should be states that administer elections, Mr. President. You know what? They can administer the election, but they have to do it honestly.

15:25OK, how did Democrats respond to Donald Trump's claims about desire to nationalize the elections? Just give me a sense of the blowback. Well, Democrats pretty swiftly, by and large, came out and said that this is crazy and unconstitutional. Once again, the president's talking no differently than a dictator who wants elections in America to be as legitimate as elections in countries like Venezuela. But it's so much bigger than this, Ested. Yeah. I was at a conference, National Association of Secretaries of State in D.C. They do it every year, but the vibes were completely different this year because all the Democratic secretaries are terrified and strategizing for this potential assault by Trump on the integrity of the midterms.

16:12We spoke to a lot of officials. Some of them, they didn't want to tell us what possibilities they were planning on preparing for because they said, I don't want to give them any ideas. Yes. But some of the things that they did divulge is they're very afraid about possible troop deployments, which we've seen obviously in California and Chicago. And they're also very scared about ICE and immigration enforcement agencies possibly being sent maybe at the last minute when it might be too late to stop, but early enough to cause chaos and possibly intimidate or disenfranchise. The Republicans we talked to, by and large, are not afraid.

16:53They're not worried. They don't think Trump's going to do anything terrible. They applaud his efforts to clean up the voter rolls. They are supporting his efforts to require voter ID. They're supporting his legislative priorities in terms of requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration. It was really the Democrats scared of what Trump might do and then Republicans essentially giving him some political cover. You know, obviously, Trump has been willing to use the federal government to his disposal at unprecedented levels. We have mass squadrons of ICE agents in blue cities across the country.

17:30You have people wearing their passports around their necks when they go to the grocery store out of fear of being detained. A lot of people are kind of scared right now. There might be an air of intimidation that could play into 2026. Is there concern about that? And do we know if that's an explicit strategy from the White House? When you talk to nonpartisan election experts, folks that are former election administrators, that is what they bring up, what you just mentioned, that he doesn't actually have to do all this stuff to make an impact. He can just threaten it or bring it up because it is scary.

18:11And people might ask themselves, yeah, is it really worth it to go vote for senator, some senator that I think is a bum or some member of Congress that I might not even I might not even remember? Like, what have they done for me lately? Am I going to go risk getting detained for them to vote for them? Screw that. I could imagine people that is going through people's minds. Are there other ways that you think Trump could influence or interfere with the midterms that we haven't covered yet? So a big piece of this, the Justice Department has sued more than a dozen states, many states, for access to their voter rolls.

18:50The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Virginia for not sending over its voter registration data. Justice is suing Illinois. The department wants access to the state's official unedited voter registration. Yesterday, Wisconsin joined the growing list of states being sued by the United States Department of Justice. Private data belonging to American citizens that the states are in charge of. The feds think that they have the power to do it, which is why they've gone to court and filed these lawsuits. But so far, they've been losing. There have been at least two cases, one in California, one in Oregon, where federal judges have rejected those attempts by the DOJ to get that data.

19:29and the states, the Democratic officials say, hell no, we are not giving you this data. It's protected by federal law and state law. I'm just not going to hand that over to them. Go jump in the Gulf of Maine. Again, sir, pound sand. The Republican officials that we've talked to in the states have said, you know, we're doing a very good job already, keeping a very clean voter roll. We've purged a lot of people, like, you know, basically trying to say, no, no, no, don't, you don't need to do this. We're doing a good job. So they're trying to make the case politely to the administration that, you know, we love the idea of what you're doing, but please let us do it.

20:09We don't we're not so excited to give you the social security numbers of our constituents and stuff like that. DOJ is not just in court. They have really ratcheted things up. A few weeks ago, Attorney General Pam Bondi really made waves when she sent a letter to officials in Minnesota, basically offering a quid pro quo that the administration would pull back ICE from Minnesota in exchange for the voter rolls from Minnesota, which, you know, most election officials that we spoke to and nonpartisan experts said that is bananas. you know like a hostage i think the secretary of state there said i've called it a ransom note because what do those two things have with each other you know clearly it's it was just a a very aggressive wielding of federal power and people are afraid that more more stuff like that might be coming soon if the midterms are still nine months away and i know that means that we're tapped in but not the average person's tapped in at this point i get the question every now and then from, you know, folks who only tangentially follow politics.

21:18Like, how worried should they be about the prospect of Trump pre-rigging or kind of intimidating his way to victory in the midterm elections? I want to put that question to you. Like, how legitimate do you think the concern that Donald Trump will soft steal the midterms is? I'll answer in two ways. Number one, everyone should take this seriously, not because people should be conspiracy theorists, but because we've lived through this before, right? Yeah. I wouldn't have necessarily said this in 2017 in the first year of Donald Trump's presidency, but we have the benefit of 10 years. Donald Trump claimed the Iowa caucuses were rigged when he lost to Ted Cruz.

22:03Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa. He stole it. that's why all of these polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad! He claimed that the popular vote was rigged against him when he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. In addition to winning the electoral college in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally. Obviously, he tried to overturn the 2020 election, which led to a violent insurrection. Because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. So this should be taken seriously.

22:44That being said, the nonpartisan people that I talk to who are experts in election administration, they say that despite all this noise, despite all the fears, despite what you've been told at home, that our system is garbage, it's actually quite resilient. There are many safeguards. There are hardworking Democratic and Republican officials and nonpartisan staff that run these elections. There are judges and courts that take this seriously as a firewall when people do try to get involved with some funny business. And that you should rest assured that your vote will be counted and will be counted fairly, despite all the drama.

23:34That's what the experts say.

23:42Marshall Cohen, CNN. Today's show was produced by Kelly Wessinger and Avishai Artsy, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Andrea Lopez-Cruzado, and engineered by Patrick Boyd and David Tadishore. I'm Estet Herndon. This is Today Explained.

24:06Thank you.