Latest / Mic Drop Comedy / Stop The Steal_ Voter Fraud Conspiracies - Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy

Transcript

Stop The Steal_ Voter Fraud Conspiracies - Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy · Mic Drop Comedy

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: In the days after the 2020 presidential election, CIA Director
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Gina Haspel flies to Frankfurt, Germany on a secret mission
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: to secure computer servers that contain evidence that the election
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: has been manipulated. These servers, owned by a bankrupt Spanish
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: company called Skydell, could prove that the election was rigged
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: for Joe Biden. Haspel and a team of special forces
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: troops descend on Frankfurt to destroy the evidence. But in
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the raid, five troops and a CIA official are killed.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Haspel herself is injured, flown to Guantanamo Bay, and given
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: a tribunal for treason. In 2009, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: creates a voting system that could change votes in elections
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: in any country using this advanced technology. One of the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: technology companies that uses it is called Smartmatic, which supplies
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: voting equipment to a single U.S. county in the 2020 election.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: The scheme between Smartmatic and Hugo Chavez is a secret
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and successful effort to rig the election for Joe Biden,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: even though Chavez has been dead for seven years. Pescara, Italy.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: A rogue employee at the defense and aerospace company Leonardo
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Spa hacks into military satellites to change the margin of
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: victory in U.S. states where Trump has beaten Biden. It's
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: a variable coup d'etat, and it would go down as
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: the most extraordinary effort in history to overturn a presidential election. Oh,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: you know what? That one actually sounds pretty fun. Italian
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: military satellites? Mamma mia! These sound great! Oh, and for anyone,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: how could I not mention the Hungarian vector? There's been
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: so many bizarre stories going on through the media.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: You can have some pretty far-fetched ideas on both sides,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: and what we're doing is simply proving or disproving as
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: many of those as we can.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Speaking of somebody on the outside... This feels like it's
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: just feeding into conspiratorial thinking.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: We're mythbusters.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: Great.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Okay?
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: We're doing things we think are foolish, but people believe
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: it's real. If we validate that something they think might
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: have happened didn't happen, then we're not throwing fuel.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: On the fire.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Are you looking into the Hungarian vector? I didn't know
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: about that one.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: It's the Hungarian vector.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: It's a bullshit thing I just made up that sounds
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: cool and a little bit spooky. This is Jordan Klepper,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Fingers the Conspiracy, and yes, those 2020 election conspiracy theories
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: do sound a lot more exciting when we put public
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: domain suspenseful music underneath them. You may have heard a
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: few of those theories, partly because the White House and
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Republicans in Congress were publicizing them in the weeks after
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the election to convince Americans that the election was stolen.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: And it worked, to an extent. 61% of Republicans still
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: believe the election was stolen. According to a Monmouth University poll,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: from September of this very year. Today we're going to
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: talk to someone who has had the most legal success
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: against Trump's efforts in court to overturn the election. And
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: we're also going to talk to a Supreme Court expert
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: about the cases in front of the court now that
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: could determine how future elections here are conducted. But before
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: we get there, I really want to go back to
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the Italian military satellites. This is what became known as
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Italy Gate, and it's filled with more juicy content than
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: a piping hot calzone. And the craziest part of this
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theory is that Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: was emailing details of it to the Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: to try to get him to do something or anything
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: about it. I can't unpack ItalyGate alone, so let's introduce
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Eric LeVay. He's a digital research analyst at the Institute
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: for Strategic Dialogue and a former investigative journalist who wrote
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: extensively about the ItalyGate conspiracy theory, or as I like
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to call it, Lasagna Ghazi. There's going to be a
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: lot of these, Eric, so I hope you're ready. Thank
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: you for being here. Let's start at the very beginning
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: of this conspiracy theory, which comes from an organization called
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Nations in Action, a group apparently based in Sarasota, Florida,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: which published a press release titled Senior IT Expert at
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Global Defense Contractor Testifies in Italian Federal Court. He and
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: others switched votes throughout America in the U.S. presidential race.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Can you explain some of this for us?
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. So it emerged sort of in late 2020,
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: and it's still a little bit murky about where it
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: came from. The Washington Post did a really good article
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: on it, but it possibly had sort of origins in
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: an article in Italian media. And then an ex-CIA station
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: chief named Bradley Johnson put out a video saying, But
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: the ones who really pushed it forward, to answer your question,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: were Maria Zak from Nations in Action and a woman
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: named Michelle Roosevelt Edwards.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Let's start with, let's break down. Talk to me a
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: little bit about Maria Strollo Zak. You've talked to her, correct?
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: I talked to, I called her number and an identical
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: voice answered the phone who said it wasn't her. So, yeah.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Theoretically talked to somebody who may have been herself pretending
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: to be somebody else.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: That's why I'm reporting. That's why I hate phone calls.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: And I like emails. Yeah.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: So the era of Zoom works for you because you
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: see what that person looks like as opposed to distrusting.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: But who is this person? Who is Maria Strollozak?
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: So she's a conservative activist and an ex-Georgia lobbyist who
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: I guess was pretty successful. And I think she ran
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: for office a few times herself just on the local level.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Just at some point got very involved in this Italy
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: Gate conspiracy and pushed it very far.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: I feel like if you're in this world, you're talking
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: about Italian satellites, those things flip and you're probably a character.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Is she a character? I'm guessing.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: It's interesting because when I watched the videos, like she's
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: clearly like a very intelligent person. That's what's also like,
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: so there's a little bit of a, you know, you
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: have this conspiracy theory, obviously, which isn't, which is false,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: but then you have a person who's like, you know,
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: she's laying it out with confidence.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about Michelle Roosevelt Edwards.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: So she, um, runs another organization called the Institute of
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: Good Governance and and she sort of worked closely with
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Maria Zak on Italy Gate. So the Washington Post had
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: a big article that at some point an Icelandic film
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: crew went to interview Michelle Roosevelt Edwards. I don't know
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: what that was for. But in the house, I guess
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: there was... You remember that movie, The Game, where there
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: was something weird in the house, like in Michael Douglas,
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: and it's like, no, this isn't a real house? The
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: film crew was in there, and they're like, is this
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: your house? Cause it's something. And she's like, yeah, it's
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: my house. Anyway, it turns out that it wasn't her house.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: It was some other woman's mansion. And she's just a
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: realtor like in the area. And, uh, it's not her house.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: And the poor woman, her husband died. She didn't even know.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: She's like, why is this woman in my house?
