What happens if Trump tries to mess with the midterms?

We've talked a lot on the pod this week and this year about how President Trump has tried to exert influence over how Americans vote. Today on the pod, a look at how Democrats in Congress are gaming out worst-case scenarios if Trump goes further and tries to interfere in the midterm elections. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamer Keith. I cover politics. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. Eric Pinkan, you like ever Congress. President Trump has tried a lot of things to change the way elections are administered. And he has hit a lot of legal walls. And we've been talking on the podcast about efforts by President Trump to get the U.S. Postal Service involved in controlling who gets ballots sent to them through the mail. Well, Miles, there have been many twists and turns. There's been another one. Well, I'm going to keep this simple, and I will just say if people want the really in-the-weeds nitty gritty, please go follow Hansi Loewong's reporting a reporter at NPR who's covering every single legal twist in turn in this saga. But long and short of it is that President Trump's executive order, or most of President Trump's executive order on mail voting was blocked. Briefly this week, it was unblocked, and now it is blocked again. And so legal experts, the general consensus across the election law community is that that is kind of where we're going to end up. That this executive order will not end up impacting people's ability to vote by mail. Yes, there could be more to the saga. It could get appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court. But the bottom line is this that the most likely scenario is that people will be able to vote by mail in 2026, the same way they were in 2024 and 2022. All the way up to the Supreme Court again, because it has already once been appealed up to the Supreme Court. Right. The Supreme Court is going to have a lot of voting questions on their hands this year potentially. I want to set up this broader conversation that we're going to have by going a little deeper on the various ways that the Trump administration has tried to change voting in the U.S. Miles, what do you got? Oh, man. It feels like a laundry list at this point. It's kind of been a little bit of a spaghetti at the wall approach from the federal government and from President Trump when it comes to trying to impact the elections infrastructure. President Trump has made it clear he thinks that the presidency and that he as president should have a bigger hand in how elections are run that has meant two different executive orders on elections. The one we mentioned a second ago and then another one last year, both of those have been blocked so far at the courts. And then it's really kind of funneled out to a lot of different aspects of the federal government. Notably, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security have both made efforts to try to investigate the 2020 election and investigate voter fraud more broadly in all of these different ways, which has raised a lot of concerns about what potentially could still be coming for this election cycle. Though I will just say, I think going back to the bottom line as people are getting ready to vote this cycle, it looks right now like the elections infrastructure is going to be the same as it was in 2024 and 2022. I'm not positive that any voters are going to really notice a difference when they go to vote this cycle at this point. You mentioned the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. I think that we would be remiss if we didn't point out that those agencies are led by people who see their job as doing what President Trump wants them to do. There is no independence there. The Homeland Security Secretary has amplified the president's concerns about election security, the attorney general has made it clear that he sees his role as doing what the president wants him to do. And so that's the context in which we are now going to have a conversation about your reporting, Eric McDaniel, you did this very deeply reported project about how Democrats in Congress are preparing for the what ifs. What if President Trump and his administration try to go further to subvert the midterm elections? So what are Democrats focusing on? There's a long list of things, right? So I focused on the Senate where Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has put together a task force of at least 11 senators and a constellation of outside experts, many of the listeners. To this podcast, we'll recognize some of these names, Eric Holder, the former attorney general during the Obama administration, Mark Elias of the Elias Law Group, a prominent Democratic aligned election litigator. And just a constellation of outside good governance groups, often cross-party center, cross-ideological, who are all focused on election integrity. I will say there are no Republicans in Congress as part of this effort. But they've been having in the Senate weekly meetings with staff. They've got a list of 100 threats they're looking at, everything from issues at a single balloting location all the way to the idea that the president might dispatch ICE agents or National Guard troops to polling locations, and it's not just what they're preparing for, all those lawsuits you and Miles were talking about with the DOJ trying to obtain voter