but for brad raffensperger doing the right thing, he could've succeeded. and that is a very worrisome thing to complain. >> yeah i think one of the things we discovered in the process, in that election process and aftermath, is that things that we thought were institutional, or were actual guardrails, were actually just people, it was really depends on what this person decided to do. and secretary of state brad raffensperger is a really interesting case study. because he had no doubt about what the correct thing to do. was and november december and january, absolutely no doubt. we have no doubt one him and his team were taping that phone call with donald trump. which they then made public, they made that phone call public. but now he is filled without about the election process that he protected and you just wonder if that very same person was to be presented with the same circumstances and the next presidential election, what would that person do now that he is felt the wrath of donald trump, and most importantly donald trump voter who's been threatening

there were more brad raffensperger than donie stones you might say. he is a notable figure because just of how much pressure has been put it on him in his state and. are we now know the full scale of that pressure point. he was given an unlawful -- brian kemp urging him to persuade the state legislator to overturn president biden joe biden's victory in the state and asked the governor to order signatures >> and now infamously the former president place are long called to secretary state brad raffensperger to try and get him to change the outcome of the vote. that's interesting we found another, way i always wondered what that is, i think it's probably the eastman plot that he's talking about when he says he found another way. i don't know. eight months later trump is still at it. with this letter again. it was sent four days ago. this september claiming >> brad raffensperger is now facing a primary challenge who trump is indoors, and another trump endorsed candidate running for state so native, is one of the key he was outside the capital on january s

there were more brad raffenspergers. there was a phone call to brian kemp urging him to persuade the legislature to overturn biden's victory and order an audit. trump intended to fire a united states attorney in the state because he refused to say that widespread voter fraud had been found in georgia. he plotted with a lawyer at the justice department to pull off a justice department coup where he would oust the acting attorney general and wield the power to force georgia state lawmakers to overturn the results or give them cover to do so. infamously, the former president placed an hour long call to georgia state secretary of state to get him to change the outcome of the vote. >> look, all i want to do is this. i want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. because we won the state and flipping the state is a great testament to our country. now, we do have a way. but i don't want to get into it. had we found a way in other states -- excuse me. we don't need it because we're only down 11,000 votes. so we don

joining us now the brad raffensperger, author of integrity counts. want to know your thoughts about these two things that seem very much in conflict. >> well, obviously, this election was over months ago and we're still facing these issues. these allegations and we continue to knock them down. after the fall election, it was like rumor whackamole. our tiny office was really going up against 80 million twitter followers and daily, we were going out there. you showed that clip of gabriel. what he said unfortunately turned out to have prophetic and people did lose their lives. it's really important that people understand that at the end of the day, integrity does count. that we have elections and then we have consequences and when your political team is telling you you're behind ten points before the election, within two weeks after the election, if you lost, what is going on there? what is the point? so we wrote every allegation down and at the end of the day, it was never supported by facts and president trump did not carry the state of georgia. >> ma

don't spend your money on brad raffensperger's book. we've got to get the freedom vote passed. >> chris was asking him about mail-in voting and why you would make changes to mail-in voting. he absolutely never answered the question. it's not worth showing the video of it because he just wandered off without ever coming back to and referring in any way to why you would make changes to mail-in voting after mail-in voting was so successful in georgia. >> i think you just nailed it, and i thought chris did a really great job in that interview. it wasn't that long ago that rudy giuliani and the republican leadership of the state of georgia invited rudy giuliani down for two different voter fraud, quote, unquote, election integrity hearings in december in the state weeks before the election, and then their ally to the vote tried to kick 360,000 georgians off the rolls two weeks before the election, and what's a problematic thing here about raffensperger around integrity, all of the voter fraud lies that giuliani and the republicans spewed in

the secretary of state brad raffensperger responds for the first time tonight in an exclusive here outfront. >>> plus a new 911 call reporting a fight between gabby petito and her fiance, brian laundrie, just days before her disappearance. what did the caller say to 911? >>> and he's telling his employees not to come back into the office until september of next year. the airbnb ceo on why the pandemic has changed the concept of going into the office forever. he's my guest. let's go outfront. >>> good evening. i'm erin burnett. outfront tonight, decertify the election. that is the demand coming from none other than the former president, donald trump, and it comes in a new letter to georgia's secretary of state, brad raffensperger. the secretary is outfront exclusively tonight to respond for the first time to trump's new attempt to overturn the results of the election nearly 11 months after the election. so trump claims in his letter that there is a new report of invalid ballots and says, quote, i would respectfully request that your department check this and, if true, along with many other c

