Latest / 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel / How Trump administration has undermined fair elections in just the last month

Transcript

How Trump administration has undermined fair elections in just the last month · 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi!
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  SPEAKER_00: So,
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  SPEAKER_00: for this video, I want to cover how the Trump administration
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  SPEAKER_00: has further undermined free and fair elections over the last month.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think this is something that we really do need to be aware of
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  SPEAKER_00: with the midterms coming ever closer
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  SPEAKER_00: and they’ve done this, you know, in different ways,
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  SPEAKER_00: from sowing doubts over voter fraud to restricting the vote
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  SPEAKER_00: to intimidating independent information.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing I want to cover is the way that they have
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  SPEAKER_00: continuously sown doubt about the validity of elections
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  SPEAKER_00: and stoked fears of voter fraud, and attempted to find evidence
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  SPEAKER_00: of the stolen, supposedly stolen 2020 election.
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  SPEAKER_00: So throughout the last month, whether at a speech in Davos,
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  SPEAKER_00: at press events or on Truth Social, Trump has spread misinformation
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  SPEAKER_00: about voter fraud in the 2020 president presidential election.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's threatened prosecutions people, and he's reiterated false claims
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  SPEAKER_00: that he won the election, which he didn't.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he uses kind of voter fraud claims, basically
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  SPEAKER_00: alleging that non-citizens are voting to attack states he doesn't like.
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  SPEAKER_00: So, for instance, in Minnesota, he he said that non-citizens are voting
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  SPEAKER_00: and there is massive voter fraud.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he also attacked the Somali community there, saying,
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  SPEAKER_00: we've got to get them out.
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  SPEAKER_00: Most of them, 90% don't work, which isn't true, by the way.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this is all against the background,
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  SPEAKER_00: where experts have said that voter fraud is really rare in the US.
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  SPEAKER_00: And very, very few non-citizens ever slip through the cracks.
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  SPEAKER_00: Trump even reposted even there later removed it,
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  SPEAKER_00: an election conspiracy social media video, which included a racist
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  SPEAKER_00: AI generated clip, which depicted Michelle and Barack Obama as apes.
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  SPEAKER_00: So, against this background of disinformation,
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  SPEAKER_00: the FBI raided an election center in Fulton County, Georgia,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is an escalation
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  SPEAKER_00: of the administration's efforts to investigate a jurisdiction
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  SPEAKER_00: that Trump has always criticized since 2020.
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  SPEAKER_00: So he lost Georgia as a state.
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  SPEAKER_00: Fulton County
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  SPEAKER_00: was one of the places he claims there's lots of voter fraud.
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  SPEAKER_00: And remember,
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  SPEAKER_00: this is a state where he was caught on a phone call
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  SPEAKER_00: asking for 11,000 more votes to be found.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Tulsi Gabbard, who is the director
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  SPEAKER_00: of national intelligence, was at that FBI raid and apparently is running
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  SPEAKER_00: her own view into the 2020 election with Donald Trump's approval.
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  SPEAKER_00: Working separately from the FBI investigation.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Trump later said that Attorney General Pam Bondi wanted Gabbard
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  SPEAKER_00: to oversee the FBI seizure and search of voter rolls in Georgia.
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  SPEAKER_00: But that's the fourth time in a week that the administration
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  SPEAKER_00: shifted its story on why Gabbard was involved,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is really unusual
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  SPEAKER_00: because she's a national security director
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  SPEAKER_00: shouldn't really be at a domestic law enforcement operation.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then it later emerged that the FBI's rationale for raiding
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  SPEAKER_00: that county election office in Georgia
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  SPEAKER_00: was based on debunked claims from election deniers
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  SPEAKER_00: and came after a referral
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  SPEAKER_00: from a white House lawyer who tried to overturn the 2020 election.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then there have been kind of more direct threats to voting.
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  SPEAKER_00: so at the end of January, Attorney General Pam Bondi demanded the voter
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  SPEAKER_00: rolls and medical records
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  SPEAKER_00: for Minnesota in return for withdrawing ice from the state.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then at the start of February, Trump called for the Republican Party
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  SPEAKER_00: to nationalize voting in the US, raising new worries about his efforts
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  SPEAKER_00: to involve, the US and the federal government in election matters
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  SPEAKER_00: and basically doing this interview.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it was kind of an extended monologue.
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  SPEAKER_00: Trump called for Republican officials to take over voting procedures
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  SPEAKER_00: in 15 states, although he didn't name which states they are.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then to kind of compound on this a couple of weeks later.
