watch arizona go over. first we reported on the show last night that i had seen, our staff had obtained and seen, a draft version of the arizona audit report. ahead of its formal release today. that and because those results were gonna be formally released today, we decided not to put those reported results of the draft on television. after all, a draft report could be revised substantially before the final results came out. we decided that nobody really believes what's gonna be in the audit anyway, we're gonna wait until the audit release. i did tell you last night that what we were seeing in the draft report showing that the results of the arizona audit where somewhat hilarious. well today, we got the final report. they released it to the public. and indeed, in fact, it matches with the draft that we saw last night. and hilarity did in fact ensue. after their five months of trying and searching for bamboo fibers and using uv lights and putting the ballots on lazy susan's hands putting them around, and a h

you are running for governor of arizona. with the secretary of state vacant, trump has endorsed a candidate who has bought into the big lie, is peddling all of this stop the steal nonsense, apparently was in washington for the rally on january 6th. are you concerned about the integrity of elections in your state going forward? you're running for governor. are you worried that they might try to pull a fast one on you? >> well, i'm concerned across the country that we're seeing these partisan attempts to overtake election administration at every level, including folks who are running for secretaries of state in arizona and other states that are trying to unseat the republican secretary of state in georgia as well with someone who buys into the conspiracy theories about the election. the bottom line is that, you know, i was elected on a partisan ballot, but i took an oath to uphold the constitution of the united states and of arizona, and i upheld that oath. and i have worked really hard to ensure that our elections are free an

with arizona. back in april, republicans in the state legislature in arizona announced they would start an audit with the election results in that state. they hired a contractor to do that audit, a guy who promoted qanon conspiracy stuff online, a guy who never had any experience whatsoever with election administration or election audits, which is actually a real thing. experts can do election audits. he was not one of those experts. in fact, he had no experience in the field at all. they nevertheless hired him and his company, which appears to just be him, a company called cyber ninjas, and with that auspicious beginning just conducted a months-long circus in arizona. they started in arizona, they said it would take three weeks. it's five months later, and they're finally going to release their results tomorrow. as we've been reporting, everyone in trump world is vibrating at a very high pitch in anticipation of the audit result tomorrow. former president trump has been

the next state to try this won't be as stupid as arizona was. and it's be as stupid as arizona was.n states around the country. it might not look at the spectacle around the state. but here's what it looks like. restrictive voting laws, poll watchers who intimidate voters, polling locations disappearing and restricting. and that's what should scare you. just because an injustice does not have an impact on your life does not mean it is your problem. our continuing attempts at a more perfect union fall short lt one day you are enjoying the privileges of democracy and then, poof, they're gone. almost like, dare i say it, a ninja. the fraudit was never a real threat. they were amateur grifters who literally had one job they could not deliver on for republicans. but for more real competent forces at work trying to decide whose votes count and they might succeed where arizona failed. democracy itself hangs in the balance, and our work here is far from done. you can always spot a first time gain flings user. ♪ psst! psst! allergies don't have to be scary. spraying flonase daily stops your

so, how is the result in arizona not deterring them? >> well, because this is now part of the fabric of trumpism, and we know he still controls much of the party, if not all of it, and his endorsement matters, which is what we'll see in georgia tonight. so you see people follow trump's playbook, and they're going to do this in other states but i would also suggest -- >> does his endorsement matter? we're going to see him rallying for people in georgia but haven't we already seen some of the candidates that he has endorsed in primaries lose? >> it can either win elections or it causes the party to lose, true, but he has not been replaced. we have not seen the emergence of a desantis or somebody else that steps forward that has greater control than donald trump. but very importantly, i think this also empowers democrats' agenda. there's a corollary here on the voting protection bill in washington, d.c., because an individual's right to vote is a federal right, but we trust our states to administer the elections and that right, and so wash

