Wow: Republicans INVESTIGATE Trump’s election meddling

**Brian Tyler Cohen** (0:01)
Wyoming Republicans are now investigating Trump's election meddling, and I've got one interview, I'm joined by Marc Elias, to discuss that exact issue. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie.
So we've got some bombshell news here. Wyoming's governor has sounded the alarm about the Trump administration's poll monitor activities and has directed the state's attorney general to investigate the matter. According to the New York Times, two election monitors from the DOJ tried to interview voters and examine voting machines at polling places during Wyoming's primary last week, local officials said, drawing pushback from the state's Republican governor. The federal election monitors arrived at a polling site in Cheyenne, Washington's capital and largest city, without advance notice at around 7 a.m. on Tuesday. They asked to interview voters and inspect the machines, but were denied. Quote, it was aggressive, unexpected, disruptive, certainly didn't seem to show respect for the state. Governor Mark Gordon of Wyoming said in an interview on Thursday, quote, we're going to get to the bottom of it best we can. I feel very strongly about the federal government coming in and taking our guns. I don't like that, Mr. Gordon said. And I don't like the federal government coming in and taking our votes either. The monitors ultimately visited six polling places, showing their credentials only when asked for them, Mr. Gordon said. Describing their behavior is very odd. He said he had asked the state attorney general, Keith Coutts, to investigate the matter.
So if that wasn't bad enough, the Wyoming governor revealed that the DOJ's poll monitors had cited statutes related to the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA, and the Civil Rights Act. In other words, they are exploiting protections for disabled Americans and minorities while executing actions that expressly undermine those very groups of people. And that was a sentiment that was echoed by Wyoming officials. This is another excerpt from the New York Times. Their questions appeared to be, quote, outside the scope of federal voting rights laws, said the Laramie County clerk. Quote, they included questions about the nature, length and timing of poll worker training. Monitors requested training guides and asked how our new election equipment was acquired and wanted to examine our tabulators. The conduct, Ms. Lee said, displayed a complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections. End quote.
And of course, look, she's right that they're showing a complete disregard for state laws and the administration of elections because the federal government does not play a role in administering elections. And yet, still that hasn't stopped Trump and his lackeys from trying to usurp that exact control. The White House is right now in court attempting to advance his illegal executive order seeking to ban mail-in ballots except for a narrow set of circumstances, which is power that, again, the federal government does not have. Now, you may have heard about a Supreme Court ruling on this topic in Trump's favor. I want to be clear about what that SCOTUS ruling did. It did not rule on the merits of Trump's mail ballot executive order. It only ruled on the issue of what's called ripeness. Ripeness is a legal doctrine that requires a dispute to have developed into an actual concrete controversy, rather than just a hypothetical one before a court would agree to hear and decide the case. So, for example, the Postal Service hadn't finalized its rule when the issue was first litigated, so it was merely hypothetical. It wasn't ripe. Now they finalized the rule, which means the issue can be litigated. It's ripe. That's all. But when it comes time to actually litigate this issue on the merits, it is a massively uphill battle for two reasons. First, the federal government, again, has no say in the facilitation or administration of elections. Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution is about as clear as it gets. The power to regulate the time, place and manner of elections belongs to the states and to Congress, not the executive branch. Trump doesn't get a vote on how Massachusetts or California or any other state runs its own elections, period.
Second, the Purcell Doctrine, which if you listen to my podcast, you're probably familiar with by now. The idea that you can't make changes too close to an election or you risk causing undue chaos. We are two months out. Ballots are being printed and sent out basically now. The notion that Trump would be able to suddenly ban mail-in ballots now is a virtual impossibility. Doesn't mean he won't try, but I want to be clear-eyed about what success looks like for him.
So that raises the question, why do it? Well, here's the thing. Trump benefits either way. Like best case scenario, the Supreme Court agrees with his insane executive order and he can ban mail-in ballots. I would bet the farm that that won't happen. But just hypothetically speaking, that's the best case scenario. Worst case scenario, he doesn't get what he wants on mail-in ballots. And then he gets to use the fact that he didn't get what he wanted as an excuse to undermine the legitimacy of the election. So he'll say, oh, well, the reason that we lost is because there was mail-in ballot fraud. And if only my executive order went through, we could have fixed it. But the Democrats fought it because they knew that it was the only way they can win the election. So really, he has set himself up to be able to claim victory either way. Either he can block the ballots or he won't. And he gets to point to that as an excuse for why he lost. All of which puts on full display that this Republican Party exists solely to consolidate power for itself. They do not operate in a democracy. This is an autocratic government and an autocratic Republican Party. They do not believe that Democrats have the right to govern. They will only accept the results when they win, which only underscores the need to win with as big a margin as we can to eliminate all doubt. And to be clear, I believe we'll win. I wouldn't do this work if I didn't think so. Trump is operating from a position of severe weakness, and it is expressly because he knows his party is going to lose their power in two months. Our job is to make sure that it is undeniable.