'Poison pill the elections’: Trump ramps up threats to election integrity with Fulton County raid

This is not about the 2020 election. That election has been litigated, audited, recounted, and repeatedly upheld by courts and election officials, including lots and lots of Republican election officials.

This is frankly about what comes next.

Indeed it is. Hi again everybody. It's 5:00 in New York. Ask yourself, what if anything would Donald Trump be doing differently today if he really was trying to seize the reins of our elections from the hands of the American people?

If he really was intent on creating a system in which, quote, find me 11,000 votes wasn't just clunky, mobster style political pressure stuff, but a direct order from the Commander-in-Chief, President of the United States.

Perhaps more than ever before today, these hypotheticals are surging through the consciousness of pro-democracy forces and it starts with this. Watch.

These people were brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally, and the, you know, amazing that the Republicans aren't tougher on it. The 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.

It's shocking. It should remain shocking. They're saying it out loud now, and it shouldn't be a surprise to any of us, but nor should it become normal.

Remember, his Department of Justice is in the process of collecting personal voter data from states, provided either voluntarily or under threat of legal action.

In fact, go down the list of what Donald Trump has said and done over the last few days, weeks and months, it reads less like breadcrumbs and more like an autocrat's roadmap on how to steal an election.

Last summer, he not so subtly railed against mail-in ballots and voting machines on social media.

Last month, he told The New York Times he regrets not commanding the National Guard to seize the voting machines after he lost the 2020 presidential election. Last week, he spoke on the phone with FBI agents involved in a raid in Fulton County, Georgia, according to The New York Times.

A raid that resulted in the seizure of 2020 ballots and voting records there. Now, in the face of congressional scrutiny on the matter, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard,

says she attended the operation in Fulton County, Georgia because Donald Trump told her to.

From the Associated Press, quote, Tulsi Gabbard acknowledged that she facilitated what she described as a brief phone call between Trump and FBI agents who carried out the search, but insisted that neither she nor the president had issued any directives. Her letter to top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees marked Tulsi Gabbard's first detailed explanation for her unusual presence at an FBI search during which agents armed with a warrant seized hundreds of boxes containing ballots and other documents related to the 2020 election in Georgia's most populous county.

As Congressman Jamie Raskin said, that's not Donald Trump trying to stop election fraud. It's Donald Trump trying to commit election fraud.

Here's his colleague.

Senator Mark Warner again.

These are not the actions of an administration that's serious about election security.

These are the actions of an administration clearing away safeguards while simultaneously inserting itself into domestic investigations, seizing election materials as they did in Georgia, and publicly calling for Republicans again to take over and nationalize voting in multiple states.

When you put all of this together, it is clear that what happened in Fulton County is not about revisiting the past. It is about shaping the outcome of future elections and quite honestly, dismantling the very guard rails that were put in place to keep them free and fair.

Dismantled guard rails is where we start the hour.

New York Times reporter Nick Corasaniti's here, also joining us, former lead investigator for the January 6 Select Committee, Tim Heaphy's back, and Media Matters President Angelo Carusone is here.

Tim Heaphy, let me play for you, um, the body cam footage that shows the Fulton Police and the FBI sparring over the search warrant to seize the 2020 ballots.

The warrant will be amended slightly, but for all intents and purposes, what they had is what it's going to look like. We wanted to let her facilitate us moving through the building to unlock the gates so that we don't have to breach it.

Because one way or the other, the records are coming with us today.

One way or another, the records are coming with us today.

What's that?

Yeah, it's a

autocracy. It's it's occupation by federal authorities into what is exclusively a state function, Nicole. You said it at the top. Elections in this country are run by states. That's part of our federal system. And there's just no indication, despite lots and lots of scrutiny over the years, that the 2020 election or any other was riddled with fraud. This whole thing is I'm having trouble imagining the legal basis for which the FBI would be able to seize ballots or election materials. I haven't seen the affidavit that supported it, but I can't imagine, given how much scrutiny this is this has obtained over the years, that there's anything new here that would justify this. So it's frankly chilling and frightening that we have FBI agents intruding in what is and has always been and should be a classically state function.

Um, Angela, let me just level set.

Too, um, there was no fraud in 2020.

And don't believe me if you don't want to.

Um, believe Brad Raffensperger, who's a Trump backer.