rolls. For instance, they have been involved in that litigation, in fact, I talked to Mark Elias about it. One of the misunderstandings is that somehow this litigation springs out of thin air around election day. Right now, my law firm of 60 people is litigating 87 cases in 43 states. This is not something that we wait until election subversion has taken place or voter suppression has been full swing. A lot of preparations and a lot of action so far. How are they thinking about President Trump's playbook? Are they looking back at 2020? How are they thinking this through? For their view, I think it's pretty well summed up by a man named Justin Vale. He's a leader at the group protect democracy. And the second to deceive American voters about the security of our elections and spread false claims about voter fraud. He seeks to disrupt the normal state and local management of our elections by exerting an unprecedented and illegal federal control. If that's not all enough, Trump is prepared to outright deny election results that he doesn't like. And I want to make clear here, a big part of this project is Democrats trying to correct for what they described to me as something like a failure of imagination ahead of 2020. The conversations around Trump's election denial then, they basically was like, what's the worst that can happen? And then January 6th happened and the scales fell from their eyes. I think what it comes to thinking about the possibility of another January 6th, it's also important to remember that we're just in a very different political moment, at least from the people I talked to, there's a lot of optimism that that is not what we're looking at here. Honestly, the scenarios, the sort of doom-scaping scenarios that have been brought up because of all the different ways President Trump has pushed these boundaries are real. But at the same time, a couple of things I would note, one is that it's a lot harder to get people keyed up in the same way they were in 2020 for a midterm election. We see this for no other reason than just turn out. Getting people to vote in midterm elections is so much harder. We've never been able to see somebody on the ballot get this sort of election denial fervor in the way Trump was able to. I mean, we saw this in 2022 when Kerry Lake ran for governor in Arizona, tried to stir the same sort of doubts about when she lost that election. We saw more recently, just a little while ago, when Mike Lindell lost the Republican primary for governor in Minnesota, he's kind of long-pushed election conspiracy theories connected to President Trump, tried to do it again in that election. We haven't really seen evidence that people latch on to those theories in the same way with other candidates when they aren't President Trump. To Eric's point about the fact that there was this failure of imagination from Democrats, I think generally in the election of official communities, the same thing that there is, they learned a lot from that experience and have been game-planning a lot. The biggest thing to me is that their relationships for local voting officials, their relationships with law enforcement now, are in a whole different place. I mean, 10 years ago, they didn't necessarily have their local sheriff on speed dial, and they are working in conjunction across the country now. Yeah, and I think there is this other element that it is 435 different congressional elections, a bunch of Senate elections. This is not the election. It is the midterms plural. Right, so the idea of trying to get them to activate in the way that we saw that activation in 2024, a close house race, for instance, I'm not ruling it out completely, but you can kind of see it would be a little bit more of a difficult cell, potentially. Meaning, you know, is a partisan choice, but is election administration partisan or has it become more partisan than it used to be? I think if you only listened to the clips in terms of how people are talking about it, you might come away feeling that way, but I would say no at this point, that generally speaking, the election denial that we see from President Trump has not really seeped down to the local and state level. Overall, I mean, there are pockets here and there. I want to be very clear. But overall, there are, especially even among Republicans, I would say Republicans are not as loud because politically speaking, it's a lot more dangerous if you're elected Republican to come out against President Trump loudly before the election. At this point, but, you know, we've seen states as red as West Virginia and Idaho, for instance, push back and say they're not going to give their state voter roll data, but it would be illegal to do that to give that to the Department of Justice. And I think that can kind of serve as a little bit of a proxy that state officials, even in deep red places, are not just going along with Trump willy-nilly at this point. I will say I know for a fact that this is part of what Democrats and allied groups have been looking at, right? When they are making these preparations, preparing court motions, all of these things, they're trying to triangulate how likely is this local election administrator or state official to be sympathetic to a cause. If the Trump administration comes knocking how close is this race right could it plausibly be claimed that there's fraud here If you're a true believer all of those things so