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Um, that woman in the house at the time, she's like,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Oh dear Lord. Oh dear Lord.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: Who's this?
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Interviews in my living room.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: She was somewhere else or something, but it was like,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: I felt, I felt bad for her. No, it was like,
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: she was just using this house for like, uh, I
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: don't know, business.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: You're telling me this person will put up an entire
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: false front to show that she's more successful than she is.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: She's somehow connected to this whole Trump world. I don't
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: buy it. I don't buy it. It just doesn't, it
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't sit well with me.
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: It's, it's tough to believe that was like a, that was,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: it just, that killed me.
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: And I want, I want to dig into sort of
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: their roles within this, but this, this initial thought was
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: sort of revolving around an employee, Arturo Delia, correct?
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I was thinking about this last night. The hardest
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: thing about Italy Gate is, I mean, to state the obvious,
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: is like explaining it. The short version is Italian satellites
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: based in Pescara, Italy, altered the votes, giving Joe Biden
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: enough votes from Donald Trump to win. That's the short
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: version of Italy Gate.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Italian satellites, they're the bad guys.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: Well- There's a lot of players in this. The CIA,
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: former President Barack Obama, the hacker that you just referenced,
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: and a lawyer who put out an affidavit. There's like
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: those four.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Those are the four. And so the hacker, he worked
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: for something called Leonardo's Spa?
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he worked there. They said he left in 2017,
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: which is another problem because when he was indicted for
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: a separate, I think it was like data theft, he
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: didn't even work at Leonardo's.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: What is Leonardo's Spa? I mean, it sounds like a
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: massage parlor and like a cheap one just outside Rome
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: that like you splurge because you're on vacation, but you
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: don't have enough money. So you're sort of like, what's
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: a cheaper one? Like come to Leonardo's Spa. It's right
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: next to Michelangelo Nails.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: That was a very specific.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: This is a hypothetical. I've not had that experience. I
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: imagine if you're poor and in Italy and just had
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: had a hard time on a long plane because those seats,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: there's not a lot of space and you're a tall person. hypothetically,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: you're going to be looking for a Leonardo spa. This
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: is not that kind of spa.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: Exactly. No, it's a, uh, a somewhat more boring, uh, military,
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: you know, like a military, they make military equipment and satellites, uh,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: stuff like that. Like a, like a Boeing.
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: So a Boeing, this is this Arturo Delia. Does he
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: actually work for Leonardo spa?
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: Uh, my understanding is at some point he did work there,
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: but he was gone by 2017.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: And is there any information that says that he had
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: access to these Italian satellites in a way that could
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: alter an election?
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Zero. No.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Zero.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: Okay. Okay.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: But so walk us through this. So the head of
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Nations in Action, this group, it's a person named Maria Strollo-Zach,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: who you've spoken with in your reporting. What's she like?
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Well, and to be clear, I was telling your producer,
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: that was a funny story, because when I called Maria
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Zach for comment, obviously being a phone, I can't I
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: don't know for a fact, I can say that the
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: person who answered sounded exactly like her, uh, but told me, uh,
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: very quickly it was not her. Um, and actually said
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: it was her secretary. And could she, the phrase was,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: could she return? And I was, I was telling Matt,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: I was like, it's, this is a cell phone. But anyway,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: I was like, you know, sure. Of course.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Wait, so did you, did that person then pretend to
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: hang up, put on a gruff voice and then attempt
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: to then answer the phone?
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Uh, it was the same voice, but they were just like, uh,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: you know, can she return? And I was like, you know,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: when you're a reporter, things like that happen. So yeah, sure,
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: of course, no comment.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Just to be weird, if you're also like a public
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: figure and somebody calls you and you pretend to be
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: your own assistant just because you think it gives you status,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: that doesn't make you weird. That's just a savvy media
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: person thing to do. And if my parents or my
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: friends think that's a desperate attempt or that I'm not
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: in a good place, well, that's more on them. Can
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: you verify that?
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what jumped out at me, I'll always remember, but
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: that was how quick it was. It was very, I mean,
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: you know, you're a comedian, you're an improviser. It was
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: real quick. There was no pause. Like that had happened before, maybe. That's,
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's an interesting way of looking at it,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: as opposed to just somebody who's quick on the go.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: All right, so you had a quick interaction with this
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Maria Strollozak. But again, so what is her understanding of
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: this story? So she is head of, Nations in Action.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: What is Nations in Action?
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: If you go on their webpage, there's a lot of
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: sort of conspiracy theories. And I think they say that
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: their statement is, you know, good government, bringing transparency. Obviously,
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: whether that's true is up to.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: To be determined. And so, but she was able to
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: get this conspiracy and this idea in front of important people.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Can you walk us through some of that?
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So she used to be a lobbyist in Georgia.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: So she's got like, close relationships with, as I reported on,
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Congressman Barry Loudermilk.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: One of the top five names in all of Congress.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: If you were going to articulate what it feels like
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: to hear a Southern Republican droll on, Loudermilk feels right.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: It feels obnoxious and white, which is kind of spot on.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's an interesting guy. He and his staff, I
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: think were getting pretty tired of my emails after a while.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: They didn't ever respond to me, but then they added
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: me to their mailing list.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: That's how you shut somebody up, is just give them spam.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: She got it to him. She got it to Devin
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Nunes' staff. You know what I was thinking about last night?
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: The ordinary person has so much trouble reaching their elected officials,
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: and yet this person pushing a complete, uh, you know,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: a conspiracy theory that's not true is able to reach
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: very high up people.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: She claimed she gave documents to Loudermilk. Do we know
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: what was in those documents? Yeah.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Uh, I don't know. Did you, I know you guys
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: are probably always working. Did you get a chance to
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: see the affidavit that this was all based around?
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: No.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Tell us, tell us about it.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: So the whole thing is that she delivered an affidavit. Um,
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: basically what it is, is it's a photograph of an
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: actual document, which right away is a little, you know, Unusual.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: It's not the document. It's a lawyer stating that this
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: hacker that you mentioned in the beginning sat in front
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: of him and told his story. That's what it is.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: No one's been able, there is a lawyer that matches
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: this name, but no one's been able to actually show that, like,
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: really that he, that it was that lawyer. So it's
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: not clear if this thing is even real.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: You can't even verify that that conversation took place.