georgia secretary of state brad raffen raffensperger, thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank> coming up, the authors of the book "peril" will be here to discuss the stunning efforts by donald trump and his team to hold onto power. >>> president biden will meet with congressional leaders with hopes of salvaging his agenda and preventing an economic collapse. i was drowning in student loan debt. i was in the process of deferring them, paying them... then i discovered sofi. completely changed my life. lower interest rate. my principal is going down. sofi is a place where you can start to tackle those money goals today. compared to where i was three years ago, i'm kinda killing it. ♪ this is renae. never heard of her? it's probably because she's not an influencer. she's more of a groundbreaker. just look at the way she's reshaping and reimagining her 4 acre slice of heaven. it's not hard to tell she's the real deal. renae runs with us on a john deere 1 series tractor because out here you can't fake a job well done. nothing runs like a deere. hear renae's story at deere.com. >>> t

like for example, the secretary of state, brad raffensperger, of georgia. >> people said that there weredead people that voted. it was less than a handful. they also told us that over 66,000 underaged voters voted. there were zero. they talked about unregistered voters voting. there was none of that. president trump came up short in georgia. >> he is a lifelong republican. said he voted for trump. he stood up for the facts. trump lost georgia and nevada's republican secretary of state said and i quote, these concerns do not amount to evidentiary support for the contention that the 2020 general election was plagued by widespread voter fraud. look. if it weren't for a handful of brave secretaries of state who stood up for the truth, democrat and republican, we might be having a very different conversation right now. imagine if those three people that i played had actually been in the job. it's not over because many signs point to another trump run. just listen to reporters bob woodward and robert costa who spent months covering and reporting on trump for their new book "peril." >> this is

here is what donald trump said in georgia on saturday about g's straight brad raffensperger, whose recordedall of donald trump could be the smoking gun evidence that makes donald trump a convicted felon in georgia >> there is something wrong with this guy your secretary of state. raffensperger. raffensperger. i'm telling you, i think there is something wrong with him, and we give him so much. could you look at this, could you look at that election integrity and sometimes yes, i'm going look at -- nothing ever happens. raffensperger. something really strange with him. >> turn joining us now is he also was counsel to the house judiciary committee in both impeachment trials of donald trump. thank you very much for joining us tonight i really appreciate it what we just saw in that video seems to be part of this trump method of maybe his belief that if he does it in public, it can't be a crime he seems to be doing an impression of his phone calls with the secretary of state, asking him to do things. and if he is talking about it in public, it can't possibly be a crime. that seems to be the way h

the former president on friday wrote a letter to georgia's secretary of state brad raffensperger, trumpat there were 43,000 absentee ballots cast in one county in georgia that were fraudulent calling on raffensperger to investigate and then start the process of decertifying the election if true. but in georgia they are possibly building a case to possibly charge trump of trying to overturn georgia's 2020 election sglults a story clearly not going away. thanks very much. let's get reaction from cnn senior commentator former ohio governor john kasich. governor, thank you so much for joining us. what do you think? does it make any sense that ten months after the election these -- trump and these other supporters of his are still alleging that he won the election, that it was a big fraud, the election outcome? >> you know, wolf, i think the situation is once people make up their mind for something, it -- it's amazing in our country today the truth doesn't seem to matter, and they will continue to cling to this, and i saw some polls indicating there was a significant number, percentage of re

we'll be talking about that with georgia's secretary of state brad raffensperger on how he thinks wee faith in elections. just one pill a day. 24 hours. zero heartburn. because life starts when heartburn stops. take the challenge at prilosecotc dot com. i'm not hungry! you're having one more bite! no! one more bite! ♪ kraft. for the win win. new customers get our best deals on all smartphones. that's right. but what if i'm already a customer? oh, no problem. hey, cam...? ah, same deal! yeah, it's kind of our thing. huh, that's a great deal... what if i'm new to at&t? cam, can you...? hey...but what about for existing customers? same deal. it's the same deal. is he ok? it's not complicated. with at&t, everyone gets our best deals on every smartphone. ♪ i see trees of green ♪ ♪ red roses too ♪ ♪ i see them bloom for me and you ♪ (music) ♪ so i think to myself ♪ ♪ oh what a wonderful world ♪ >>> and breaking overnight, former president trump has filed a $100 million lawsuit against his own niece and three "new york times" reporters. he says his niece mary trump conspired with "the times

we saw with the famous trump call to georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger when he said i just want to find 11,780 votes. that was one more than he needed to win. we saw trump's preposterous obviously unconstitutional anti-democratic idea that as the person who has the parliamentary role of presiding over the senate vice president mike pence could just unilaterally decide basically who won the election, which electors to count and not count, a concept clearly completely inath muto the entire notion of self-rule and self-determine agds. but remember donald trump basically wanted mike pence to pull off a coup. he said as much on the morning of january 6th. >> i hope mike is going to do the right thing. i hope so. i hope so. because if mike pence does the right thing we win the election. all he has to do -- this is -- this is from the number one or certainly one of the top constitutional lawyers in our country. he has the absolute right to do it. all vice president pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people. >

