-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com reminder, don't miss "full circle," a digital news shows that gives you a chance to dig into important topics at cnn.com/fullcircle or watch there on the cnn app. news continues with brianna keilar and "democracy in peril." >> anderson, thank you so much. i'm brianna keilar, and this is "democracy in peril," a new series about our political system and the threats to it. a year ago this month we watched as the traditionally peaceful transfer of power was challenged. a sitting president and his

associated orchestrated a coup. in the end, stress testing a democracy that ultimately held. but it revealed cracks. it revealed weaknesses. you saw them. the people trying to exploit them also saw them, and they took notes. and on this program tonight and in the nights ahead, we're putting those vulnerabilities under the microscope. tonight we're looking specifically at disinformation and the way that it is poisoning the well of the american experiment. we're going through looking glass to see how the big lie is getting bigger, as a math and science teacher in ohio who claims that he is uncovered an algorithm proving the 2020 election was stolen, is -- his so-called findings to willing conspiracy theory consumers across the country. we're also talking to the people who held the line a year ago and continue to do so, people who told the truth, who put their country first. we'll speak tonight with fox's former digital politics editor who was fired after his involvement in a decision to call arizona for joe biden.

a protection that deflated any hopes at trump election headquarters that he could actually win fair and square. and we are about to speak with chris krebs, the cyber security chief appointed by donald trump and then fired by tweet after he refuted the big lie when he said 2020 was the most secure election in u.s. history. krebs is one of three dozen former trump administration officials who recently joined together in a planning call to figure out how to thwart their former boss's influence in the upcoming elections, a phone call first reported by cnn's jake tapper. two former white house communication directors, a former top adviser to vice president pence, and john kelly also on that call. former dhs cyber security chief chris krebs is joining us now. sir, thank you so much for being with us tonight. if you can just tell us a little bit about this call and what the goal was here. >> well, i'll tell you my perspective from participating in this -- in the phone call.

you know, for the last year or so i think i've been pretty vocal. i've been on cnn plenty of times and other networks as well to talk about the danger that the former president trump still poses to democracy and the way his corrosive effect on the republican party, not just at the federal level here in washington, d.c. but throughout state and local elections across the country. so, what i'm trying to do is identify any of those fellow travellers, those folks that i used to work with in the last administration, that have good ideas, that have voices, that have influence that can work to ensure that we don't have a repeat of the trump era. >> so, where do you start? i understand that looking at candidates he is going to support in the midterm election is one place. >> well, i -- you know, i think everybody's got a different view based on their experience and their priorities. one of the areas that i'm particularly interested in is at

the state level, so some of the state elected officials like secretaries of state. there are some pretty key elections up in georgia and arizona and nevada and elsewhere where some of the at least front runners on the republican ticket are -- are basically, you know, carrying the flag for trump. you talk about jody hice in georgia, marchant in nevada. my grave concern is that, you know, just like last time when we had brad rafrfensperger, he held the line, he placed country over party, that we may not have those folks with the same resolve and commitment to the constitution. and so that's the -- those are the sorts of things that i'm interested in and looking for partnerships there. >> so, what happens if there isn't a brad raffensperger in place? or actually the georgia law kind of dguts what his authority woud

be anyway. what if there's no chris krebs, someone like you who people listen to you when you are a trump-appointed official who says this election was fair. what happens if these people are not in place? >> well t dynamics will certainly be different at the federal level with the current administration in '24 at least. but out there, again, across the country in the 50 states and those state capitals, i think it's a valid question of what happens if you do have a -- someone that's carrying the flag for trump? and what are those legal avenues open? i think one of the things that congress should do now is take a hard look at updating the electoral count act and clarifying who, in fact, the state authority is that would sign out those slates of electors so we don't have a situation where you have a secretary of state sign one slate and a governor sign another. and that was a real threat, a risk in 2020. and i think in 2024 it's even a