they're trying to triangulate risk in that way. Are there any places in particular that they have their eyes on? I mean Marco is told me essentially that he is looking at places A where races could be close or vote counting could be particularly slow It came to mind to me. That's a place a lot like Orange County, California. This is a Historically read area that had not gone blue in a presidential election for a very long time until Hillary Clinton won the area in 2016 And because of lots of different reasons their vote counting is quite slow in the state It's also a place that the president has focused a lot of attention on right he has a rivalry with Democratic governor Gavin Newsom And just particular animosity for the state in 2016. He said he actually won it, which is not true But shows that you know, this is a long-running kind of fixation on this place That's also true for states like Illinois or New York where Trump has really focused a lot of Acrimony or or attention. I'm remembering in 2018 which was really a blue wave that initially You know, it it looks like Orange County might stay red and then as more and more votes came in and you know California is pretty slow and they have vote by mail and all of these things It turned into a blue wave even in Orange County, which was a story in itself Right, and I mean long-time listeners of our podcast might remember us talking about this idea of a red mirage and then a blue shift Right early votes in increasingly, you know in person older voters Voting in person and then the mail-in ballotings coming coming in is more heavily Democratic and results shifting All right, we're gonna take a quick break and then we'll have more in a moment And we're back and Eric. I want to start by asking you How is the Trump administration responding to your reporting about these democratic efforts? They say they're also focused on election integrity and in fact They're saying that they're trying to do their real leg work here. Lauren Bisowite House spokeswoman She said to me quote every American should be asking why Democrats are fighting against the Save America Act That's the election overhaul bill which includes commonsense election integrity measures like voter ID that are strongly supported by the vast majority of Americans And quote, and that's true. These measures like voter ID are Supported by huge numbers of Americans. That's not the only thing that is in this Save America package as a whole I should say even support for the Save America Act isn't unanimous among Republican legislators It's had immense difficulty getting through the Senate and Senate Republican majority leader John Thunes That's something to the effect of sometimes it feels like I'm the only person in this town who can count to 50 But Bis also said quote this legislation will make sure Americans and Americans only decide our elections President Trump has been clear and he is absolutely right We fix this now or we lose our country. So the administration suggests to me that you know any discussion of a National election emergency declaration or troops at the polls are engaging in hypotheticals and they are hypotheticals But they're hypotheticals that have been brought up because people it close to the president including the president himself Have not disavowed some of these hypotheticals. I just want to say that well and and his on again off again advisor and Encourager. I don't think that's the right word. Maybe Steve Bannon Has certainly talked about a lot of these things on on his podcast absolutely and Frankly, we were all there in 2020 So the idea that it's so crazy to talk about ways that President Trump would interfere with the election process when election officials have seen him interfere with an elections process is is a little bit nonsensical, but I think it does paint a clear picture that when you know like many things in American politics when you're talking about the same topic It might be you know two sides of the same coin. So when you have Trump talking about election integrity He's talking about this myth of white spread illegal voting or voter fraud where ineligible folks are casting ballots and Republicans in Congress talk about that's why we need to pass the same America act and then when you have Democrats talk about election integrity They're speaking specifically about the president's documented attacks on the voting process You know, there's a key element to elections that we've talked a lot about on this podcast states run elections Not the federal government for all of the election officials across the country. How are they preparing? There's doing a lot of the things we talked about earlier in terms of like connecting with law enforcement is a big one Gaming out all of these different scenarios But I think one of the things that they're spending a lot of time on right now as voting is about to begin It's just educating voters because it is a really confusing year Potentially scary year frankly to be a voter when you think about even just the USPS back at force that we've talked so much about with Is this order blocked is it not blocked if you're just an average voter and you saw one headline a couple days ago You probably came away from it pretty confused about whether it was going to be okay to vote by mail this year, right? And so you think about all the different elements You know whether it's you know the potential for the