that's now what we are seeing over and over and over brad raffensperger, who claimed that this most recent election was completely clean, was totally legitimate, stood up to donald trump now he's advocating new hyper suppressive and dangerous voter laws and the reason he gives is, well, people are concerned about the integrity. well, anybody can be concerned about anything, but there has to be some sort of factual base for that concern for anyone to, such as the secretary of state to legitimatize and we are not seeing that anywhere so essentially, donald trump is just creating chaos with all these lies, with the idea of in 2022 or 2024 saying, well, we don't know whether what we see with our eyes and we hear with our ear is actually true, so we need to go to the elected officials overseeing these elections to have them decide who won, not the voters. and that's the real danger that we are facing. >> dan, let's stick with georgia. you are absolutely right i think it's -- and secretary raffensperger was here it is a perfect encapsulation of everything that's broken the person running genz hi

i want to take a chance -- i interviewed georgia's secretary of state brad raffensperger who made comments about what is partisan. the only thing that's partisan is obstruction to investigating how that day happened. my question to you, how is this white house calibrating with what has become an extremely bipartisan investigation. liz cheney has been elevated to vice chair. subpoenas have been responded to by seven agencies. talk about the white house's decision to turn over against trump's will white house communications. >> this really gets to the heart of why president biden ran in the first place when i talked to white house officials. they tell me and remind me often, president biden ran to heal the soul of the nation. now, of course initially he was focused on the issues after the charlottesville incident and the murder of elt heather heyer and former president trump saying nazis were good people. that of course rolled into the idea he wanted to come in to restore some sort of descendsy, some sort of justice into the white house. they see the information as information that is needed

on friday he sent a new letter to the florida secretary of state brad raffensperger demanding that het state. raffensperger refused to acknowledge the now proven facts and that the election truth not be told. >> i have to put my duty above country, above all. we do audits and some of those are still ongoing, so i can't comment on those. but vice president biden did carry the state of georgia. >> senior white house reporter michael bender. frankly, we did lose this election. michael, clearly the president continues to lie about this. there is no evidence to back up the president's bogus letter to secretary raffensperger which we already knew. the fact that he's still clinging to these old lies and sort of dressing it up as if it's somehow new, quote, unquote, evidence, did it surprise you that he chose to br write this letter? what was the point of actually writing a letter and publishing it? >> it was him saying he did not lose the 2020 election and he's sticking to that. it is frightening that he's sticking to this message. in the run-up to the riots in the capitol in january, there

gloria, former president trump sent this letter to brad raffensperger, secretary of state in georgia,rturn the election results, while trump is under criminal investigation essentially in georgia for telling officials to overturn the election results. >> yeah, right. i mean, you'll recall he told raffensperger to find 11,000-plus votes for him and that's what is under investigation. it's pathological. it's -- it's hard to explain any other way. it certainly is embarrassing, particularly for those republicans who have not come out and said enough already. this is ridiculous. this is a president, a former president, who cannot admit that he lost. that is what this is all about. he still cannot say that he lost the election, and, you know, you talk about the woodward book, and in the woodward book there's lots of stuff in there about republicans, you know, like lindsey graham looking at the evidence and saying this is ridiculous, and here you have the former president still writing a letter to raffensperger. there's just no way to explain it. >> well, i had t o actually do a double take.

congressional investigators have -- have sought documents not just from secretary of state brad raffenspergera elected officials who were being pressured by trump to take action to reverse his election defeat. so the sense i got from da willis's office and from people around who are familiar with the investigation, i should say, was essentially they've already gotten some of the documents. there could be some coordination there in terms of sharing -- sharing the proceeds. >> so, harry litman, just take the call. it is over an hour. i think it is close to an hour and a half. i'm no lawyer. i could guess what crimes were committed, but you are. tell me what crimes would be under consideration in. >> the first and foremost would be solicitation to commit election fraud, a felony in georgia law if what they're trying to get raffensperger to do is a felony, and they are is the short answer. the letter that they sent out to people to preserve evidence gave a flurry of other charges, up to and including rico. we know for giuliani maybe in the suit for false statements, lindsey graham for the same ki