first we're gonna start with arizona. back in april republicans in the state legislature in arizona's said they would start an audit, an investigation of the presidential results in that state. they hired a contractor to do that so-called audit, a guy who promoted qanon conspiracy stuff online. a guy who had never had any experience with election audits. which are actually a real thing. real companies and experts can be certified to do real election audits. he was not one of those experts, in fact he had no experience in the field at all. but they never the last hired him and his company. which appears to just be him. a company called cyber ninjas. and with that auspicious beginning, thus began a new amazing just months long, very trumpy circus, in arizona. they did start in april, they said it would take three weeks, now it is five months later. they are finally going to release the results tomorrow. as we've been reporting, everyone in trump world has been vibrating at a very high pitch and anticipation of the release o

your son went out to arizona and then what happened? out of college he came out to arizona to tucson to take a class. from there, he landed his job in phoenix. he was happy to be here in arizona mainly so because he's a geologist and gave him the opportunity to work his profession and do the things that he loved. >> so when your son went missing, how long did it take before the last time you heard from him and when you said okay, young people sometimes won't check in. when did you make the connection that this is something other than him not just checking in? >> well, you know, my daughter, she live in phoenix, also. the people from his job came over there to her apartment and notified her that they was looking for her. of course, she called me or her mother. she called me about it. we didn't think anything too bad other than, you know, he was starting to not answer his phone. after i realized it was from the time he -- they say he was last seen at his job and the time that he wasn't answering the phone, it became six hours. for daniel,

we'll come back to the arizona sham audit. schiff says these four are critical because they know not only what trump was doing then, what president trump was doing on january 6th but the day before. who was he talking to and the question is sometimes what was he not doing? >> they are all very close to the former president. some were in direct communication with him on january 5th, on january 6th. they are reportedly in communication about how to overturn the results of the election. mark meadows, for example, involved with the justice department, trying to get the justice department to put pressure on georgia to decertify the results of the election. >> and margaret, those are just some of the questions. what was the president dwhooing when he found out that the capitol was being stormed and his own vice president was in peril and what was he doing when they wanted them to move in the national guard, was he speeding it up or slowing it down and when did he know about who was coming to washington and when their intensions were

democrats in arizona calling the gop's audit useless and ridiculous. >> the arizona republican-controlled state senate has wasted taxpayer dollars perpetuating the consistently debunked false claims. >> reporter: the total cost of $150,000 in taxpayer money.lion- the rest from private donors. but election officials in arizona and elsewhere say the cost in the corrosion of people's faith in the democracy, that's likely to be incalculable. david? >> all right. terry moran tonight, thank you. >>> when we come back on a friday night, actor william shatner in the news. the new big plan for him. >>> and then the race to save an american treasure tonight. g? and you could fearlessly face the unknown. you still can. ♪ ♪ when you have a rock you can depend on for life you'll be unstoppable. like the millions of people who rely on prudential for financial planning and investing. who's your rock? hi, i'm steve and i live in austin, texas. i work as a personal assistant to the owner of a large manufacturing firm. i've got anywhere from 10 to 50 projects going at any given time. i absolutely have to b

we saw that just recently in arizona.e day in the response that trump generates politically. >> if anybody wants to see it, they can just google your name and the "washington post," but you have written numerous fact-checking articles literally point by point debunking some of the comments that trump has made regarding the audit in arizona here. but do you think that the people who need to hear that are listening? >> no, absolutely not. it's really disheartening to do this work and sit down and say, here is exactly what this -- even if you want to treat this report as credible, which, by itself, i mean, it's a product of a bad faith effort to try to cast doubt on the election itself but even if you want to treat it as credible, what donald trump says it says is obviously not what it says. all you have to do is crack it open and look at it but because donald trump just lies about things all the time and lies about these claims of fraud, you just can't make any headway because people don't want to believe that. they want to