federal government to be investigating voter rolls Whether it's this idea that Federal troops or the National Guard could show up at polling places. It's on the local officials to try to swage all these Voters especially in a midterm year, which has lower turnout than a presidential year anyway I was talking about all this recently with Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas who said that she gets stopped on the street all the time by voters Who are just scared grandmothers approach me concerned and I say what are you concerned about and they say I don't know I just feel afraid so Regardless of whether or not any of these things materialize It is taking a toll on voters. Do they feel do election officials feel confident saying Grandmother don't worry. I think they do do a certain extent I think the way they do it is that they pivot to the laws I think that's the thing is that the laws are on the books and that they say for instance with the federal troops showing up at the polls That is illegal and at this point the courts have held and so I think there's some aspect of this because they don't know exactly what's coming It does put them in a little bit of a difficult spot to be able to say this is exactly what the federal government's going to do over the next couple weeks And here's how we're prepared for it. They're saying we're game planning all these different scenarios We have the law on our side, but there's only so much that they can do when they don't know exactly what they're preparing for Eric, I want to ask about your reporting on Democrats because they are doing all of this work to try to head off disaster But they don't really have a lot of power They're not in charge of the house. They're not in charge of the Senate. They don't have the White House What can they actually do? I mean, they're saying that we've got loads. We Democratic lawmakers have loads of soft power that we can use to Mobilize the public to serve as the connective tissue between prominent election litigators pro-democracy groups resources That these local election administrators can take advantage of when they want to understand the law and what's within their rights And you know, they want to be that link I spoke to former Attorney General Eric Holder about this who's been advising the task force Congress can play an important role in organizing consciousness raising Being ready to fight that what's the Trump administration is going to do both legally And then tactically, so I mean make up that what you will It's not a magic protect democracy button hidden in the Senate cloakroom, but it is I think you know a real bully pulpit that they can take advantage of It's interesting because although it is this real bully pulpit that they can take advantage of it is not a campaign issue Based on my viewing of campaign ads that are running in races around the country, you know, the democracy message that was pretty prominent in 2024 Is pretty non-existent right now when it comes to democratic messaging to the broader electorate. It's Affordability issue one two and three folks affiliated with this task force including congressional staff have brought up to me They don't need to run on democracy protection as a specific issue to get people to go vote They just need people to go vote, right? That's what they see as the public responsibility and protecting democracy here is just go up show up cast your ballot Yeah, I mean protecting democracy it turns out was not a great mobilizing Issue it's an important message and you know, I'm sure plenty of people in the pro-democracy realms That I talked to were excited when they hear candidates talk about this thing, but uh, you know when you're having trouble Affording your child care like I can see why this might feel more abstract and I've heard from Democrats who will not say this publicly But are basically saying president trump is doing the work for us on this front in terms of if he wants to talk about the 2020 election and make voters feel like he's focused on an issue from six years ago That doesn't impact affordability then we'll let him and we will respond to those messages But we don't really need to be out in front of this if he's going to keep doing what he's doing Eric what you've reported on here is an effort by Democrats It would be vastly more powerful if it was a bipartisan effort to stand up for election integrity But it's not yeah We see limited measures of bipartisanship the House of Representative since the 1980s has had an election observer program where they send staffers from the house on a non-partisan basis To go and observe election locations and report back for congresses oversight duties and just in case you know Anything needs to be arbitrated. They're there as as witnesses But by and large like we talked about before election integrity means different things to the different parties and uh, it's worth remembering here that Leaders in congress including now speaker of the house mic johnson before he was speaker of that house objected to certifying the election. And that was not just before January 6th, but also after January 6th. Then he was a primary litigant in some of the cases that, you know, the president and his allies waged to try to remain in power despite losing the presidential election. I mean, the question is, right, does the calculus start to change for any of these elected Republicans over