and, you know, people like brad raffensperger in georgia who certified the election results that trump over the party from the bottom up, from the local level, giving them the power to elect the party officers higher up the chain, at the county, district, state and national level. they need to get rid of everyone like brad raffensperger who doesn't agree that the election was stolen, and they need to use these party powers to pass new voting restrictions like the laws in georgia and arizona, to have more audits like the one in arizona, to expand the role of republican-controlled state legislatures in running elections and controlling the outcome of elections. and the way that they do this is through these precinct positions, which, you know, most voters have probably never heard of before, but these are just the lowest level positions in the party organization and they're the worker bees of the party, so to speak. they're the ground game. they're the field organization. they're knocking on doors. they're making phone calls. but not only that, they have these formal powers that give the

after people like brad raffensperger stood up. they are working to change the systems. i will say, and brianna, i know you talked to so many elected officials. when trump was first elected, everyone thought they were in on the joke. they were going to hang around, do their best to push back against him. really he was just eventually going to lose. he was going to go away. and bit by bit that became the strategy they used every single time. and i think a lot of people believed them. they were willing to say, okay, that seems right. maybe this suspect as bad as people were making it out to be. there was a name for it, trump derangement syndrome. then came january 6th, which is something i never thought i would sigh in my lifetime. it certainly changed the game for me being there. i remember thinking as we were watching these people, surely i should not responsibly report on television that there are people invading the capitol. but that is actually what was happening. and now the republican party is trying to whitewash it. i think that tells you exactly where we're going.

brad raffensperger, mike men's, others said, no, no, no.n there are those people month could stop him again, they would be willing to? . >> we'll see. what we discovered in working on this book, there is surprise always when you deal with people who are dealing with donald trump. some things may work. some things may not. bob is right within the republican party, it's, oh, trump wants this, trump supports this candidate. and there's a lot of saluting going on. and are people -- we will see. there are always surprises. we found the big surprise in this was general milley, who is the one who said, wait a minute, we're going to not have a war with china. we're not going to have trump go off the rails and do -- launch some seniority of military operation, even the use of nuclear weapons. and he took action. you know -- >> there is this moment. while we were working on this book, i had two words sitting in front of my computer screen every day. assume nothing. as we move forward as reporters, we can't assume anything. and we've got to take it ve

just like jodi heist running against brad raffensperger because jodi is way out there.ist. so, you know, in georgia, the bigots are much more troubling. loyalty to trump is all that matters. >> real quick, lightning round. what's your favorite breakfast cereal? >> i'm not sure, raisin bran. >> raisin bran. okay, david, favorite breakfast cereal? >> is red bull a cereal? >> no. >> no. i don't know. >> i'll answer for you, captain crunch is the best breakfast cereal. now let me let you know what michael flynn thinks he might be having soon for breakfast. >> somebody talked about putting the vaccine into salad dressing. have you seen this? >> i thought it was breakfast cereal. i'm sorry. mine was funnier. he should've said it would be in your cereal. he said it was in the salad dressing. so that's totally sane, david. i messed that up. totally sane to say it's going to be on your salad. >> there's something good that can come from this because now the maga constituency might start ordering their salad dressing on the side, which is better. >> i didn't know why it was a bre

only thwarted thanks to a handful of folks, one of them georgia secretary of date brad raffensperger, refusing to bend to trump's will. before we find ourselves back in that situation again we have to make actual changes to fortify the defenses of our election systems. he's rick hasen one of the nation's top experts on election law. he just published paper titled identifying and minimizing the risk of elections subversion. he's also founder of the election law blog, and professor of law and political science at university of california at ervin where he stands as good rector of the first free speech center. he joins me now. rick, you have been very vocal on this. i share your concern and focus on it and we have been focused on it. first, have you gotten more or less concerned as time has passed between january 6th, particularly, and now? >> oh i have gotten much more concerned. first of all, we have learned a lot more about what happened behind the scenes on january 6th. we learned how vice president pence was urged to just to clear trump the winner based on a false claim that there w

trump tried to convince the secretary of state brad raffensperger to change the vote count. >> therealculated. >> reporter: it seems lear that trump was trying to steal the election. he was trying to create conditions where he could be declared the winner even though he actually lost the election. >> it is incredibly dangerous and destabilizing. >> reporter: and perhaps most dangerous of all, president trump even tried to use the united states department of justice to pull off his attempted coup. in the notes of a december 27th phone call now handed over to congressional investigators, trump told his acting attorney general jeffrey rosen and his deputy richard donahue, just say that the election was corrupt, leave the rest to me and the r congressman. both men refused trump's request and both have testified before the senate judiciary committee chaired by dick durbin. >> what was the most shocking to you? >> just how directly personally involved the president was, the pressure was putting on jeffrey rosen, it was real. very real. and it was very specific. >> reporter: trump tries to