more significant risk. so, it's something that congress -- it's low hanging fruit that they could get on top of right now. >> do you think democrats, do you think this administration is doing enough, that they're concerned enough about the threats? >> well, i -- you know, if you look at the debate in congress or at least the dialogue and discourse out of congress, the voting rights is the number one issue. they may have taken a long weekend because the holiday and the winterish storm we had here in d.c., but it's driving all the news cycles. i think it's certainly top of mind. i think where they're hung up apparently is on the strategy and the process side. they've got to work that out. but, you know, i've talked to plenty of members of congress in both the house and the senate that think it's a priority. obviously the majority on the democratic side. but there's more that needs to be done here. we need to get past this. >> so, you know, we've already seen the big lie and the role that it played. now we're seeing how it's

metastasizing beyond trump. in florida there's a democrat who won a u.s. house seat with 79% of the vote, if you can imagine. there's a lot. and yet her republican opponent still hasn't conceded n. arizona, you're seeing big lie embracers at the state and local level trying to install themselves to oversee elections. how do you combat that? >> you know, you use, i think, an appropriate word, metastasize. and i think that's really what we've seen. this is -- this is so far beyond just the former president. it really has activated a base that has lost all, you know, source of reality or at least there are two separate realities basically. and they're living in one and we're living in another. and you know, they think we're crazy just like we think they're crazy. but i think going forward we have to have committed leadership in state capitals

just like we did with governor ducey in arizona, that, again, held the line as a republican. we need more principled conservatives and republicans when they're in office to hold the line, and democrat dos the same. there are bright spots across the country. kentucky is a good example. a republican secretary of state working with the state legislature to codify some of the improvements and changes they made. that's unfortunately an exception. we're not seeing enough of that. so, i would -- you know, i'd love to see more of that, and i'd also like to see, you know, when you look at some of the gerrymandering and redistricting that's going on right now, i like what the ohio supreme court did, step in and said, uh-uh, this isn't playing fair, so we need to take it back and take another hard look at how these lines are being drawn. >> you said, we're living in one reality, and they're -- meaning people who think the election was stolen, they're living in a different reality. there are a lot of people living in that different reality. 73% of republicans still think

the election was stolen from trump. only 33% of republicans say they will trust the 2024 election if the candidate they support loses. do you see -- look, this seems to be the conundrum that no one can answer, so you may not have the answer. but is there a way that you see to penetrate that, to get through to people who believe this, to change minds? >> i think the unfortunate answer here is that, you know, no. there is no single solution. there is no silver bullet. i used to kind of hang my hopes on former -- the former president ark evectually just c clean and doing what was right and telling everyone that the election was legit. but look at what happened when he told everyone that the vaccines work and that he's been boosted. you know, he's a pariah. so, i -- that's the point of the

metastasizing so far. it's beyond the control of of a single individual. it really is become this cult herd mentality. so, it's going to take a long-term effort to reengage at the local community level. and i do think that covid has made this lack of, you know, grasp of reality in these rabbit holes, qanon and otherwise, it's made it that much worse because we lost that sense of community. you know, people going to the kid soccer games and whatever and saying, i heard jfk jr. is still alive. you wouldn't have said that in the before times. how do we get back to that situation, those circumstances where people think a little bit before they speak and go, you know what? maybe this stuff i read online is a little bit crazy. >> the before times. we miss those, some of us, i think. do you think things are better now or worse than they were a year ago? >> you know, it's hard to say. i don't know if there are a

whole lot of good metrics to at least quantitatively measure how severe the election-related disinfo is, the covid-related disinfo is, the social media platforms continue to take action to enforce their terms of service. they continue to deplatform folks that take advantage of the mechanisms. just saw the other day directv is not going to renew oan. and that's something that i actually -- i can't cancelled by directv service because of their long-term support of oan. so, this is the market working. these are accountability norms being enforced. so, we are see k some, i think, gradual improvement out there. but i think there is a really calcified, hardened base in the die hard space, that it doesn't matter what they're -- any sort of countermeasure is viewed as the deep state, the establishment, or, you know,

whatever, the global cabal that's out to get them. and i think really what we have to work on is chipping away at the edges of that really hardened base and see, you know, if there are folks that are still on the fence and pulling back in the reality and do it with a degree of empathy as best we can, as hard as that is after the last couple of years. i've personally gotten death threats and i don't look kindly on that. but, you know, if we can bring folks back, i think that's one of the ways we have to get out of the demand driven cycles. >> tough as it is, you do have to empathize with people who are being lied to. they're victims in a way, some of these people for sure. chris, thank you so much for being with us tonight, chris krebs. >> thanks, brianna. coming up, a teacher who is himself a lesson in disinformation. he's going around the country spreading the big lie, and he tells cnn why he wants to help create a constitutional crisis. and then later we roll the tape on the dangerous,