a lot of people that see this, i always said arizona, you know, i am a native to arizona. we have these patterns. we do great things, then we do ridiculous things, have great leaders like the mccains, bill waters, and then some of the biggest idiots ever elected. we need more mediocrity out of arizona, that would be nice if we could do that. they were already embarrassed by all this and i think the embarrassment goes on. >> what happens next in arizona, is this now over? can we all agree that joe biden won arizona? >> i think so. i think they're going to have to agree to that. i see that the former president from mar-a-lago called upon the arizona attorney general to do an investigation, of what i don't know. he is running for office. we'll see how he responds. they could continue to drag it out and cast doubt for the purpose of trying to rig elections going forward. i think now even these guys say look, joe biden won. i don't know who is left to say that he didn't. he did. get over it, move on. >> i tell you who is left, pennsylvania, texas, there are other states taking

in the arizona legislature, the results of the arizona cyber ninjas audit are going to be released on friday. the audit organizers have just announced the roster for their roll-out of their audit results on friday afternoon, including remarks to be made by the cyber ninjas guy, this florida man who somehow got plucked by arizona republicans out of obscurity from among the ranks of random qanon promoters online. he got plucked out of obscurity by them to be put in charge of doing whatever it is they just did to millions of actual ballots that were cast in the 2020 election in arizona and all the voting machines and equipment used to cast and tally the vote there. he's going to be there explaining his findings as will randomly one of the other speakers announcing the audit results is a guy who claims he invented email. okay. me he's going to talk to. what is he doing there? i don't know. he is one of the speakers. but as ridiculous as it is, this whole mishegas about the legislation and grounds of suspicious of the election results, we need to change all the rules around voting to make

theater there in arizona. kyung lah, thank you for that report. we will be coming back to you throughout the show. >>> donald trump's campaign to destroy confidence in america's elections is also taking hold in texas. governor greg abbott cave to go trump's demands. the state auditing four counties covering houston, dallas, fort worth and plano. and sara murray is joining us now to talk about this. why does donald trump want audits in a state he won? . >> that's a great question. obviously, none will change the election. in this case the former president is still throwing these temper tantrums. he sent this letter to governor abbott. this press release came out of blue from the secretary of state's office saying, oh, we have already begun audits in four counties. harris county, dallas county, tarrant and colin county. three of those went for joe biden. only one of those went for donald trump in the 20th election. and i want to just show you how the former president is still spinning this big lie. in this lette

arizona gop, biden won again.p, we're still going to subpoena 8 million of your social security numbers, driver's licenses, dates of birth and to an unsecured database handed over to a dude off the penny saver and bleep away millions of your tax dollars. and here we are. >> yeah. well, i mean, that about sums it up, and you know, the arizona audit was basically the burning man for the election fraud kooks and that's crashed and burned. in fact, i think biden actually gained some votes so really what you're looking at now is a complete -- >> we see -- there you are. we saw you get bigger for a second. there you are. >> yeah. >> life in the time of zoom. i'm sorry, keep going. >> yeah. so, what we saw is a complete collapse of that baseless conspiracy in arizona. in fact, i think joe biden actually added maybe 80 or 90 votes, and that margin in arizona was only 10,000 votes, whereas in pennsylvania, it's 80,000 by joe biden's victory. so, i mean, this idea is beyond the lunatic fringe, and no one knows that more tha

he swung and missed in arizona. what does this mean now in arizona? >> it means in arizona that the talk of reforming elections should be based on much more facts than has been so far. so in arizona, as a legal matter, i think some of the legislative reforms that republicans have wanted to push through will run into a roadblock. and as a political matter, this has left the party deeply divided going into a key election year. so as this plays out over the course of the upcoming campaign, i think republicans in arizona are going to see what a mistake taking on this cyber anyone. >>> project was. >> hmm. so, ben, though, this has metastasized. now you have in pennsylvania republicans trying a repeat there, in wisconsin, there's an effort going on there, in texas, as we were just talking about, trump literally put out a quote/unquote open letter and it said greg abbott, we need a forensic audit of the 2020 election, says donald trump, and greg abboltd says okay. no matter what, truth be damned, isn't the damage already done? >> well, the audits do come at