he's rather -- he'd rather it be remade in his own image than have moderate republicans like brad raffenspergerte, the secretary of state, the lieutenant governor, and the governor, all great republicans in the tradition of republicanism, like george w., but and those of us who are missing it, you know, respecting the constitution. but, you know, it's interesting. he raises the stacey abrams point. there's a sliver of something there in a sense that when she was on my program, firing line on pbs, i did push her on this. why didn't you concede when the votes were there? and, you know, how she handled her defeat is not even possible to compare apples for apples to what happened with donald trump, okay? she didn't go have a rally and say storm the capitol, you know? she actually ended up conceding. >> and there were also over a million votes purged by the previous secretary of state, the current governor. >> not a million. >> but i think the key point is this. donald trump doesn't care about the republican party. donald trump doesn't care about the country. donald trump only cares about himself an

in georgia, for example, where brad raffensperger, the current secretary of state, stood up to presidentrump and refused to overturn the election result there, he's facing an extremely strong challenge from a georgia congressman named jody hice. hice has already raised about $80,000. an extraordinary sum of money for a secretary of state race. and already candidates generally in georgia have raised over a million dollars, which, again, is unprecedented amounts of money for a secretary of state race. >> all right. and former president trump headed back to georgia this weekend to raise more money for that candidate and others alike with the same message. tim reid, national political correspondent at "reuters." thank you to you and your colleagues for this reporting. it's really valuable. i appreciate you making time tonight. thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> all right. much more to come tonight. stay with us. >>> right now president biden and democrats in congress are dealing with two sort of crises on capitol hill, both of which have a realtime crunch to them. the first one is that r

spread all of this information, just days ago wrote a new letter to georgia secretary of state brad raffenspergerhim to overturn the election in georgia. it says i would respectfully request that your department check this and if true along with many other claims of voter fraud and voter irregularities start the process of decertifying the election, or whatever the correct legal remedy is and announce the true winner. he was on cnn earlier this morning to react to that letter. here's what he had to say. >> i look at his letters as a plea for attention. he knows he's lost. he's been told that multiple times by a lot of people. but at the end of the day, that information he talked about, we open up an investigation, we have lots of investigations that go on, and then once we have our findings we report those to the state election board for final disposition. but the fact is that president trump did not carry the state of georgia. >> reporter: i think what this shows us is the former president is going to continue carrying on the big lie, doesn't matter how many people he tells, it doesn't matter he

trump tried to convince georgia's secretary of state, brad raffensperger, to change the vote count. >ere's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you have recalculated. >> it seems clearer and clearer that trump was actually trying to steal the election. he was actually trying to create conditions where he would be declared the winner, even though he actually lost the election. it is incredibly dangerous and destabilizing. >> reporter: and perhaps, most dangerous of all. president trump even tried to use the united states' department of justice to pull off his attempted coup. in the notes of a december 27th phone call now handed over to congressional investigators, trump told his acting-attorney general, jeffrey rosen, and his deputy, richard donoghue, just say that the election was corrupt. leave the rest to me and the r congressmen. both men refused trump's request and both have testified before the senate judiciary committee chaired by senator dick durban. >> what was the most shocking to you? >> just how directly, personally involved the president was. the pressure he was

now we came close to that last year only because of a handful of folks, one of them, brad raffenspergero bend trump's will, before we find ourselves back in that situation again, we have to make actual changes to fortify the defenses of our election systems. rick hostin is one of the nation's top experts on election law. he's been thinking about imposing those necessary changes. he just published a paper titled identifying and minimizing the risk of election subversion in the contemporary united states he's founder of a election law blog and a professor at the university of irvine and he joins me now rick, you have been very, very focused on this. i share your concern and focus on it and we've been pretty focused on it. first, have you gotten more or less concerned as time has passed between january 6th particularly and now >> well, i've gotten much more concerned. first of all, we've learned a lot more about what happened behind the scenes january 6th. we learned how vice president pence was urged to essentially just declare trump the winner based on a false claim there were seven stat

investigate for example, trump committed voter fraud or extortion in georgia when he called up brad raffensperger tried to have him find extra votes. i would like to see democrats polka hole in the filibuster so we can protect against these measures. i would like to see them reform the voters reform act. they need to be going to bar associations and seeking disciplinary action against people like johnman. they are thinking that i don't know they are going wait for the public to become disenchanted with it, they think it is so ridiculous that it is all going to solve itself. i cannot understand this lack of urgency, this lack of desire. and moreover, the language that is used is so mancy pansy that you wouldn't understand. these were not rioters. these were domestic terrorists on january 6th. you have an entire party that is now enabling and defending domestic terrorists. the language has to be match sharper, much more definitive and we need to be doing something to deter this in the future. >>> next, what was the former president doing before and after the deadly riot? the committee investigating

