‘Desperate, but Dangerous": Legal Defense Fund President warns Trump may undermine midterms

Democratic lawmakers are warning voters today to be prepared, while Donald Trump may have said during his speech Thursday, his goal was, quote, not to weaken confidence in elections. That may be exactly what it does. I think that what we just saw was this was the opening shot, the opening shot of trying to undermine Americans' confidence that their vote will be actually counted and mean something. They're afraid that people might show up in violation of federal law with and be armed at polling places. They may not show up if they're afraid that the president might somehow illegally seize voting machines on election night, which would be, again, a violation of federal law. If they believe those things, they may not participate. Joining me now, Janaye Nelson, president and director counsel of the Legal Defense Fund. Welcome to the show. It's good to have you here, Janaye. So we have Donald Trump, who claims his efforts, which include rooting out foreign election meddling and stopping the already illegal practice of noncitizen voting. He says it'll make elections safer. Is that the goal, to help the U.S. hold freer and fairer elections? Absolutely not. What we heard on Thursday was, I don't know, about 25 minutes of a warmed over rant from a very desperate but very dangerous man who is already broadcasting what his aims are. He has said on multiple occasions that he wants to pass the SAVE Act, which he says would allow his political party to win elections for the next century. We know that this is the same man who called after he lost the election in 2021 to ask a state official, Brian Raffensperger, to find him 11,780 votes. We know this is the same man who claims that mail-in balloting and voting is somehow insecure, and yet he used it as recently as March of this year because he was on a golf course and couldn't make it to the polls. So we know that he is peddling falsehoods about voter fraud. He's suggesting that he wants to make the election safer and fairer. The best thing he could do toward that aim is to close his mouth and to allow the elections to proceed and to allow the security of our states, which has been proven time and again to root out anyone who's on the rolls who shouldn't be there, to just run its course as it has for many, many decades. He should be focused on the voter suppression efforts. He should be focused on voter intimidation. He should be focused on the real threats to keeping voters away from the polls. And that is the true way to undermine our elections. So this week, DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen threatened state election officials with prison time if they don't comply with the Trump administration's efforts to change election policies. The DOJ is in legal battles with dozens of states over their refusal to hand over sensitive voter data rolls. Is this maybe part of an effort by the administration to try to, what, cherry-pick voters that they want to show up in November? Absolutely. Trump has said many times, if people don't show up at the polls, if we actually shrink the electorate, then he and he believes his supporters are better off. But that's not the way democracy works. Democracy is ruled by the majority. We know that a majority of Americans do not support his policies. We know that he's tanking in every possible way. And this is just an effort to distract and to make people fearful and to have less faith in the integrity of our elections. Our elections are the only thing that are keeping us from complete dissent into authoritarianism and totalitarianism. We must have elections to have a confident process in which we can have confidence in our elected officials and that they actually represent our interests. There are already so many ways that our elections are compromised, by gerrymandering, by voter suppression laws, by intimidation. But to have the president of the United States peddle falsehoods to suggest that our elections aren't safe is is deeply concerning. And I think the American people can see right through it. That 25 minute speech really backfired. It made people much more aware of his consistent efforts to undermine our elections and to make people fearful of our democracy when our democracy is the only thing that's holding us. But it is wearing thin. What are the concerns among black and other marginalized voters following Trump's speech, particularly against the backdrop of the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year, which gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act? Well, there's real concern. You know, I had the privilege and honor of arguing that case, Louisiana versus Calais, in which the Supreme Court gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and left it a shredded shield. The Voting Rights Act is the birth certificate of our democracy. It has helped us evolve towards a high functioning, multiracial democracy over the past 60 years. So we are very concerned at the legal defense when we just issued a report called Democracy Defended, which lays out all the ways in which black voters in particular were disenfranchised in the last election. That's where our focus should be, bringing people into our democracy, into our electorate and not shutting them out. Cheney Nelson, I know you're not going to give up. I can just feel it. And well done. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time with us. Thank you.