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  SPEAKER_00: So actually on Valentine's Day, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi
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  SPEAKER_00: Noem suggested that her department has a broad role
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  SPEAKER_00: on election security and claimed that she has the authority
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  SPEAKER_00: to identify vulnerabilities in the election system and implement
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  SPEAKER_00: mitigation measures
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  SPEAKER_00: to make sure local and state elections are run correctly.
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  SPEAKER_00: So this is all kind of leading up to being
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  SPEAKER_00: really quite worried about quite what is planned for the midterms.
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  SPEAKER_00: There have also being quite,
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  SPEAKER_00: up front ways of trying to
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  SPEAKER_00: restrict who can actually go and vote in the election.
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  SPEAKER_00: So Steve Bannon, the former white House strategist and right
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  SPEAKER_00: wing podcast host, said that he wants to see
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  SPEAKER_00: immigration agents at the polls in the midterms in November,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is likely to suppress
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  SPEAKER_00: the vote in cities, which tend to vote Democrat.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, while Bannon has no formal power,
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  SPEAKER_00: he is a really influential figure in the far right
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  SPEAKER_00: and is closely tied in with the Trump administration.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then in February, House Republicans have kind of rushed
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  SPEAKER_00: to approve legislation that would impose
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  SPEAKER_00: strict new proof of citizenship requirements ahead of the midterms.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is called The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility or the Save act,
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  SPEAKER_00: which would require Americans
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  SPEAKER_00: to prove their citizenship status when they register to vote.
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  SPEAKER_00: So mostly through either a valid U.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: passport, a birth certificate.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, this may seem quite normal, but but about 10%
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  SPEAKER_00: of Americans don't have that paperwork proving they're citizens.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this act could prevent millions of Americans
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  SPEAKER_00: who have the right to vote from voting.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then the next day, in a series of social media posts,
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  SPEAKER_00: Trump attacked the Democrats for opposing the Safe act.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he basically spread again the false information
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  SPEAKER_00: about voter fraud and then said there will be voter ID
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  SPEAKER_00: for the midterms, whether approved by Congress or not.
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  SPEAKER_00: So he has also just this last week, kind of violated,
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  SPEAKER_00: the norms of the presidency by telling soldiers
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  SPEAKER_00: to vote Republican in a campaign style rally at Fort Bragg.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, Army policy is and has been, for decades.
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  SPEAKER_00: That Partizan politics is forbidden at presidential addresses
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  SPEAKER_00: to the troops.
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  SPEAKER_00: And most servicemembers refrained from cheering at this, but again,
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  SPEAKER_00: it really speaks to a disregard of the norms of the presidency.
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  SPEAKER_00: And finally, I want to talk about restricting voters
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  SPEAKER_00: access to independent news reporting.
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  SPEAKER_00: Doing this is a tried and tested
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  SPEAKER_00: authoritarian wave undermining elections.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Trump has really continued his attacks on journalism this month.
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  SPEAKER_00: At the beginning of February, he threatened Grammy's host Trevor
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  SPEAKER_00: Noah with legal action
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  SPEAKER_00: for a joke during the award ceremony about the president's connection
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  SPEAKER_00: to the disgraced late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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  SPEAKER_00: The next day, Trump again, attacked a reporter.
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  SPEAKER_00: He attacked CNN correspondent
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  SPEAKER_00: Kaitlan Collins in the Oval Office, calling her the worst reporter
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  SPEAKER_00: and scolding her for not smiling as she tried to ask him
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  SPEAKER_00: about the latest release of The Epstein Files.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then about a week later, the Federal Communications
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  SPEAKER_00: Commission, the FCC, launched a probe into ABC's program
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  SPEAKER_00: The View, after the program had an interview
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  SPEAKER_00: with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Taralico.
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  SPEAKER_00: And basically, the FCC began an investigation
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  SPEAKER_00: on whether the view broke rules
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  SPEAKER_00: for equal time when it comes interviewing political candidates.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this was after they changed the rules in January to try
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  SPEAKER_00: and make programs like The View, eligible for those restrictions.
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  SPEAKER_00: So before that, there was an exemption for late night
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  SPEAKER_00: daytime talk shows
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  SPEAKER_00: from having to give equal airtime to opposing political candidates.
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  SPEAKER_00: So this has been just kind of a quick overview of the actions
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  SPEAKER_00: that have been taken
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  SPEAKER_00: to undermine free and fair elections over the last month
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  SPEAKER_00: for these actions, and many more, do visit the Trump Action tracker.info.