establishment candidates, throwing his support behind congressman jody hice, looking to unseat brad raffensperger's request to, quote, find enough votes to overturn his loss in the peach state. it's just part of the civil war raging in the gop, not just over conspiracy theories about voter fraud but also enveloping republicans who voted to impeach the president over the january 6 capitol riot including wyoming congresswoman liz cheney, who is set to get help from a different member of the president's club. with george w. bush holding a fundraiser for her next month. as ohio congressman anthony gonzalez, who also backed trump's impeachment, announced he will retire early due to, quote, toxic environments in our own party. all while trump repeats falsehoods about the last election. >> they have headlines that biden wins in arizona when they know it's not true. he lost in arizona based on forensic audit. >> reporter: but the so-called audit only reaffirmed biden's victory. >> that was nbc's monica alba. >>> joining now now, don callaway, founder of the voter protection action fund. don, what's your

. >> reporter: her team pouring over records including trump's january call to brad raffensperger thati want to do is this, i just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state. >> reporter: sources familiar with the matter say investigators have already interviewed a handful of staffers and raffensperger's office, including ge ing gabrie >> there's no shredding of ballots going on. it's not real. it's not happening. >> willis eager to strike a cooperation agreement with congressional investigators. the january 6 select committee requested records of communication between the trump white house and georgia officials as well as communications from others in trump's orbit, like former chief of staff, mark meadows and trump's former lawyer rudy giuliani. >> it is certainly information that my office needs to see. >> a source familiar with the matter says there's been some staff level contact between willis's office and congressional committees, though another source cautions there's no active information sharing so far. for willis, the trump investigati

that potential crime, calling georgia's secretary of state and demanding brad raffensperger, quote, find 11,780 votes. this obsession spans beyond georgia. the final report that have bogus arizona audit by cyber ninjas finding more votes for joe biden in maricopa county than first reported. while that should be embarrassing for the gop and for trump, they are ramping up fraudits elsewhere. republican leaders in four states now pushing similar election reviews, even in texas where trump beat joe biden. but it's only made possible if your state leaders allow it. here's how arizona's secretary of state put it last hour. >> i think it's important to remind folks that this entire exercise was enabled by elected leaders of the state of arizona who are clearly running the state by conspiracy theory. and this kind of partisan activity, this partisan posturing is keeping us from dealing with real issues. arizonans are simply tired of this. >> i said it once and i'll say it again. if you're watching what the gop is doing and it doesn't make sense, good, that means you live in reality. republicans,

we saw enormous attacks on brad raffensperger who refused trump's entreaties to, quote, go find some votes to overturn the results in georgia. and so that is a key office that has been in office where republicans run against democrats and it is not nonpartisan but has not been subject to the level of partisan elevation as an office like governor or even state attorney general and so that is significant about seeing these seconds of state subscribe to this false set of beliefs about the 2020 election. >> so walk us through what might that have looked like? should someone be concerned in some of these states if it's quite close the secretary of state threw their -- through their powers could do something? >> yes and when you go back to 2000 and the fight between george bush and al gore, at that time katherine harris, the secretary of state in florida played a pretty crucial role in preventing a statewide recount. and that's an important history lesson to remember as we go forward and talk about how vulnerable our system remains to some kind of trickery after an election. this is someth

former president trump sent a letter last week to georgia's secretary of state brad raffensperger, askingim to consider decertifying the 2020 election. dude, just give up you know you don't have to be president to play golf, right? according to a new survey 9% of americans said that they drink less than one cup of water a day. at least, i think that's what they said. their voices were very raspy [ light laughter ] today was national new york day. ah, yes, finally a day for new yorkers to think they're special. "oh, you're from new york. uh-huh and you say the pizza is good there? huh. authorities in new york are searching for a man who allegedly rolled a bike onto the subway tracks over the weekend, which caused an explosion when it was hit by a train. officials condemn this behavior and said, "when you're done with the citi bike, you're supposed to chuck it in the hudson. [ laughter ] and finally, last week, california held a recall vote, and voters supported governor gavin newsom by an overwhelming margin here to comment is governor gavin newsom ♪ >> good afternoon. in case you weren't

if you are a republican school board official or an election official like a brad raffensperger, why would you want to run again if you know those threats are coming on your head. like those threats going at those school board members. so that means all the way up from school board to senate, we're going to cycle out people that some of the democrats watching this might disagree with on policy but are rational people who don't believe in violence. they're cycling out and cycling in are going to be, you know, fully onboard maga insurrectionists that are running for these offices. and that change is really important. >> a whole party full of marjorie q. greens. think about that and basically the base wants them to fear them because they want to control them, and it's not going to happen the other way around. claire mccaskill, tim miller, thank you. >>> up next, greg abbott as we just heard claire mccaskill say there's no worry. there's no worry for women and girls that they can't get abortions if they have been raped in texas. he has got a plan. >> so goal number one in the state of te