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: No.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: And the document, you know, I can't say I'm an
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: expert on court documents in Italy, but there's no numbers
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: on it. Like, it's just it looks like someone like
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: wrote it on Microsoft Word.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: And she's also Maria Zak was doing an interview about
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: an Italy gate from the back of a car in Washington, D.C.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: on January 6th. What's going on there?
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: This happened.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: It's very real.
• 13:57
  Speaker 6: The president is right. Foreign interference did occur.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: And people need to be prosecuted in our country who
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: actually participated.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: That was the show called America Can We Talk? And
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: that's a very strange interview, just because, as you said,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: it's taking place while our capital is being attacked, but
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: there's no mention of it till the end. They're like,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: I think Maria is actually something like, well, if they're
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: able to get this under control, we can get this
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: affidavit to more people. It's like, whoa, like, you know,
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: it's very strange.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of interesting red flags and characters
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: within this. But after all these conversations, meetings, talking to
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Congressman Loudermilk, how high did this go? Like who in
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: government was actually taking this theory seriously?
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: That's a great question. Seriously, I mean, in terms of,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: as you said yourself, Meadows, I guess, would be the
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: highest ranking person to get it. But taking it seriously...
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: You know, a lot of work with conspiracy theorists, you
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: wonder who's an opportunist, who's not.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it's an interesting question. You say, like,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: taking it seriously, we don't exactly know what people actually thought.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: But I would argue that part of the whole game
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: plan here was to sow doubt. So the fact that
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: there were different threads for people to hold on to,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to grasp, clearly Donald Trump is somebody who is just
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: flooding the marketplace with any thought out there so that
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: it's getting in people's heads. Like, who had awareness of it?
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: We're talking Meadows. Meadows knew about this, which means Trump
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: had awareness of this. How did this thing get into
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: more mainstream culture?
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And Zach, too. She says she delivered or she
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: told Trump about this at Mar-a-Lago in 2020. I can't
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: confirm that, but she said that a number of times.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: So I guess to answer your question, if that's true,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: then that reached Donald Trump. Okay.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Now, when all this is happening, is it fair to
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: say that we didn't know how much of the voter
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: fraud conspiracy theory would stick? These stories were so outlandish
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that it didn't seem possible that millions of people would
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: believe them. And yet, even today, the majority of Republicans
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: say they don't think the 2020 election was legitimate. Does
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: that encourage Republican lawmakers to push more conspiracy theories, knowing
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: there probably won't be consequences, and that doing so probably
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: will at least help them in some way?
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Consequences are... like obviously incredibly important, like when there are
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: no consequences, we're given a wide latitude to speak and
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: that's a good thing. But as you know, some of
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: these conspiracies are incredibly harmful. So I don't know, in
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: cases like, I don't know, let's say in Alex Jones,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: when people are actually held accountable, makes a huge difference.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: Some of them stop tomorrow and you never hear from
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: them again.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: What do you think it was about Italy Gate that
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: made it so sticky and interesting to people?
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: So there's a conference call. I think it was on
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: January 4th, 2021. It's between Maria Zak and supporters. Uh,
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: so it's right before the attack on the Capitol. It's
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: like 45 minutes long and it's just, she lays out
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Italy gate. And then it's weird. Like all these random
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: people are popping in. Like, like I said, like Marla
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: Maples pops in and just like, it's just, she's the only,
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: everyone else is just a first name. So you don't
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: even know really who they are. What's Marla Maples doing there? I,
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Like, uh, A supporter, I guess. Very strange.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: And all of this was sort of to just hip
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: everybody to the Italy gate theory so that they had
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: it in their back pocket.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't want to say that she comes
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: right in, but there's some hints of to continue this work. I,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: we will need funding. Like a private plane is talked
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: about at one point.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: So she's, She's asking for a private plane. I don't know.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: It might have been one of the other people, but
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: there's definitely more than one hint there about like, we need,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: you know, money.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: This sounds like a timeshare situation. She gets everybody on
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: a conference call. Let me tell you about this fascinating
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Italy situation. If you give me your attention and enough
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: money for a private plane, I have something that is
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: going to take your breath away. In pops Marla Maples,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: who's like, ooh, tell me more. It's like, Thanks, Marla.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Marla has been on this for quite some time. Her
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: and her family are big Italy Gates supporters, and you
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: too could be an Italy Gates supporter for just a
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: mere $ 2, 000. We can give you the correct mindset to
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: keep you happy from this day forward.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: The last seven years kind of feel like a time shared.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Do you ever feel like that, like you're just trapped?
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, I do feel like I've given over a portion
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: of my life to live in a different reality. every
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: year and you look at it you're like i think
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: this is a bad investment i think the time share
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: is giving in to all of this bullshit that we're
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: talking about it just it sucks away so much time
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: that i could be using for something else it's not
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: a time share maybe that's maybe what we're describing is
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: a time suck we've all invested in a time suck
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: that we will never get back we can all agree
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: is a really bad investment.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: It's wild i mean this is the conspiracy theory that
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: like i think i was telling your producer like even
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: other conspiracy theorists are like like like That's how far
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: this one is out there.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Where does this Italy Gate conspiracy rank in terms of
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: all the conspiracies related to the 2020 election?
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: I would say in terms of the ones that are
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: the wildest, this has to be at the top. I
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: can't think of... I know you guys have been doing
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: this for a while on your podcast. If there's another one,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: I can't think of one.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: You got Hugo Chavez. Dead Hugo Chavez is a fun one.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: It definitely takes... a stretch of imagination, but there's intrigue,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: there's sexiness to this. I'd have to put it up
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: there as well.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: It's also like the little details that kill me, like
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: the dad. it wasn't enough that it was the Italian satellites.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: They routed it through Germany. It's like, why? That's what
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: I don't understand. But it's just fascinating.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: There's somebody on the ground or in the air in
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Germany that was getting this information or working through the
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: satellites through Germany?