she represents arizona's 27th district covering maricopa county.joining us tonight. what are you expecting tomorrow? >> well, i think it's important to kind of lay the groundwork that this is basically a conspiracy-driven process that has been funded to the tune of $5.7 million by trump supporters. this is a complete partisan audit that, you know, was done after numerous audits and hand-counts show there was literally no fraud in arizona. so i don't have high expectations, although i fully expect for them to continue the grift, right, to continue to show this is essentially throwing red meat to their base and it should be a full-out clown show tomorrow. >> so the strange sounding presentation i'm reading about, you would expect it to be since the republicans in the senate asked for it, you would expect it to be delivered in a hearing environment of some kind, but it's going to be a situation where apparently all of you are invited to attend, members of the senate, but only the two republican leaders of the senate will be allowed to ask any question

judy: the widely discredited election review in arizona is over.months after the 2020 election, there is growing alarm about other efforts, launched with no credible justification, to sow doubt about elections past, present, and future. william brangham explains. william: it was republicans in the arizona state senate who commissioned this review of ballots in maricopa county, even though election officials in the state said there was no large-scale fraud in the 2020 election. but a partisan group called "cyber ninjas" undertook a controversial review of the vote, and they affirmed that joe biden won maricopa county and arizona. and here with us to look at the larger context is nate persily a scholar of election law at stanford university law school. great to see you back on the newshour. i hesitate to call this an actual audit, what this organization did in arizona, but they affirmed what we already knew, that joe biden won maricopa county and arizona. what do you see when you look at this process? nate: you are right to hesitate in calling it an

and arizona law. and there was an original worrying, and i've been voicing this for months, that they would not know what they were looking at. and so, where they are for use whatever they found as a justification to further their narrative of these conspiracy theories that we've been seeing. >> which we did see. for example, the maricopa county board of elections ended up fact checking on twitter some of the most critical issues that they. said that that said, i don't think anyone was surprised by trump's comments last night. he's keeping focused on these partisan audits in other states. but how is what happened in arizona, frankly the embarrassment there, not a deterrent in these other states? er states? it's >> not a deterrent in the other states, quite frankly, because of the success they've had with both generating revenue and money. they brought in millions and millions of private dollars to fund this particular event. and it's mostly dark money. we don't exactly know where all the money is comi

it's arizona's kyrsten sinema. now at the center of the negotiations and essentially in control of whether biden's agenda will live or die. we'll take a closer look at the marathon-running, barrier breaking moderate. >>> plus cnn visited musicians shutting down in fear of a pending ban on music. stay with us. >>> welcome to "the lead." i'm jake tapper. our politics lead and the state of negotiations on capitol hill changing seemingly by the minute. the two massive democratic priorities still hanging in the balance. today white house staff is meeting with moderate arizona senator kyrsten sinema for the fourth time in the last day. trying to figure out exactly what centrists such as she need to support the large spending bill that will expand social safety net programs such as medicare and child care. progressives want an agreement with sinema and west virginia senator joe manchin by tomorrow or they will tank the bipartisan infrastructure bill. manchin telling cnn's manu raju, no way is it going to be ready by then.

no one has lost arizona more than donald trump. cnn's kyung lah is live in maricopa county with this. this is the report from the cyber ninjas with partisan ties. if anyone was going to find more votes for donald trump, the thinking was among some people it would be the cyber ninjas. didn't happen. . >> at least not in one part of the report. you're talking about the draft report, john. and the headline you're talking about is in regards to the hand count. now, that hand count found that joe biden increased his lead. he picked up 99 votes. and donald trump lost 261. it is negligible. it didn't impact anything. we need to view the entire report with healthy skepticism. having been there, having seen this process go through, it has been riddled with problems despite that skepticism. we are seeing the republicans in maricopa county, who have been questioning this process the entire time, the ones who oversaw the county election jump on this data set. and we are seeing from jack sellers, chairman of the maricopa county board of supervi