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we can help actively repair enamel in its weakened state. it's innovative. my go to toothpaste is going to be pronamel repair. when you think of the forces that are pushing the big lie, maybe you think about p politicians or russia or even iran. media figures, right? you probably wouldn't put a math and science teacher at the top of your list. but cnn's sara murray brings us the surprising story of an ohio teacher who's traveling the country and spreading election lies to big crowds. >> just about every county in the country was hacked. >> reporter: this is how the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen gets even bigger. >> i'm standing against a whole establishment that's saying that was the cleanest election in

history. >> reporter: that's douglas frank, an ohio math and science teacher who's travelled here to texas and dozens of other states with the financial backing of other conspiracy minded americans, claiming he uncovered an algorithm claiming the elect election was stolen. >> i'd like the country to stand up and say, wow, this thing was ripped off. let's do a do-over or put trump back in office. >> reporter: frank's findings have been debunked by mathematicians and election experts. and more than a year later, there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. but frank is still winning elections with lawmakers, election officials across the country. >> we're going into each state clandestinely and i meet privately with legislators and secretaries of states and attorneys general. >> reporter: he is just one in an army of foot soldiers inspired by donald trump's election lies, now trying to convince others the 2020

election was stolen. >> who are these 35,000 people who mailed in ballots? you need to find out. supermom. >> reporter: frank is connected with women he calls supermoms who have embraced voter fraud claims, and advocating for hand counteronly elections. >> in colorado we are a red state. >> there's absolutely no way that joe biden legitimately won the state of pennsylvania. >> we need to stand our ground here and we need to have a real audit. >> reporter: perhaps most frankly -- >> if you don't know who i am, i'm the guy that mr. lindell discovered. >> reporter: frank has the backing of my pillow ceo mike lindell. >> he paid for me to talk here and sell pillows. >> a deep pocketed purveyor of election information. >> we have poured so many resources into this. now you can help out and get a good night's sleep. i'm offering the lowest price ever on queen my pillows. >> reporter: with lindell's support --

>> mr. lindell flew his private jet to pick me up to take me to meet with the secretary of state. >> reporter: -- frank has crisscrossed the country, sharing his fraud claims wrapped in a fancy sounded mathematical equation. >> i was the perfect person in the world to discover this. i have exactly the right skills. every state in the country. they're deflating our registration rolls, stuffing phantom ballots, and clean it up afterwards. >> reporter: expert plus say frank's conclusions are non-sense. >> he's much better at presenting himself as a professor than even myself. he gets up, he has a bow tie, he talks about data, six voter polynomial. >> he looked at the data for 42 states and found frank's algorithm to be essentially worthless. >> i think the part of the research group you uncover there's no basis for this. but if you're not someone who, like me, spends all day working on statistics and data, six order polynomials and nearly perfect correlations, it sounds

like he's uncovered something really impressive. >> reporter: frank uses the number of registered voters by age group and prior voter trends to predict voter turnout, then claims it is evidence of fraud when it aligns with actual voter turnout. >> what he's doing is he's discovered that anything you go out and measure in the world is closely related to itself. >> reporter: debunking frank's wild claims wasn't difficult for john merrill who are met with lindell and frank on two occasions. >> every time they gave us an example, we were able to refute what they showed us without even knowing what they were going to do. >> reporter: frank blamed the, quote, complete botch, in alabama on the newly hired staffer. >> people say we know that other states are wrong, but we think kentucky must be right. i say, how do you know? they have no idea. they just assume. i said, that's kind of the problem. >> reporter: kentucky state senator adrian south worth says she came away more convinced