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're saying like at some point, they never got
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: into the sort of like how the stuff was transmitted,
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: but it was from the satellites and went through I
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: think some servers in Germany and then I guess back
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: to the U.S.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: So theoretically, if this were real, not only are there
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: folks in Italy who are culpable, but there are folks
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: in Germany as well, which is what always kind of
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: blows my mind with a lot of these conspiracy theories
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: because they hype The idea behind it involves so many
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: people that even afterwards you'd expect one thing we're really
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: bad at is keeping secrets, especially if it's a multinational
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: effort to overturn results in very specific states.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: And then it just disappears into the void, which is
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: sort of, I think people should consider a major, I
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: don't know if red flag is the right word, but
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: if you believe so strongly in something, you believe it's happened,
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: and then 30 seconds later when it's gone, you're just
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: on to the next thing It kind of questions credibility.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: I think we lost that a long time ago. Well,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Eric LeVay, thank you for unfolding this conspiracy theory like
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: carefully kneading a perfect pizza pie.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a short break. When we come back,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk to Pennsylvania Attorney General and Governor-elect
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Josh Shapiro. We'll be right back. In the days after
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the 2020 election, Pennsylvania became the focus of Republican efforts
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: to overturn the results. They ramped up their attacks on
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: the legitimacy of mail-in ballots and claimed that ballots would
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: arrive after Election Day and be mixed with ballots that
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: arrived before Election Day. Anticipating a possible Supreme Court showdown,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro began separating those post-Election Day
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: ballots and became a high-profile example of a Democrat fighting
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: back against the voter fraud conspiracy theater. And As the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Trump team became litigious before and after Election Day, Shapiro
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: beat Trump more than 40 times in court. In last
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: month's midterm, Shapiro won the race for governor of Pennsylvania,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: defeating one of the country's most prominent voter fraud conspiracy theorists,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Doug Mastriano. And Josh Shapiro is with us today to
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: talk about the exciting world of voter fraud. Welcome to
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: the show.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: Good to be with you, Jordan. Thanks for having me.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Of course. And we were debating. a current governor elect,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: soon to be Governor Josh Shapiro. That's most of it, right?
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And look, I only require our four children to
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: use all of the titles when they address me. You
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: can call me whatever you want. Well, not whatever you want,
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: but you can call me one of those titles.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, do you also throw in
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the beat Trump 40 times in court moniker or There's
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: probably a lot of people who also have that in
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: their name as well. The guy's been to court many,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: many times.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: I don't know about that, but listen, we went to
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: court 43 times against the former president and his enablers,
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: and we beat him every time. We protected the right
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: to vote. We had a free and fair, safe and
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: secure election here in Pennsylvania back in 2020, again in 2021,
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: and most recently in 2022. The will of the people
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: was respected each time.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: When you've been at the center of these claims over
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: voter fraud, For over two years now, even though you
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: did win the race for governor, it appears as if
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the state is moving forward. Does it still alarm you
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: how many voters, obviously many of them Republican, appear to
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: have bought into these conspiracy theories?
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: It does. But Jordan, I don't blame the voters. And
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: hear me on this. I blame the leaders who've been
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: lying to them for the better part of the last
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: two and a half years about voting by mail about
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: this phony election fraud. When you have leaders who you trust,
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: who you put into positions of authority, and then they
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: lie to you over and over and over again, it's
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: hard to blame the public. I blame the leaders. And
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: the good news is we're defeating those leaders who push
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: the big lie, from the former president to his chief
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: enabler here in Pennsylvania, who I just beat in the
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: governor's race. And hopefully now what we can do is
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: continue to speak truth to the good people of Pennsylvania,
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: to the American people and help them understand reality from
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: the fiction that the former president pushed and get us
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: back to having a healthier democracy.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Well, I went to one of the rallies your opponent
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: held right there at the state Capitol and talked to
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: some of the tens of people who showed up.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: I think about 12 people showed up that day.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: And after a minimal amount of fanfare, Mastriano appeared, and
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: he was frickin' hilarious.
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: Going after the pillow guy?
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Are you serious?
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: Give me a break. Scotty, beam me up. No sign
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: of intelligent life anywhere.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: Boom.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: But even with the coveted Trump endorsement, the crowd was tiny.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Was it small because of Mastriano's far-right policies and election denialism?
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Nope.
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: This is Facebook.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Um, suppressing conservative speech.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: The reason there aren't people here because Facebook is silencing
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: these silencing.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: It was a low turnout. I felt like it, it
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: seemed as if you had a good shot of winning
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: that race. I want to talk a little bit about
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Mastriano though, cause he, uh, may have spread more election
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: related conspiracy theories than any other, uh, candidates. Let's go
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: through a couple of these. He was claiming that voting
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: machines glitched in Michigan and switched 6,000 Biden votes who
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: were also responsible for 100,000 vote dumps that were all
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: for Biden in the middle of the night. Sharing a
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Gateway Pundit post of suspected fraud issues that included a
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: way for people to search for dead people who voted
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: using something called the Social Security Death Master File. Pretty catchy.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: He was claiming Dominion voting machines were built intentionally to
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: rig the election for Democrats and claiming that Act 77,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: a Pennsylvania law that allows no excuse voting by mail,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: was illegally passed and was responsible for Biden's win. Can
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: you walk us through some of these and tell us
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: how you push back against them?
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: Well, by calling them what they were, complete and utter bullshit.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: That's what they were. He was lying to the good
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: people of Pennsylvania. and his conduct to try to overthrow
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: the last election. Remember, he was part of the violent
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: mob that stormed up to the Capitol on January 6th.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: And he went there that day, and this is real important, Jordan.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: He went there that day, not just to hear a
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: speech from the former president or be part of some
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: peaceful protest. He went there that day with a singular purpose.
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: That's why they were all there. And that was to
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: deny people's votes from counting. Because remember, when you vote
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: here in Pennsylvania, it's true in other states, but let
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: me focus on Pennsylvania. You vote for the presidential race
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: in Pennsylvania in 2020. Your vote gets tallied by your
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: local county board of elections, gets certified by the governor
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: and the secretary of state in Pennsylvania. But then in
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: order for your vote to finally count, it has to
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: be read across the desk in the U.S. House of Representatives.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: That's what they were there to do on January 6th.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: And he was there as part of the violent mob
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: to stop them from doing. Then he comes back home
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: to Pennsylvania, launches a campaign for governor and Jordan, he
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: says in his campaign that he was gonna use his
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: power as governor to be able to review all the
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: voting machines, make corrections as he calls them, and then
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: he would pick the winner. That's not how our democracy works.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: That is not how our republic has survived over the
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: last 246 years. And so it was important for us
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: to beat him, to just obviously win the election, but
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: also to protect our democracy, to protect the will of
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: the people, and to make it clear to folks that
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: spewing conspiracy theories, being part of a violent mob, pledging
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: to overturn the next election is not the way things
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: work in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or in this country.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I was surprised many of the people I talked
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: to that day were also there at January 6th. It
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: was almost a mini reunion.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: You have been aggressive at pushing back and made headlines
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: for that. Do you think that your victory is a
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: sign that voters are energized by candidates who push back
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: aggressively against election deniers?