let's go to cnn's ed lavandera who is in arizona.ter: well, look, she's one of two centrists in a u.s. senate that is just closely divided, so democrats cannot lose any support to get their agenda passed through, and that is giving senators like kyrsten sinema and joe manchin a great deal of influence, but this has really been a fascinating look in kyrsten sinema's rise to power here in arizona as many progressives here in arizona are trying to figure out exactly what she is up to. her career here at arizona politically started almost 20 years ago in the early 2000s. believe it or not, she started out here as a green party activist, and that catapulted her into the state legislature in 2004 where she was fighting for issues that were near and dear to progressives' hearts here in arizona including lgbt issues as well as fighting against a highly controversial immigration bill. she then used that to move into the u.s. house of representatives in 2012, served three terms there, and that's really where owe you start seei change in kyrste

>> we won on the arizona forensic audit yesterday, at a level you wouldn't believe. it is clear, in arizona, that they must decertify the election. it was a corrupt election. [applause] and it's my opinion, by the way, that georgia is far worse. >> former president trump rehashing grievances for the

>> we won on the arizona forensic audit yesterday, at a level you wouldn't believe. it is clear, in arizona, that they must decertify the election. it was a corrupt election.

and many of them, you know, obviously support trump's claims in arizona. >> right. well, i'm not sure where people are going to end up but this should be something that can really start to turn the tide because, again, this is a vote count that was done by the cyber ninjas and they found the numbers to be almost exactly the same as we found them in maricopa county as you said confirming joe biden won. i know i am a bit of an optimist but i believe this could be the beginning of the end of the big lie. but what we need to really accomplish this is now have our elected officials, republican-elected officials, like we have done in maricopa county, stand up. leaders here in the state. and say, okay, this needs to come to an end. joe biden won. it's time to move on. >> all right. i appreciate your time, bill. thank you very much. glad to talk to you again. >> thank you. >> i want to go now to gabe sterling. he is a top georgia election official during the 2020 election. you know him from that and you will remember that he publicly stood up to donald trump for pushing bas

let's look at arizona for a moment. the leader for the republican party in that state is calling for another so-called audit of the election results after the latest attempt blew up if their faces and confirmed what we all already knew. biden won. that fact doesn't matter and now texas is launching a similar so-called audit of the election results in four major counties. so while the gop fixates on attempting to re-write reality, democrats are focused on real issues and the work of governing and given that one party in the two-party system is dedicated to delusion, that's not going to be easy. >> joining me to discuss this is haze brown, the writer and editor of the msnbc daily newsletter. it is so good to see you. i've missed you doing other stuff in the last two weeks and i needed your wisdom on this. democrats are bickering and they're going to tank biden's domestic agenda. progressives and moderates can't get along and in my world i'm sitting here thinking we've actually got governing going on, we've actually got de

right now in arizona, and he has supported the bogus audit of the presidential election in arizona,this is a guy who last week, somewhat hilariously, try to personally proclaim that the election results in arizona should definitely just be flipped to trump now. he said last week, quote i am calling it. oh really are you? >> i'm calling on. it's like all in arizona to decertify the election and recall the electors. there is already enough evidence to show clear and convincing frog. we have a duty to act. last week he said that, today trump gave him his endorsement to be arizona's next secretary of state. which means, what's more valuable, than to trump endorsement in a republican primary? in the republican primary for secretary of state, this guy having trump's endorsement now, he'll probably win right? which will make him the republican candidate for secretary of state ankle in arizona. running on a platform that arizona should have its presidential election results from 2020 tossed, out and even though biden won their, the state's electoral vote should just be given to trump, that'