2020 was problem plagued after hosting an event with frank. >> i think the whole world is on the edge right now of are we going to continue trusting this system. >> so i'm a scientist. >> reporter: it was one of frank's stops on his nationwide tour. in missouri, featured frank and a state representative with a flier calling on county clerks to attend. in colorado, frank met with the mesa county clerk under investigation by the fbi for her alleged involvement in a security breach of the county's election system. the montana free press frank met with staffers for the state attorney general. here in texas -- >> i'm going to walk through these checks and balances again. >> reporter: harris county elections administrator says a scam like frank describes with widespread hacking and phantom votes would never succeed. >> if you even change a period, a period, in the election programming, it sends up a red flag that immediately stops the entire process until we can identify what would have triggered that red flag. >> reporter: in harris county

alone, election officials inspect thousands of voting machines. >> six months out, we start checking all 13,000 pieces of voting equipment in harris county, opening them up do, they turn on, have they been tampered with, can we take them to a voting location, are all the buttons working? >> they run accuracy tests under the watchful eyes of bipartisan observers. and on election day they track the number of people showing up to vote, one of many safeguards that would catch an election inflated by phantom voters. >> somebody would have to find a way to break into the voter rolls for every single county. >> in tandem, again, breaking into multiple buildings, multiple systems in tandem with not a single red flag going off in this incredibly sensitive system all in unison, right, as you have all eyes on elections setup. >> after frank's visit to the lone star state. >> what does the media say? texas might be turning purple. don't believe it.

you're red. >> reporter: he sat down with an interview with cnn and defended his efforts. >> it will be a constitutional crisis. it tuberculosis a crisis. it's going to be happen. it's inevitable. it's going to happen, and i'm helping that happen, yes. >> reporter: he stands by his flawed conclusions, convinced the elections are rigged, regardless of the many experts who have debunked his claims. >> i said, i know the elections are not real. i know the elections are being manipulated. re regardless of what wins, i just want them to be fair. >> and sara marie is joining us now. fascinating report, sara. thank you so much for taking us through that. so, tell us about where all douglas frank goes. is he mainly traveling to battleground states, where a trump victory would have made a difference? is that where he heads? >> reporter: you know, you would think that, but he has been all over. we were looking through his events. we tracked him to montana, idaho, kentucky, places that

were not at all contested, that you know were never in question when it came to who was going to win the 2020 election. he and these other folks who are questioning the results of the 2020 election are so committed to this they want to spread this across the country, brianna. >> it's so important to note, sara, that it's not, like, all republicans are buying into these claims. >> it is important to note. you know, we saw that pushback from john merrill. we know there are a number of other secretaries of state that have heard of these claims that douglas frank are making. they're republicans and they have come out publicly and reaffirmed their election results. we know privately there are lawmaker who is have heard this presentation and come away thinking, that's interesting. that seems incredible. and they do checking of their own and go back to colleagues, other republican lawmakers and say i've talked to mathematicians, election experts. this is not what's going on. we don't see that in public

because we know what the blow back looks like from someone like donald trump if you come out there and say there was no fraud in 2020. but there are checks and balances going on even within the republican party about claims like douglas frank's. >> well, good for those folks who are checking on that. sara marie, great report. thank you so much, joining us from austin, texas. as we're exploring the universe of disinformation tonight, we of course must look at the sun around which so much of it orbits. that would be fox. when "democracy in peril" returns, we roll the tape. it's our january sale on the sleep number 360 smart bed.