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: You got to fight back against it. And look, we've
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: done it in big ways and small. I mean, I've
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: been to the hunt clubs in rural communities in Pennsylvania
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: and confronted folks directly. And they'll say to me, or
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: they were saying to me, you know, the election 2020
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: was stolen. So I said, what evidence do you have
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: of that? Let's just have a conversation. Well, there was
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: massive voter fraud. And I say, you know, I'm the
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: attorney general. It's my job to prosecute election fraud, along
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: with some district attorneys as well. And we had about
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: a handful of cases of election fraud in 2020, by
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: the way, where each of those individuals who were prosecuted
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: were trying to cast one extra single vote for their
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: candidate for president, by the way, for Donald Trump, not
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: for Joe Biden. But even if they were trying to
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: do that for Joe Biden, it wasn't going to affect
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: the outcome of the election. It was not this widespread
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: voter fraud, and they were prosecuted for it. And so
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: I confront folks with truth and try to force them
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: to think about the reality of what they are saying.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: In addition to that, It was critically important for us
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: here in Pennsylvania, in Arizona, in Michigan, and other places
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: to defeat those people who continue to spread the lies. Now,
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: I said on election night when I won, Jordan, that
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: this is the beginning of our work. Just because we
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: beat these election deniers doesn't mean that it's rid from
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: our system. We have to now do the hard work
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: that folks have been doing for the last 246 years
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: in this nation, right? Our ancestors and their ancestors to
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: perfect our union, to speak truth, to make sure that
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: the will of the people is respected. So I think
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: we've done step one, defeating those extremists, but now we
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: got to do the hard work of perfecting our union.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: And that task now falls to me as the next
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: governor of Pennsylvania.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: How complete do you think step one truly is? Because
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: I do, looking at those The major election deniers, the
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: races in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, here's swing states where the
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: people in control of verifying those ballots could have very
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: well gone to election deniers. Those big places, they were defeated.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: But there's still a lot of people who are election
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: deniers who are in position of power in America. A
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: lot of very close races where perhaps election deniers were defeated,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: but it didn't When I looked at this, I didn't
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: exactly see the idea of election denialism expunging from the
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: American narrative, but perhaps stepping back for a little bit.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Is there a fear that Democrats are a little too
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: confident in the pushback of election denialism after this election?
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Well, let me say, I'm not confident that it's over
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: at all. So don't, you know, certainly don't put me
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: in that category. I'm in the category where we had
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: a good day on Tuesday, November 8th in defeating those extremists,
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: those election deniers. but we have so much more work
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: to do. Now, I believe that these election deniers are,
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: Mastriano in particular, just profoundly and pathetically weak people. And
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: let me explain what I mean by that. They know
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: it's bullshit, but yet they say it over and over
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: again because they're willing to sell out our democracy and
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: our country for some short-term political gain, for some short-term attention,
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: maybe some love from the former president. That's why they
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: do it. That's the definition of weak. If you're willing
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: to sell out your nation and our values on behalf
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: of your own short-term goals. Well, now we've denied many
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: of them that short-term goal. And hopefully in defeating them
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: the way we have, it forces that next batch of
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: candidates to go along and say, geez, is that really
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: the path I want to take to be successful? It
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: doesn't make them any stronger. It just speaks to how, again,
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: how kind of spineless so many of these folks are
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: and letting them know they're not going to be rewarded
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: for the lie. And so I think hopefully this will
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: have an effect on the politics as we go forward.
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: We also need to work on ridding our system of
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: these weak folks and getting some people with backbones back
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: in it. And by the way, Jordan, even folks who
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: might disagree with me on some policy, that's okay. But
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: we got to get back to the point where we
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: have strong, capable people in positions of public trust who
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: argue about tax policy and health care policy and education policy,
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: all the things that we should be arguing about, the
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: healthy fights we're supposed to have. But we've got to
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: continue the battle against these weak people in defeating them
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: in their elections and defeating them in their political aims.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Did you have any Democrats from other states reach out
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: to you to ask advice on confronting this election denialism?
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: A lot of them, folks running for governor and other offices. And,
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: you know, I spoke, obviously I'll keep those conversations private,
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: but I did speak to them about the need to
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: take the fight on directly, to not give an inch
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: on this. You know, when they say that something was stolen,
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: challenge them on it. Put the facts out there. Make
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: sure that you're going directly to the good people, in
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: my case of Pennsylvania, with the facts. Do not let
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: any of that nonsense stand.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, looking forward, where we are right now, Trump is
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: running again. Elon Musk is greenlighting misinformation all over Twitter.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: We know that voter fraud conspiracies are going to get
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: worse in 2024. What are tangible steps the Democratic Party
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: can take to fight and to push back, knowing the
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: world they're in right now?
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: You know, try to meet people where they are. That's
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: why I'm talking to you today. I mean, you've been
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: out front on the importance of combating election denialism. You
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: have exposed a lot of these folks and the lies
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: they tell by mocking them and showing not the humor
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: in it, because obviously this is incredibly serious, but showing
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: people this in a way that they can comprehend it
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: if they don't read the front page of the Wall
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: Street Journal, the New York Times. Not to say that
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: your listeners don't read the New York Times, but the
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: point is- They at least.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Read the headlines. They're good at reading the headlines.
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: But you got to meet people where they are. You
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: got to communicate to them. You got to show them
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: the difference between fiction and reality. And then I have
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: responsibility now as a governor to hold myself up to
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: that high standard and to continue to speak truth and
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: continue to communicate, meet people where they are, whether we're
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: talking to them on TikTok, on your podcast, anywhere, we've
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: got to meet people where they are and continue to
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: share the truth.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: You say you went to hunt clubs, you went to
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: places where people had questions about the election. I get
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the question all the time. Do you ever change people's minds? boy,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: that's a unicorn. I can't say I'm watching people change
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: their minds about information. When you're at those places, being
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: confronted with outside facts is often met with resistance and
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a doubling down of the things they think they believe.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: They feel challenged in a way that I have not
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: found conducive to reaching a new understanding. Did you actually
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: see that in those moments, in those hunt clubs with
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: people who were confronting you and you're pushing back?
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: Sometimes I did directly. But what I was really going
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: after was not to embarrass anyone in front of their
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: peers or force someone to have to look at me
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: in front of their peers and say, you're right, I'm wrong.