at 74 the once boyish looking quayle was living the private golf playing life he loved in arizona. the two men shared a unique profile. pence phoned because he wanted advice. despite the electoral college casting votes for biden back on december 14th trump was convinced that pence could somehow throw the election to trump on january 6th when congress met to certify the final count. pence explained to his fellow inian dan quayle that trump was pressuring him to intervene to assure that biden wouldn't secure the needed 270 votes during the certification and push the election to the vote in the house of representatives. and trump was fixated on this twist pence said. it was the provision that could theoretically at least keep trump in power. while the democrats held the current house majority the 12th amendment of the constitution stated voting on a contested election wouldn't be done by a simple majority vote in the house. instead the amendment said the election vote would be counted in blocks of state delegations with one vote per state. republicans controlled more delegations in th

they found arizona was right on the money.because there were so much c clammer about this. this is ground hog day around here. yesterday was bill murray's birthday. i am excited everyone referencing ground hog's day. let's go to a new movie here. >> look at the time and money spent on this thing t. it's not just ground hog 's day. i want to ask you, a cnn poll found 78% of republicans believed president biden did not win the election. the gop, the party of the big lie as a former republican, do you see a way back? >> i think the best way back is probably, the republicans have been taken over really by the french and the mainstream elected officials are so scared of the french who are now in charge that they won't stand up and they won't do the right thing. first, at some point in time, people across the country who are elected republicans are going to have to man up and woman up to tell the truth. maybe risk not being in office anymore because they're going to do the right thing and put their country above their party. if they

would we have seen the same result in arizona?ertainly concerning, indeed. democratic senator joe mansion in west virginia is co-sponsoring a revised voting rights bill called the freedom to vote act. does this -- do you believe does this still go far enough in your view, doesn't this still come up against potentially the filibuster, which would require 60 votes in the senate? >> yeah, i think the freedom to vote act is a good piece of legislation. it deals partisan jerrgerrymandering. so it's a really good piece of legislation. i think that ultimately, it will come down to is the senate ready to discard this senate procedure, the filibuster? i think the determination that senators have to make, democratic senators have to make is do you want to stand on the side of democracy or stand on the side of a senate procedure that has been used in the past to frustrate civil rights legislation? we're now considering in this new act that senator mansion has introduced is really a great piece of civil rights legislation. we can let the fili

viernes >> en brazos de su papá fuimos testigos del encuentro de un bebé que cruzó por el desierto de arizonae y su hermana de 10 años murieron luz verde al refuerzo el presidente electo de estados unidos, joe biden dice que pronto se pondrá la tercera dosis de pfizer contra el coronavirus (covid-19) piden los cdc (centros para el control y prevención de enfermedades) que hagan lo mismo 60 millones de estadounidenses elegibles para el refuerzo trabajadores de entrega de comida celebran la decisión de la ciudad de new york de exigir a las empresas salario mínima es la primera ley de este tipo que se aprueba en el país >> noticias telemundo con josé díaz-balart >> [♪♪ ♪♪] >> [♪♪ ♪♪] >> [♪♪ ♪♪] >> bajo intensa presión el presidente electo de estados unidos, joe biden , salió hoy a dar una conferencia de prensa , para pagar varios incendios entre ellos el ataque de agentes fronterizos a caballo contra inmigrantes haitianos en la frontera muy buenas tardes cristina (inaudible) de las políticas del presidente electo de estados unidos, joe biden >> el presidente electo de estados unidos, joe biden s

this is the guy republicans put in charge to run this arizona -style audit in wisconsin. but, look at the email again, with this preservation notice came from. his name is on the bottom of, at the email has his name at the bottle. but look at the email address it was sun from. it was sent from john delta, all lower case, john delta, from a gmail address. who is john dealt? so why is he sending an important highly sensitive, highly confidential records request county clerks, from a gmail address. does the real michael gableman know about? this is this the real michael gableman? is there a mr. delta? is that a reference to a sci-fi movie i haven't seen yet because i'm an old person now? that's not the only thing he knew about this, go back to the letter. look at that seal on the top of, it really does look like a screen cap of the state seal. that was copied off the web in plopped on to this document. this is not real letterhead. and while we're at, it let's peek behind the hood of this document. you just look at the metadata for this pdf, this letter with this bogus letter