congresswoman jody hoois is seeking to defeat georgia's secretary of state brad raffensperger becausell i want to do is this, i just you want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. >> not content with having asked raffensperger to find votes to flip that loss in his state from a loss to a win, a matter now being investigated by law enforcement, trump on friday wrote to raffensperger demanding he invalidate 43,000 absentee ballots citing a false claim on a far right wing website and calling president joe biden illegitimate. he's asking legal american voters to be disenfranchised based on a lie. it was pure anti-democracy. as was this, violent criminals you see here trying to storm the capitol to stop congress from counting the electoral votes that made joe biden president. a small rally was held in d.c. over the weekend protesting the prosecution of the criminals, a process we should began that began at the justice department under trump. trump saying, our hearts and minds are with the people being persecuted so unfairly. he's referring to a group of people apparently, v

being investigated as a possible crime, trump tried to convince georgia's secretary of state brad raffensperger to change the vote count. >> there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated. >> it seems clearer and clearer that trump was actually trying to steal the election. he was actually trying to create conditions where he would be declared the winner even though he actually lost the election. it is incredibly dangerous and destabilizing. >> reporter: and perhaps most t dangerous of all, president trump even tried to use the united states department of justice to pull off his attempted coup. in the notes of a phone call now handed over to congressional investigators, trump told his acting attorney general jeffrey rosen and his deputy, richard donahue just say that the election was corrupt, leave the rest to me and the r congressmen. both men refused trump's request, and both have testified before the senate judiciary committee chaired by senator dick durbin. >> what was the most shocking to you? >> just how directly personally involved the president was, the press

one day before donald trump goes to georgia to campaign against georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger. we had raffensperger on the show earlier this week. he was the guy who quite famously was on the receiving end of the phone call where the president of the united states donald trump told him to find the votes he needed plus one to win georgia. raffensperger, to his credit, refused to do it. and now for committing that sin, he's got a primary challenger who trump is endorsing and going to go campaign for tomorrow. and the all but explicit promise of trump's endorsement of his rival's campaign is if and when he is in raffensperger's position, when he gets to oversee the election, he will throw the election to trump. and again, just like in the run-up to the election last year, the slow-motion coup attempt is happening before our eyes. in fact, that's the thesis of this robert kagan piece today in "the washington post" where he writes, quote, the united states is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the civil war with a reasonable chance over the next thr

i spoke with secretary of state, brad raffensperger, there week there right after trump sent him his latest demand. >> i am a lifelong republican. at the end of the day, i have to always put, you know, my duty to the constitution and to our country above all. at the end of the day, we've done audits, we have done investigations. and some of those are still ongoing so i can't comment on those. but vice president biden did carry the state of georgia. >> trump keeps challenging the results not because he genuinely thinks they are wrong but because he knows it sews doubt in the fundamentals of america's dmo democracy. already, 78% of republicans in america do not believe biden won the election. they don't believe it because trump continues to tell them that and we can't forget what happened back on january 6th happened because of these very same lies from the former president. >> hang mike pence! hang mike pence! hang mike pence! >>> people died that day because of the lies trump told and the lies that he is still telling today. natasha chen is out front in phoenix tonight. natasha, the

. >> last night i spoke with georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger and i asked him, matthew,him. and in the letter, trump demanded raffensperger overturn the state's election rultss. okay? and so raffensperger responded and i just want today play a little bit of what he told me. >> people said there were thousands of dead people that voted. it was less than a handful. they also told us over 66,000 underaged voters voted. there were zero. they talked about unregistered voters voting. there were none of that. president trump came up short in georgia. >> okay. so he goes through, step by step by step. right after the election, trump asked raffensperger to find him 11,780 votes, right? one more than he needed to win. and now, 11 months later, he sends a letter. telling raffensperger to decertify the election, that it was rigged. in that letter, by the way, matthew, he calls president biden an illegitimate president. there is no end to trump's obsession, right? no -- no end and he is continuing to sell this to his supporters. >> well -- well, to me, erin, i mean if it was just som