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san francisco was a beacon of hope for my family to reach the middle class, and i've been helping others ever since. when the pandemic hit bilal was right there, helping restaurant workers make ends meet. in the obama administration, bilal worked tirelessly on innovative policies.

the status quo isn't working. bilal is the best shot we have for meaningful change. i'm bilal mahmood, and i know our city can become a beacon of hope once again. we can't discuss the tsunami of disinformation jeopardizing american democracy without talking about the mothership, fox. i don't call it news, even if they do, because it's not news. it is lucrative, however, raking

in hundreds of millions of dollars for fox corp. last year as it shovels out stuff like this. >> of all the things that january 6th was, it was definitely not a violent terrorist attack. >> so, let's not take the word of fox's chief prop gann dis on that. let's see what chris wray, donald trump's pick to head the fbi says. >> unfortunately, as you noted, mr. chairman, january 6th was not an isolated event. the problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now, and it's not going away any time soon. >> tucker carlson not one to let that get in the way of gaslighting 3 million people a night. he explains it away by amplifying a conspiracy theory that it was actually the fbi that instigated the attack on the capitol. >> strangely, some of the key people who have participated on january 6th have not been

charged. look at the documents. the government calls those people unindicted coconspirators. that means potentially every single case, they were fbi operatives. >> the case that carlson is talking about goes back to june. it involves thomas caldwell, who has pled got guilty. and according to statements in court documents, that alleged operative was most likely his wife. and you would think carlson would know this. after all he interviewed caldwell and his wife not once, but twice. the second time for a 50-minute-long interview -- 5-0. carlson dedicates so much air time to disinformation that he produced a three-part documentary and in it he pushes conspiracy theories like antifa being behind the attack, which is a fox favorite. >> they were likely not all trump supporter, and there are some reports that antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd.

>> also knew that there's always bad actors that will infiltrate large crowds. >> you want to know how disingenuous those comments are? those same hosts were texting trump's chief of staff during the attack trying to get him to call off the crowd. and some trump supporters charged in the riot don't want to share credit. so, that tells you something. one saying, quote, it was not antifa at the capitol. and another trump supporter saying, they, quote, proudly take responsible for storming the castle. carlson also likes to go full orwell, claiming the insurrection was not an insurrection. >> oh, it was an insurrection? so, how many of the participants in that insurrection have been charged with ins recollecting, with sedition, with treason? zero. >> queue the fox backup singers. >> no one has been charged with sedition or insurrection. >> has anybody been charged with

sedition? nobody. has anybody been charged with treason? nobody. so, why do they keep calling it an insurrection? >> how many times do words like insurrection, sedition, and treason appear in biden's own doj indictments against the january 6th rioters? the answer? zero. >> just last week, brit hume tweeted, quote, let's base our view on whether january 6th was an insurrection on whether those arrested are charged with insurrection. so far none has been. tweets that don't age well for 200 pleas because three hours later the doj announced an indictment charging 11 people with seditious conspiracy. and you know who says it was an insurrection. them. you can call it an insurrection or you can call it a war or a fight. his codefendant kelly megs wrote on facebook, quote, wait for the 6th when we are all in d.c. for insurrection. rods and megs have pled not

guilty. the insurrectionists have the biggest handle on the truth than their biggest cheerleader. fox's own lawyers argued in a defamation suit against the network, successfully they argued. the judge in that case quoting their apparently convincing argument. quote, the general tenor of the show should inform a viewer he is not stating actual facts about the topics he discusses and is engaging in exaggeration and non-literal commentary. and fox's own lawyers argued that any reasonable viewers arrive with an appropriate amount of skepticism about the statements tucker carlsen makes. >> wishful thinking perhaps because according to pew research, republicans get their news from fox far more than right wing cable news channels. when ted cruz needs the biggest audience possible to self-flach late, where does he go? >> you called this a terror attack when, by no definition

was it a terror attack. that's a lie. you told that lie on purpose. and i'm wondering why. >> the way i phrased things yesterday, it was sloppy and it was frankly dumb. >> i don't buy that. i've known you for a long time since before you went to the senate. you were a supreme court contender. you take words as seriously as any man served in the senate. and every word -- you repeated that phrase. i do not believe you used that accidentally. i just don't. >> and when fox needs to fill up its prime-time lineup, who do they install? tucker light. >> this may be a lot of things, this moment we're living through. but it is definitely not about black lives. >> these protesters and blm activists don't care about the evidence, and they don't care about justice either. >> at this point there was no remaining doubt that kyle rittenhouse acted in self-defense. >> this is a clear cut case of self-defense. >> actually, it's a clear cut