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: What I've thought for the last year is incorrect. What
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: I really wanted was when they left there to be
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: thinking about it and to process it and to maybe
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: make a change in their thinking or their politics or
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: the way they might vote and Jordan, I got some
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: pretty good evidence that we made a whole lot of
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: people think, because I won this governor's race by a
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: big margin. I think we won by about 15 points,
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: but I got more votes than anyone in the history
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: of Pennsylvania running for governor. And the reason I'm telling
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: you that is not to pat myself on the back,
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: but because it would be impossible to win with the
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: number of votes we did and the margin we did
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: with only Democrats. We got a whole lot of Republicans
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: and independents who crossed party lines to support us. A
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: whole lot of people who clearly rethought their politics. after
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: 2016 and even 2020, and said, you know what, we're
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: going to go with this guy, we're going to go
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: against the election denier, we're going to believe this truth,
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: and hopefully we're going to all be able to continue
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: to come together to repair our politics.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Well, after such a clear, humble brag such as that, it.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: I thought it was... Chill about that.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: You did a pretty good job. You're a savvy politician.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Even the bragging does come across somehow as humble and informative.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: That's well played. Well, your high profile and your success
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: here has upped some of the speculation where people have
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: seen you in the light of somebody who could be
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: a Democratic nominee for president. Do you want to use
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy podcast as a platform
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: to that you confirm loving hearing that speculation?
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No, man, look, I'm just so excited to be governor.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: I haven't even been sworn in yet. I got a
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: lot of work to do. That's all I want to do.
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: That's all my wife and kids want me to do.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: And that's all I am going to do. Awesome.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Well, well, thank you for talking to me, Governor-elect Josh Shapiro.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back. We're back and we're talking election fraud.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: It's obviously something I hear over and over on the
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: campaign trail, but unlike some of the other conspiracy theories
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: we've covered on this podcast, this one has some serious
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: implications on the future of our democracy. This month, the
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case called Moore
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: versus Harper, and it could fundamentally change how elections are conducted.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: To break this down with me, I have Supreme Court expert,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: author of Lady Justice, Women, the Law, and the Battle
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: to Save America, and host of the Slate podcast, amicus,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Dahlia Lithwick. Welcome to the podcast.
• 38:27
  Speaker 6: Hi, Jordan.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Dahlia, I have to call out the fact, and you're
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: well aware, that you are wearing not one, but two
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: headphones today. Is there a conspiracy in this? Do you
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: want me to do a secondary podcast on your hyper attention,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: or are you just a super big Jordan Klepper Fingers
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: of Conspiracy fan?
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: Uh, I mean, I can repurpose the joke I made
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: the first time you teased me where I said that
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: if Rudy Giuliani can wear two watches, I can wear
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: two headphones. But I, you know, I'm a belt and
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: suspenders guy.
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: I went to law school and we learned to be very, very,
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: very compulsive. So that's my story. I'm sticking to it.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: You're a belt and suspenders guy. What does that mean?
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: That means it's it's it's is that. An overabundance of
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: caution or fear that your pants could at any moment fall?
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: This is what we do on this podcast. We really
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: get into the nitty gritty, but is this a move
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: out of fear, respect?
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: True story.
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: I heard the expression at one point very early on.
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: in my career covering oral arguments at the court. And
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: I was like, what the hell does this mean? And
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: all these lawyers were like, it just means being careful, idiot.
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: So I think not to suggest that you're not knowing
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: this term implies anything, but it was, I learned the
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: hard way that apparently everyone but me knew that belt
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: and suspenders is just kind.
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: Of shorthand for lawyerly over-cautiousness, maybe? But also fear that
• 39:58
  Speaker 6: your pants will fall down.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, it's interesting. It's all about spin.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: It's either caution or it's fear. But I see how
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: the attorneys do it. It's a turducken of sound, and
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you taking that shirt and suspenders action to
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: listen to this. I want to talk about, you know,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: the potential... collapse of democracy. It's a hobby of mine,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: and I want to discuss this Moore v. Harper. Can
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: we talk about that case itself and what that might
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: mean for elections?
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: It's hard to say this crisply, Jordan, but it's both
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: the most serious and least serious case of my career.
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: It's serious because the implications are vast, which we're going
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: to talk about. It's also rooted in so much nothing
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: that it's almost painful. Like when they call it the
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: independent state legislature doctrine or the independent state legislature theory,
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: almost everybody puts doctrine and theory in.
• 41:03
  Speaker 6: Air quotes because there's no there there.
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: It's not something that is rooted in constitutional history. It's
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: not something that's rooted in tradition. It's something that was
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: almost entirely plucked from a chunk of a Rehnquist opinion
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: in Bush v. Gore that only got three votes. It's
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: not a majority opinion where he was kind of spitballing.
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: You may recall Bush v. Gore, also not a serious decision.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: So this is like a Rehnquist fever dream that we're
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: in the midst of right now.
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: It's a weird dream.
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: Rehnquist fever dream where he's sort of spitballing, hey, maybe
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: state legislatures have kind of plenary unreviewable power and state
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: courts can't come in and bigfoot on them.
• 41:47
  Speaker 6: It gets two votes. That should be the end of
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: the story.
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: But instead, it's being lifted up as this important piece
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: of doctrine. And not to get too in the weeds,
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: but the reason it's serious is is because if the
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: claim in this case, and this case comes from a
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: North Carolina gerrymander, the North Carolina Supreme Court says, oh,
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: hell no, do your maps again. And the North Carolina
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: Republican legislature takes this to the Supreme Court and says,
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: we're here proffering this completely asinine, rootless theory that when
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: a legislature does election stuff, no court can review it.
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: End of story.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Is that it? That's where we are. In a nutshell,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: if you were to explain it to our audience or
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: even our host, pretend there's somebody who read the headline
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: of a Vox article but maybe didn't get all the
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: way through because they're busy. Is that basically it? It's
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: something that's looking at the power of state legislatures over
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: federal elections and questioning whether or not they have ultimate power.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Is that ballpark?
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: There's– Ish, but there's one clarification. There's one section of
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: this that has to do with the electors clause in
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: the Constitution. That's the federal elections. There's one that is.
• 43:02
  Speaker 6: The elections clause. That has to do with state elections.
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: So this particular case actually doesn't implicate some of the
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: stuff we talked about, Brad Raffensperger and state electors and
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: sending over fake state electors. This is not scooping up that.