joe biden has won arizona again. and this time the count was done by people with every reason to want him to lose. in fact, former president trump was expecting a different result. everybody will be watching arizona tomorrow to see what the highly respected auditors and the arizona state senate found out. he even suggested that there was fraud found. he lied. he said the fake news got it wrong. lied again. not only did the cyber ninja led hand count tabulate results close to what maricopa county reported. it determined that biden got 99 more votes than initially reported. trump? 261 fewer. so the fraud was on trump's count. right? wrong. why? because this isn't about fraud. it's about human error as is almost always the case. also the case, no candidate in the history has now lost an election more times than donald trump. we're waiting on trump to go bad on the same pawns doing the fraud it that he once praised. while we wait, here's what arizona senate president who led this had to say. >> the ballot counts were clo

a democrat and gives them to the arizona attorney general currently a republican.publican who oversees any disputes in the important midterm elections. gates said his party's big lie about vote fraud is getting way out of hand. >> i'm worried about the people who look at this now, they've listened to their leaders, their republican leaders and they're now convinced that our system is corrupt, that there is some large conspiracy and we've yet to see many republicans speak out and tell people, no, the election was fair and it is time to move on and enough is enough. >> reporter: in texas, which trump won, republican legislators passed a law that bans drive-thru and 24-hour voting favored in houston and creates new hurdles for mail-in voters. the texas legislation also makes it a crime for election workers to interfere with partisan poll watchers. >> we're at a tipping point as a nation and our democracy is at stake. >> reporter: democratic legislators like carl sherman fled the state trying to prevent a vote on the the bill. the standoff ended after 38 days. >> it ma

preet, i mean, look, this arizona audit it blew up in trump's face. but despite all the failed recounts and i mean all the failed recounts he's still pushing the big lie. tell me what is the point of the p propaganda? is it just to keep sewing doubt in our elections? >> yeah, absolutely. they're setting the stage to be able to themselves and to inspire other people who support them to basically take the position if we win, we win. if we lose, we also must have won. and so part of this i think further your point i think you're exactly right in the opening that it's setting the stage for a story telling kind of propaganda scheme so that no matter what happens you lose an election, we didn't really lose. you do an audit, the audit comes up empty even though they're sponsored by your folks and people who wanted you to win, that's not >> and the kind of deepening in the republican base as you said if we win, it's legit. if we lose it's inherently fraud. i don't think donald trump is winning the argument about there being that the election was won with frau

remarks to be made by the cyber ninjas guys, the florida guy that got plucked by arizona republicansut of sooner obscurity among the but it is ranks of qanon promoters one republican online, he got plucked out of obscurity to be put in charge to do whatever they did to millions of actual ballots that were cast in the 2020 election in arizona and all the voting machines used to tally the votes, he is going to be there explaining his findings, as the other speakers announcing the audit result is a guy who claims he invented evil? okay. what's he doing there? i don't know, he's one of the speakers. but as ridiculous as it is, the whole thing about the election being stolen and grounds to be suspicious about the results, we need to change the rules around voting to make sure that this can never happen again, because it was stolen and trump should be president. this whole thing as stupid as it is is going to go nuclear, the day after tomorrow. it's gonna go nuclear for these folks when they say in arizona, whatever it is they're going to say about bamboo fibers and uv lights and anomalies