so they are trying to get rid of brad raffensperger, the republican secretary -- secretary of state in georgia who refused to find trump 11,781 votes. so they are running my colleague against him for secretary of state and all across the country, they are doing that in order to put the personnel in place in order to cheat their way to putting trump into office. knowing that it -- a popular majority and an electoral-college majority, fairly drawn, would never go with donald trump and the party of insurrection. but that's the other thing. they have unleashed political violence as an instrument in the american body politic today and everybody sees how donald trump used the oath keepers and the three percenters and the militia groups. but the reverse is true, too. they used him. back in 2017 when they went to charlottesville, they could only assemble a crowd of 500 people and they went from 500 people being pilloried by pretty much everybody in the country other than donald trump who said he saw fine people on both sides. but they went from 500 people in 2017 to leaving as storm troopers t

brad ralph raffensperger is joining us and we got bob woodward and robert costa is joining us on the former president's democracy. >> that's going to be interesting willie, i am going to enjoy talking to our friends woodward and robert costa. a couple parts of that book i would have to ask him about. i would love to know the forcing for william barr saying to donald trump, no, i will be your attorney general, sir, but get this straight. there will be a strict line between the department of justice and the white house, sir. >> did he really say that? >> it will not be politicized, sir, or i have to leave, says william barr. >> i am so moved. >> so there are a couple of those moments in the book where i want to check the sourcing out there. >> yeah, it's funny how many people find their principles after they leave the trump administration and starting up books. william barr is an example there. >> woodward and costa, we have not been seeing them in six months, they have been writing this book. there are so much in there. we want to ask them about general milley, did it go down the way

spent a considerable amount of time attacking republican leaders in the peach state, including brad raffenspergery the election. come on, man. trump also claimed that the so-called arizona audit were in his favor even though it showed biden had netted 360 more votes than the official election tally back in 2020. good lord. but that isn't stopping trump and his allies from calling for even more bogus audits. i need people to talk to about this. joining me, steve schmidt and senior adviser to the lincoln project stewart stevens. he's author of the incredible book "it was all a lie." thank you so much for coming to "the sunday show." steve, this is your first time on the show. i need you to have at it. why is trump continuing to push the big lie but also tell those people that the arizona audit proved he won the state and that the election should be decertified even though he still lost the state again and lost the state by even more votes. >> well, good morning, jonathan. he is doing it for power, to take political power in this country. what he has done is poison american democracy for whatever nu

which of those committees but congressional investigators have sought documents not just from brad raffensperger take action to reverse his election defeat. sense i got from d.a.'s office and people familiar, they've gotten some of the documents, can be coordination there in sharing the proceeds. >> harry, just take the call, close to 1 1/2 hours, not a lawyer, can't guess what crimes were committed but you are. tell me. >> first and foremost would be solicitation to commit election fraud, a felony in georgia law. what they're trying to get raffensperger to do is a felony. letter they sent out gave a flurry of other charges up to and including rico. for giuliani may be in the soup for false statements, lindsey graham for the same charge. little filip you lifted in the beginning had the whiff of extortion but going for clean, simple, fantastic feature of all in the defendant's voice, thing that trump avoided all the time but raffensperger was smart and knew he might lie and he taped it, is the solicitation to commit election fraud and would be played 20 different times in different ways, it's wha

late last week donald trump sent a letter to georgia's secretary of state brad raffensperger once againiming there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election in georgia. of course, there was none, but he's still demanding that raffensperger dessert phi the election result which he cannot do and of course there was none. this fraud claim is traced to a group of pedlers claiming to be news states. the latest letter is coming from one of the two people that we are aware of who are being investigated for election interference in georgia that probe by the fulton county d.a. is also investigating south korea senator lindsey graham for a call he made to raffensperger back in november asking him to toss out mail ballots in certain counties n a state he doesn't live in. graham denies trying to interfere with the election. what we are learning more about graham's role in the campaign by trump to overturn the election thanks to reporting in the new book "peril" by wodward and costa. the authors report on graham and mike lee's investigation of trump's claims of fraud, quote, they took the clai

the testimony from people like brad raffensperger and the like. so i think this is very important. and i think it means they are ramping things up. and i think if you are a witness or somebody who is getting those subpoenas out there, particularly the mid or low-level people, you should be getting in -- first, get a very good lawyer, and get in there and start cooperating. because the cost of -- for a contempt citation is up to a $100,000 fine and up to a year in jail. >> neil, i want to cow ask you to deal with this executive privilege -- i don't know what to call it. i guess it's a talking point to the trump base. >> nonsense. >> let me show what you adam schiff said and then let's put this to rest and move on to what the four witnesses can i will lum nalt for the committee. let me show you what adam schiff said about executive privilege. >> what is your response to donald trump saying that they are going to fight these subpoenas on kputtive privilege? >> well, it's more of the same that we saw for four years when he said that they were going to stonewall all subpoenas. it would