Believe Brian Kemp, a Republican Trump backer.

Um, believe, um, believe Bill Barr, who called these lies about voter fraud, um, bullshit.

Um, here's Eric Holder, though, talking about how that doesn't make Georgia different.

By and large, voter fraud is something, um, that localities

deal with and that isn't particularly widespread in this country at all.

Watch what he said.

They put in place all of these measures designed to stop voter fraud.

When in fact, voter fraud in any consequential way simply does not exist.

The state systems that run our elections do so pretty damn well, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, independents, regular citizens, you know, volunteering their time.

There is simply not the voter fraud there that allows them to put in place, you know, a whole range of things.

And again, people that have looked at this after the 2000 election.

Uh, former President Jimmy Carter and uh, former Secretary of State Jim Baker looked at this.

Didn't find that voter fraud.

Was a thing, it's not a crime that happens.

So what is this?

This is the sort of the next chapter in this story about elections.

Um, I agree, it's not about going back to the past, although he's happy to do that.

He's happy to get the vindication.

But the truth is, as far as he's concerned, he's already got that vindication.

That validation has already taken place.

And he's doing, though, is beginning to pull together the material.

For an overarching story or narrative that something is amiss, that something is wrong.

Um, and they'll, they'll, they'll take, you know, because we're talking about the raid.

But of course, that's just the first step here, right?

They're going to, there's going to be a next step, something that they do that either reinforces the story or advances it, and he gets to make another big controversial statement about it.

Maybe he'll talk more about nationalizing elections, but that's just part of the story.

That's the umbrella.

Then somebody will go in and implement.

Will move the bar again, will move the acceptable or what's normal.

Even further to help move, you know, make it easier for him to manipulate or engage with or, you know, just poison pill the election.

So people have less confidence in them.

So that's what you're seeing play out here.

It is part of a larger story that he's telling for this cycle and beyond.

Uh, and this was the first sort of the opening page of this new chapter.

All the drama, all the intrigue.

Um, and it will just be the beginning of a new thing.

And this is going to gin up a whole bunch of new characters and a whole bunch of old characters.

It's going to work its way through the right-wing echo chamber.

Maybe he doesn't nationalize the elections or not.

Obviously, we'll talk about some of the fantasies he can't anyway.

But who knows, he's so lawless.

But the reality is is that we're going to have to be confronting, this is a new challenge here with an old story.

And that that's where we are.

Um, I want to, um, read some of your reporting on this, Nick.

You write, Trump's escalated remarks about elections come at a moment when Democrats have out-performed the GOP in a series of contests.

New Jersey and Virginia elected Democratic governors in landslides in November, and on Saturday, a Democrat won a special election for a Texas State Senate seat by 14 percentage points in a district Mr. Trump had carried by 17 points in 2024, an enormous swing.

Donald Trump let the truth about this slip out a couple times.

He talked about how President's parties typically take big, um, blows politically in the midterms.

Um, and Marjorie Taylor Green has also sort of spilled the beans that part of the reason she was resigning was because she didn't want to be in the minority and have to defend Donald Trump when he was impeached.

I mean, the the foregone conclusion that Republicans will lose and lose by massive margins is something that's been voiced by Trump, Marjorie Taylor Green and others.

Right, and it's something that's motivating so much of his political action.

You know, something that we haven't even talked about yet is the nationwide redistricting push.

Trump started that, he went to Republicans in Texas and said, I need you to draw me five new seats that will be beneficial to Republicans.

As a way to try and stave off a potential loss in the midterms.

He's, you know, threatened lawmakers in Indiana who didn't want to go along with that.

So, and he's said out loud that, you know, I'm afraid that if Democrats take power, they will impeach me.

So much of the motivation, I think, is looking at the midterms and specifically the house.

That he can't lose control of the house because that will lead to stymying his agenda and possible investigation.

So I think the Fulton County raid, I think we look at that, the actions of the Justice Department.

I mean, his executive order in March that tried to change American election law.

That was another kind of intrusion of the Trump administration, uh, trying to get into how states run elections.

And it's all been kind of done with this backdrop of a political reckoning that could be coming.

Especially as his poll numbers are sagging and history, you know, shows that the incumbent president tends to weather a bit of a storm in the next midterm.