case of how to cultivate an ecochamber or a gremlin. water it, feed it until it multiplies. the only thing that stops it, sunlight. next, we'll speak to a former fox political editor who was a key figure in one of the network's most consequential projections in the 2020 election but was fired after helping fox make the right call on election night. his insight when "democracy in peril" returns. >> vo: my car is my after-work decompression zone. ♪ music ♪ >> vo: so when my windshield broke... i found the experts at safelite autoglass. they have exclusive technology and service i can trust. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ well, would you look at that?

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before the break, we talked about the ways that fox prime time promotes disinformation. and now we're going to explore possible antidotes to that. it's worth noting the people at fox news -- at fox, i don't call

it news -- who refuse to push falsehoods are leaving left and right. shepard smith left in 2019. he said that former colleagues who lie to the viewers know what they're doing is wrong. >> i slept very well. i don't know how some people sleep at night because i know that there are a lot of people who -- who have propagated the lies and have pushed them forward over and over again, who are smart enough and educated enough to know better. >> there's also juan williams, a liberal liberal commentator on fox who was removed from his show there. two conservatives resigned. and chris wallace, who quit the network after 18 years. he joined our new streaming network, cnn plus. joining me now is a former political editor for fox news who was fired after the 2020 election when the network projected arizona for joe biden. chris steyer wolt is with us.

welcome, chris. thanks for being here. >> great to be here. happy tuesday. >> happy tuesday. a long way to go, i will say. so, where do you think we are, specifically looking at fox, when it comes to disinformation? is it a better place or is it a worse place than back in 2020? >> well, i don't know. i've been gone for about a year since they fired me. and i'm in a better place, so that's good. look, i think what people have to bear in mind when you're watching television news, when you're consuming news on any platform, is what's the profit model? how do people want you to receive this? what is the desired outcome for you? and a problem that americans have -- and fox is certainly a considerable part of this. the problem with americans today is people don't want to hear things they don't want to hear. if you say something like, i don't know, joe biden is going

to win arizona, you say something that makes people upset, they might change the channel. and that's not a good model. so, in the news business, we've got to get better at telling hard truths to people instead of always prioritizing profits. >> some of your former colleagues at fox, they do tell the hard truths. they do report the truth. you know, i know -- i know folks at fox who are doing good journalism. they're few and far between. there's fewer of them than there used to be. how hard is it to be one of those folks? >> i don't know how it is now. a lot of -- i saw a lot of friends who were there. i know that it can be challenging. journalism is always hard if you're doing it right. if you're doing it right these days, it's especially hard. there are certainly people who are still at fox that are trying to do the right stuff, trying to do the good thing. and i wish them the -- i wish them the best because people of good will, people who revere the constitution, people who love america, people who love americans, have got to work

together, regardless of what network they're on or what party they're in. because the threats to the republic, the threats to democracy are too real. and we've got to treat them that way. >> this is such a difficult problem to solve for. i mean, you're talking about people, democrats and republicans, who need to work together, right? people on different sides of the political spectrum. they need to work together. there doesn't seem to be a huge appetite for that, or you have very few republicans who want to do that. what do you think? >> the great coined a phrase, patriotic grace, and i love it so much. patriotic grace is when you don't kick the other guy when he's down. right now the republicans have a problem with -- i looked it up. it's in the new suffolk poll. 61% of republicans said they're very concerned about the future of democracy. that's just crackers. that's a big problem for the republican party. it's a big problem for

democrats. it's a big problem for the country. when i watched what president biden did in atlanta, a devicive speech he gave in atlanta to try to push the voting rights legislation, i thought if you can't figure out a way to put forward legislation that senators like mitt romney, people who voted to convict donald trump, if you can't figure out a piece of legislation that will unite people of good will around the cause, you've got a serious problem. republicans of good will need help from democrats of good will because that's the coalition that will matter for the 2022 election and the 2024 election is bringing those people together to conduct these elections fairly, securely, and appropriately. >> yeah, we could all use a little more grace,ly say. chris, thank you for being with us tonight. >> you bet. and when we come back, a reality check with john avlon on a little noticed effort to take power away from independent voters in america.