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: This is about state processes. But it does mean that
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: if a red state, and let's remember, 30 of the
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: 50 states have red state legislatures. If they decide they
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: want to make up new rules about ballot initiatives, they
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: want to do new vote suppression, they want to close
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: polling plate, whatever they want to do, they are saying
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: nobody can take this to a state Supreme Court, not
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: even a federal court, a state Supreme Court and complain
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: because basically nobody is the boss of me. So this
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: particular one is about how state.
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: Election procedures are handled.
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: But one tiny wrinkle there, Jordan, that's worth saying, one
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: consequence of that is that if they win on that claim,
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: you're going to have on the same ballot that used
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: to have state and federal elections complete chaos because one
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: set of them can't be reviewed and one presumably can.
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: So one of the things that this is going to
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: inject into the system is totally different lanes for state.
• 44:18
  Speaker 6: And federal office. OK, so you're looking perplexed. I'm worried
• 44:21
  Speaker 6: that I.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Mean, it sounds it sounds like there maybe should be
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: a check or a balance in there that the state
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: legislature shouldn't be able to be the final say. Where
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: do the justices stand on this? Like, what is the
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: actual likelihood that state legislatures will gain control of federal
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: election procedures?
• 44:41
  Speaker 6: I mean, here's the tricky part.
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: We already have four justices on the current Supreme Court
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: who've evinced real enthusiasm.
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: For this theory.
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: So we have Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas that are
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: kind of like pedal to the metal.
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: This is cool.
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: And in some of the pre-2020 election cases, we saw
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: them sort of effusing about how cool this was. And
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: then we have a fourth, Justice Kavanaugh, who's done some
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: like chin stroking-y, like, oh, this is kind of, I
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: think this is pretty compelling, but isn't necessarily all in.
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: Let's remember it takes four votes to grant a case.
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: So that might be it.
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: We don't know where Amy Coney Barrett sits on this.
• 45:23
  Speaker 6: We do know that Chief.
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: Justice John Roberts is, doesn't think this is necessarily a
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: fantastic idea. We also know he's irrelevant. So there might
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: be five votes already going in who think this is cool.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: It's probably coming down to Amy Coney Barrett who's going
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: to decide this case. That's your best guess right now.
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: My guess is that John Roberts thinks this is too extreme,
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: and he's written lots of prior cases, famously an Arizona case,
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: where he has said time and time again, no, no, no, no,
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: we're not taking states. judges' powers away over state legislatures.
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: So I think he's pretty much going to adhere to some.
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: Version of that. This is wackadoo, right? Have we made
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: that point enough? This is insane.
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: And John Roberts says many things. Insane he is not.
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: So yes, I think it comes down to what Justice
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: Barrett thinks, and we have no idea on this doctrine
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: what she thinks.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Well, this issue has popped up over the last hundred years.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court has batted it down over and over again.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: Why is it cropping back up now?
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: It's cropping back up.
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: As part of this kind of larger, larger, and I
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: think this goes to your sort of vote suppression frame.
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: What do you do when you can't win majorities anymore
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: in America, right? What you do is you capture state
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: houses and then you gerrymander the heck out of your
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: state voting systems to make sure that tiny minorities stay
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: in charge.
• 46:52
  Speaker 6: And so I think this.
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: Is of a piece with a whole subset of things,
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: whether it's voter suppression bills, like, you know, the stuff
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: that Stacey Abrams has been fighting, or whether it is ridiculous,
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: you know, malapportionment that means that, you know, the Alabama
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: case that the court heard earlier this year, Merrill, where
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: you have a third of Alabama is African American, almost
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: a third, 27%. They're all smashed into one of seven districts.
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: So they can't, elect the candidate of their choice. So
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: I think there's all sorts of ways that you suppress majorities.
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: And I put this in the bucket of why.
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: Do it small if you can do it huge, right?
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: If you can just do whatever you want as a
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: state legislature and it's unreviewable by any court. And by
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: the way, just one other parenthetical, there's a maximalist crazy
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: version of this, not at issue in more V Harper,
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: that would also say that governors, like you talked about
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: checks and balances, also have no power to do anything.
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: They can't veto this. So I think one way to.
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: Sort of lock in minority rule for time immemorial is
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: to just make it impossible for majority will to be
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: represented at the ballot box.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Go big or go home. And while you're at home,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: just stay there because there's no reason to go out
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: to vote.
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: Or that you can have an entire orderly election, and
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: this is where folks should think about what happened in
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: Georgia in 2020, where you have a completely orderly, non-chaotic election,
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: and then you have the legislature be like, hmm, no.
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: We don't like those electors.
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: Let's go for this slate of it, which is what
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: John Eastman and Donald Trump were asking Brad Raffensperger to do.
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: So I want to be super clear.
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: That issue is not, I think, in the four corners
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: of what this appeal is. But I think it's of
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: like you have to draw a straight line between this
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: and the kind of election denialism we're seeing in 2020,
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: where you had states and state legislatures being lobbied by
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump, by Ginny Thomas, by John Eastman.
• 48:59
  Speaker 6: To be like, never mind what the voters say. Let's
• 49:02
  Speaker 6: do it this way.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Well, let's let's let's draw that line. So we do
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: have conspiracy theorists and election deniers in pretty prominent positions.
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: Granted.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Quite a few of them did lose in the midterms,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: including Carrie Lake in Arizona, who is now contesting her
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: loss for governor, even though the results have already been certified.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Is it crazy to think that whole states that have
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: election deniers in their legislatures could just choose to throw
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: out the results in federal elections?
• 49:28
  Speaker 6: I don't think it's crazy.
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: And I think, in fact, one of the things this
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: doctrine is setting up is the stepping stone.
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: Toward that, right?
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: I mean, the reason it didn't happen in 2020... when
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump called Georgia and said, you know, give me
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: a fresh ballot of fake electors, is that there was
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: no architecture in place to support that, right? This case
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: would be part of building the architecture that says state
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: legislatures can do whatever they want.
• 49:57
  Speaker 6: It is unreviewable.
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: Nothing can go to a state Supreme Court. And one
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: other point, again, on this is there's an easy way
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: to solve this particular North Carolina case, which is, The
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: actual legislature in North Carolina has already said that the
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: state judiciary can review these questions.
• 50:16
  Speaker 6: So this is an easy case.
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: It shouldn't even be a question because the legislature has
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: taken this power away from itself. But I do think
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: you're exactly right to say this is really a building
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: block toward a future where state legislatures power are so
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: utterly unreviewable or even creepily reviewable only by the U.S.