the next couple months and potentially years as Trump is a lame duck president? He is less popular than he has ever been before. And so I just, I guess that's going to be just something we're all going to be watching is whether, whether some of these Republicans begin to jump ship at some point if he continues to push some of the lies that he's pushed in the past. And I should just say, like, we could see more Republicans act down the line if things that are now hypothetical, like a national election emergency declaration or troops at the polls start to manifest. Like, I could very well imagine some Republicans, particularly in the Senate speaking out at that point, especially that growing group of Republicans, right, who have lost their primaries because Trump backed their primary opponents. I just wonder how like somebody like Bill Cassidy or John Cornyn is going to respond if some of those things occur, considering that they aren't really facing the same political blowback over the next couple months as other Republicans. Well, I believe Bill Cassidy got primaryed because he voted to impeach President Trump after January 6th. Right. So why wouldn't he? I mean, I don't know. I think exactly. I just think the incentives are in place for at least some of these Republicans to potentially start breaking more vocally. Vote by male ballots are going out in the next week or so. So this election is getting very close very soon. What are you watching for in terms of possible impacts on actual voting, on voters and how they're able to vote? I mean, I think litigation is the big one. The closer you start getting to the election and when things start happening, people just start filing lawsuits about every single thing during the early voting period on election day and then after the fact as campaigns and candidates have issue with how things run. So we're just going to be starting to watch lawsuits all over the country and how that impacts people. But broadly speaking, I just want to keep going back to this point. At this point, it looks like voting in 2026 is going to look a lot like 2024, which I think should harden people. And despite all of the doom and gloom we've talked about that, you know, the task force is preparing for basically to a person. Everyone I talk to feels confident both in their preparations and in the American democratic system as a whole that when people go and cast their votes, ultimately the results of those votes will be honored. Here's Vinita Gupta, she's a task force advisor. She was the number three in President Biden's Department of Justice and she's now at NYU Law School. Maybe the process of getting from here to a the new congress may be messier than any of us would like, perhaps filled with a lot more litigation and organizing than then we might have thought was necessary. But we are going to have free and fair elections so long as people don't take for granted their right to vote and actually cast their vote. So that's about the short and long of it. All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back and it's time for Can't Let It Go. That's the part of the pod where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop thinking about politics or otherwise Eric McDaniel. What can't you let go of? So I've known both of you for a very long time, but what you might not know about me outside of the office is I have virtually no natural inherent self-control. Any semblance of personal organization or impulse control I have developed has just come through the years of support of my parents and teachers and friends and spouse and co-workers all of those times. I've gone from kind of like feral animal impulse control to like badly behaved dog that you whisper about when you leave your friends out. I have no idea where this is going. Eric's about to tell us about like an overnight trip to Vegas. I have had to put immense restrictions on how I can use my phone over the years, right? Just social media blocks, time limits, all of those things because my ability to control that has is none, right? And I am proud today to declare total defeat and to announce that when Apple puts out their forecasted folding iPhone where you just open it up into an iPad, I will drop a full mortgage bill on it to just give up and dive in. You're just going to give up? Yeah, I'm going to give up. That's what I'm going to do. That's what you're announcing on the pod. This is my real exclusive today is I'm giving up on digital self-control and I'm just going to lean in. I really thought that you were coming here to talk about this magical device that I have that I can just tap and it turns off all of my social media. No, no, I've got that too. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't work. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you're right. I will say that mine has sort of uninstalled and who knows when I'm going to find the time to put it back. Yeah. I mean, I spent two hours watching baseball YouTube last night after I was disassociating like 8 p.m. So I'm not wanted to talk, but I'm never giving up there. I woke up this morning. I was like tomorrow, tomorrow's a new day. Maybe it'll only be an hour. I think you will when I bring in the phone. Oh, god. Oh, okay. I'm going to go next. The thing that I cannot let go of is a story first reported by ESPN. It has become a meme, but it started out with Washington commanders quarterback Jaden Daniels sending a cease and desist letter to LSU, the university that he attended, saying that they need to stop letting another player use his Jersey number number five. You know, he won the Heisman Trophy, wearing number five. He fully expects his Jersey to be retired someday. And his family has taken great insults at his number being used by another player. Wow. Here's a quote from a statement that the family put out. Jaden and his family had every reason to believe that his number would remain a meaningful part of his LSU legacy and would be honored and protected in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the university. The Daniels family is deeply disappointed and feels profoundly disrespected by LSU's decision to give Jaden's number to another player. So this is like pretty intense. And the internet and children and adults have all responded with hilarious jokes. Like, oh, well, in respect for Jaden Daniels, I guess we can't call it five guys anymore. We got to call it four guys. Five is completely off with it for all. In respect for Jaden Daniels, Maroon five is now just Maroon in respect for Jaden Daniels. I guess I'll only do four pushups. I mean, in some ways, I get it. I felt possessive over a lot of stuff, but a number feels like a step too far until they actually formally retire it. It's also just a classic example of like, this isn't going to get you what you want, right? Now, I mean, now LSU is definitely not going to retire the number after this, right? Or I mean, maybe I'm misreading the situation, but I feel like it's a classic. Like, I think you got to go with honey instead of vinegar here. Yeah. I mean, I think that this is a classic case of the Streisand effect where probably not a lot of people even realize this other kid had number five. That number means a lot to this other football player. He actually negotiated to have number five as part of his recruitment to LSU. Who knew people? I guess people are really superstitious about their numbers or they feel a great connection. Anyway, well, all the best to that kid. I hope he wins the Heisman too. Yes, but this is like the greatest combination of sports and dad jokes ever, right? Because they're just like endless jokes you can make. And I'm going to be thinking about it all week. I feel like every time I see the number five, I'm going to like giggle now. Thank you. All right, Miles, what can't you let go of? So what I can't let go of is, I mean, the, I'm in the questions phase for my toddler, which is like a very notorious phase from what I hear. Exactly. Exactly. Like the biggest one, what's his name? What's her name? Like she's just really big into names, you know? But she's also big into like, what's he doing? What's she doing? Like in all situations? And this came up this week when we were on a walk in the district of Columbia where I live. And we were at a park near my house. And she pointed at a national guard member and just said, what's he doing? And I was like, having the best summer of it's like, where are we going to? I was just like, it was like debating where to go with this and like, how do I explain? Do I want to try to explain the dynamic of like, we're not actually, we don't live in a state. Like, do we like the federal government has more power in this situation? How do I want to play this? And I just didn't answer. Literally pretended like I didn't hear. I like push this roller for three minutes. What's he doing? What's he doing? I was like, I, and I feel bad about it. I've been thinking about what the correct response was. It was definitely, it's never silence, I think, in that situation. You know what I would have done? Just hand her a phone. It also just made me think about the fact that I, I don't know why I hadn't thought about this, that like, she's going to grow up and be like, the national guard was just around when I was like playing at the playground. It's not a thing that I'd like, it's going to be kind of weird for her. In like 30 years. And it will be a real date peg. I volunteer as a high school mentor and when he finds out some of the historical events I was around for, he's like, oh, you're old. Oh, this is not a great feeling. Thanks, friend. Yeah. Anyway, next time, I'll have a better answer. I promise. The questions will not stop coming and they will only get hard. Right. That's a good thing. I'll get another chance, right? Oh, yes. All right. That's all for today. Before we go, a quick plug about a virtual event we're doing for our NPR+ supporters. It's a look at the midterms and the key races that could decide control of Congress. We will also do a live Q&A and give you a chance to ask us your midterm questions. I'll be there. Miles will be there. And Marlaison will be there. It's on Thursday, September 17th at 2 p.m. Eastern time 11 a.m. Pacific. It will be over Zoom for our plus supporters. Check out this weekend's politics bonus episode for details on how to register. And if you haven't joined plus yet, now is the time. Just go to plus.npr.org. Thanks in advance. Our executive producer is Muthani Maturi. Our producer is Bria Suggs. Casey Morelle edits the podcast. Special thanks to Dana Farrington, Jason Breslow, and Kelsey Snell. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics and football. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Eric McDaniel. I cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR+ podcast.