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chase. make more of what's yours. a widening political abyss as jimmy carter called it. who is working to push these tectonic plates apart? john avlon here with tonight's reality check. john? >> hey, brie. it's important to remember that the political parties are far more divided than the american people as a whole, and a brand-new gallop poll gave us reason to focus on that. it showed the number of self-identified independents in our country far outweigh the number of republicans and democrats. that's an important reminder that the polarized politics we're given don't necessarily reflect who we are as a people. but here's the catch. the political parties are disproportionately dominated by

the most ideologically extreme americans because they are the most active. they're showing up. and they're also showing up in having a disproportionately impact on your conversation on social media. pew research showing moderate voters are reluctant to voice their opinion on social media, and so the more extreme voices end up dominating that conversation. and that has an incredibly divisive effect on your politics. >> and so i know you've also noticed that there is this effort, this new effort to close open primaries where, you know, if you're a democrat, you can vote for whoever. the closing primary voting to only registered members of that party, democrat or republican, how does that add to polarization? >> this is key.

there's been a lot of attention given to voter suppression bills, election subversion efforts. they are serious. they are real. but this effort in individual states to close open primaries, that's almost as dangerous and cynical because it's another attempt to suppress it. it states that independent voters can vote for the candidate of their choice, the one they like best, whether they're running as a democrat or republican, which has the same calming effect on politics. the desire to close those primaries designed to make sure the elections are less representative. in the last year alone, we saw efforts by trump supporters in states from louisiana to georgia to missouri to montana to utah to wyoming putting bills forward, most of which were knocked. this has been tracked by a group called open primaries. but the effort is not over. there are renewed efforts in new hampshire, first in the nation in primary, independent state,

and missouri again. so you see this effort that is under way right now, and it hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but it's part of this same effort to combat majoritarian democracy, to close our process, and to have our politics be hijacked by a comparatively small number of extre extremesists. we need to build broad coalitions because we need representative elections have representative results, and that's exactly what they don't want. but to really defend our democracy, one of the themes of what we're doing all week is we need to build broad coalitions of active, engaged citizens who show up from the sensible center beyond party label to defend our democracy, because that's what it's going to take. >> do you think there's an interest, an active interest from moderate democrats and moderate republicans? >> you're starting to see it because at the end of the day shouldn't we all be single-issue voters when it comes to defending democracy? that's what it's based upon.

but it does require people who might not normally want to get involved in the rough and tumble of politics to straighten their civic backbone and roll up their sleeves because that's what it requires. >> it's not partisan to want to believe that there's a truth that can be shared across the aisle. it's not partisan to believe in democracy. john avlon, thank you so much. i'll be right back. won't go up just because of this. (woman) wow, that's something. (burke) you get a whole lot of something with farmers policy perks. [echoing] get a quote today. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ why hide your skin if dupixent has your moderate to severe eczema or atopic dermatitis under control? hide my skin? not me. by hitting eczema where it counts, dupixent helps heal your skin from within keeping you one step ahead of eczema. hide my skin? not me.

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. tomorrow night heredemocrac look at the impact of restrictive voting laws in america. thank you so much for watching this evening. "don lemon tonight" starts right now. hi, don. >> fascinating last two blocks

you had. i always like chris walt. and i like that now that he's not there that he can speak his mind even more. he's right about especially murdoch media in general, right, if you watch. and that translates into your last block because it finds its way onto social media with people pushing out the murdoch-backed or trump-backed media and, you know, stories that make no sense sometimes or have no relevance or, you know, no facts, not even really based on facts. they don't care about it and people pick up on that and they become the extremes on social media, and that's what you heard and that's why i don't go on anymore. i have someone who does it for me because it's so toxic. >> it's a business model, right? it's lucrative. >> right. >> if you're going to just tell people what they want to hear, it just becomes this cycle and it pays off. that's why, you know, you'll see someon