• 50:37
  Speaker 6: Supreme Court. that you should just stay home.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Well, you say this shouldn't even be a question. And
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm curious what that says about our country's
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: political ideology and also the ideology of the justices. There
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: are a number of conservative legal figures who are coming
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: out against the Supreme Court even hearing this case. The
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: fact that they are, what does that say about the
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: ideology of the justices?
• 51:01
  Speaker 5: So this is without a doubt for me the most
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: interesting part, right? You've got Mike Luttig, The guy who
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: almost got Chief Justice John Roberts' seat at the court, right?
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: He was on the short list. This is a stalwart
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: conservative legal movement giant. He's also the guy, by the way,
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: who you may recall Mike Pence was like, dude, can
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: I do this thing that Donald Trump is asking me
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: to do and not certify the election?
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: It was Mike Luting, you.
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: Know, conservative legal giant who was like, no, Mike, you
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: can't do that. So he's wildly come out opposed to this.
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: And in fact, I think he's one of the people,
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: at least he said on my podcast, like this would
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: signal the demise of orderly elections and checks and balances.
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: So he's come out against it. Ben Ginsberg, famous Republican
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: election lawyers against it. Every chief justice of every state
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: Supreme Court is on a brief in this case saying like,
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: this is insane. Stephen Calabresi, co-founder of the Federalist Society has.
• 51:58
  Speaker 6: Come out again.
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: Like there's very few sane, conservative figures who are for this.
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: So then your operative question is, why the hell is
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: the court flirting with this? Like, why are they playing
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: footsie with a theory advanced principally by John Eastman, the
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: guy who was the architect of the January 6th legal coup?
• 52:19
  Speaker 6: And I think the reason is because there's no breaks
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: at the U.S.
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: Supreme Court because they have a six-justice supermajority. Everything in
• 52:27
  Speaker 5: the world they wanted last term, abortion, guns, you know,
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: kneecapping the EPA, kneecapping the CDC.
• 52:36
  Speaker 6: Everything they wanted, they got. Everything they didn't get last year,
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: they're getting this year.
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: So this is just a, my friend Leah Lippman at
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: Michigan calls it the hashtag YOLO court. You know, they
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: used to have some solicitude and sensitivity for what the
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: public could tolerate. And I think now they're like directly
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: in opposition to what the public can tolerate.
• 52:57
  Speaker 6: They're like, oh, 80% of Americans hate this. Let's do it.
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: This is what an uplifting conversation. It's so good to
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: hear about the people who are pulling the levers here. OK,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: so let's if states choose to do this, if this
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: is a situation that does come into fruition, what happens next?
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Is that it for democracy? Is there anything people in
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: these states could do to prevent that?
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: Well, I think that you're going to see very much
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: what you're sort of seeing post Dobbs, which is blue
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: states will rush to bolster blue state supermajorities and will create,
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: you know, supermajority districts and will do all the things
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: that New York tried to do and failed to do
• 53:41
  Speaker 5: in the midterms. But you'll see red states rushing to bolster,
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: you know, the power of Republican.
• 53:51
  Speaker 6: Supermajorities and all the ways that they do that.
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: And so I think In a weird way, maybe it's
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: a sort of second iteration of the red state, blue
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: state patchwork we're seeing around guns, around environmental protection, around abortions.
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: We're just going to see both sides further push whatever
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: it is that they can do to make sure they
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: have unlosable power.
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: And that's pretty scary.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: The important question I think we're all thinking about, what
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: does this mean for me? In the short term, am
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: I going to go out into the world and just
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: hear stop this deal forever, or at least until rogue
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: red states decide to reinstall President Trump again?
• 54:39
  Speaker 6: That is what.
• 54:39
  Speaker 5: We call a Stephen Breyer four-part hypothetical question.
• 54:44
  Speaker 6: Can we start with it? There's so many pieces of that.
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: I mean, I think....
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: What it really means is that, first of all, this
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: is an incredibly abstract case.
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: Nobody understands this case. This should be bigger than Bush v. Gore.
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: The implications, as I said, are vast. And yet I
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: think folks are just like flummoxed, right? On the Stop
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: the Steal folks, I have to say, just looping back
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: to where you started, Jordan, I am pretty happy about
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: the fact that the Stop the Stealers got absolutely shellacked
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: in the midterms because it tells me it was not
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: as salient as they thought it was.
• 55:25
  Speaker 6: And more urgently, and I think the polling really showed this,
• 55:28
  Speaker 6: people kind of like democracy.
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: I mean, it was one of the issues that people
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: showed up, you know, in addition to reproductive rights. People
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: were really anxious that the machinery of crushing democracy had
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: kind of gotten a toehold. And so I actually think
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: It's not to say this isn't a worry. It's a
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: huge worry because the Supreme Court, as we have both stipulated,
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: does not care what you and I think. But I
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: do think that the appetite for crazy, lawless, vote suppression,
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: democracy-shattering initiatives is not what I think Donald Trump and
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: Carrie Lake thought it was.
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: And so.
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: I was like eight bourbons in this time before the midterms.
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: I think maybe this isn't terrible because I think as
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: much as it sucks that the U.S. Supreme Court is
• 56:24
  Speaker 5: an unchecked juristocracy that is going around doing whatever the
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: hell it wants with life-tenured people, one of whom has
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: a wife who was involved in January 6th, that's bad.
• 56:33
  Speaker 6: Let's agree. I think that folks recognize that after Dobbs
• 56:38
  Speaker 6: in a way they didn't.
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: And I think that The ability to just sit there
• 56:42
  Speaker 5: and take it on the chin because the Supreme Court
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: says so is much.
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: I think the taste for that is in decline right now.
• 56:51
  Speaker 6: I think people are sort of angry.
• 56:53
  Speaker 5: And so I'm not as hopeless as you sound.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: Well, I will drink to that. That looks like a
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: good place to end. Dahlia Lithwick, thank you for coming
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: on to the podcast.
• 57:05
  Speaker 6: It was a pleasure.
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Well, that's it. The end of our six-episode limited edition podcast. mini-series.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Something like that. It's a limited series. It's a podcast.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: Whatever it is, we did six episodes. It's what we
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: said we were going to do, and now we've wrapped
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: it up. And there's a chance we'll come back, because
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: there's always a world in which Americans believe dumb shit,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: and we want to talk about all of that. Thanks
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: for listening. This has been a blast. Listen to Jordan
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Klepper figures The Conspiracy from The Daily Show on Apple Podcasts,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.