the governor of arizona had already certified it.orney general of arizona and the secretary of state had certified it. >> reporter: records now revealed dozens of text messages and multiple phone calls from the white house, from rudy giuliani, and also the head of arizona's republican party. >> i just talked to president trump, and he -- he would like me to talk to you. >> reporter: trying to put pressure on the maricopa county republican supervisors to intervene in a free and fair election that joe biden won. supervisor bill gates believes it was an attack on the constitution. >> i saw that a voicemail had popped up. it was just unbelievable to hear, you know, instantly, i knew who it was. i knew that voice. you know? rudy giuliani, america's mayor. >> bill, it's rudy giuliani. president trump's lawyer. i have a few things i had alike to talk over with you. maybe, we can get this thing fixed up. the maricopa county board of supervisors just received this subpoena demanding election officials hand over millions of ballots to state-re

the governor of arizona certified it. the attorney general of arizona and the secretary of state had certified it. >> reporter: records now reveal dozens of text messages and multiple phone calls from the white house, from rudy giuliani and also, the head of arizona's republican party. >> i just talked to president trump, and he would like me to talk to you. >> reporter: trying to put pressure on the meraricopa coun supervisors to intervene in a free and fair election that joe biden won. supervisor bill gates believes it was an attack on the constitution. >> i saw that a voice mail had popped up. it was just unbelievable to hear, you know, instantly i knew who it was. i knew that voice. rudy giuliani, america's mayor. >> it's rudy giuliani, president trump's lawyer. i have a few things i want to talk over with you. >> reporter: the maricopa board of supervisors received this subpoena demanding election officials hand over billions of ballots to state republican politicians launching fraud investigations. >> he wanted us t

we already knew, that joe biden won maricopa county and heon arizona.hat do you make of this when you look at this process? >> you're right to hesitate in calling it an audit. audits are good things. we know how to do election audits. every state should audit its elections but this is not what this was. this was part of a coordinated disinformation campaign to undermine a legitimate election and we should not put too fine a point on it, that the whole goal many month after the effect, almost a year after the election, was to cast doubt on the machinery of this election. as we've seen in the public reception of this draft report, the fact that cyber ninjas did not find that it affected the outcome hasn't sort of decreased speculation or this lack of confidence that the whole audit process has generated. >> reporter: for people who haven't been following this rather circuitous process they took, this was a very bizarre process, they had no experience in election law, they were looking for counterfeit chinese ballots, the whole process seems bizarre is the

fox news said on election night, that joe biden won arizona. also that the sunsets in the west, the giants are the best team in baseball, and my children are monsters. so it seems like they are aligned with the truth and the best thing we can do, lawrence, is to continue to shine a light on all of the fall that donald trump and the election denier party, the republicans, computer -- continue to put up. there >> there is a compelling development theory, rachel refer to the washington post op-ed piece, today, what we are seeing in all of these recounts is kind of a rehearsal for the next presidential election. so that people will get accustomed to the idea that all votes have to be re-counted in order for donald trump to win. and, that there is no limit on the calendar about when recounts must be completed. >> that's right. that's why the january 6th commission is so important. that commission doesn't have the same pressures of time or the pressure of the senate that the impeachment managers had. so to the extent that they can show the world, not

justice department under president obama sued arizona over that proposed law, they argue arizona wascted with existing federal law around immigration, they contended that arizona did not have the right to effectively undo federal law. with its own actions at the state level. that was the legal approach they took in tackling that arizona bill. ultimately, for the most part anyway, the supreme court agreed. in 2012 to supreme court struck down most of that radical immigration law in arizona. and they struck it down on the grounds that they undermines existing federal law. now, today, that would appear to be the relevant legal history we all need to remember. to understands the huge news, that the biden justice department announced this afternoon, because they are apparently going to run that same play again. today the justice department to texas, over the texas's new, law that essentially bans abortion, in their lawsuit, doj accuses texas of passing its abortion ban, quote, in open defiance of the constitution. the constitution, under current president protects a woman's right to get i

we have to start with this sham arizona recount.oe biden ended up getting more votes, but what are your thoughts on all of that? and importantly the fact that republicans in other states want to go down the same sham audit road. it really does seem like a strategy. >> it is. and, look, that's the right word for it. this whole process was a sham from beginning to end. and even though it underscored biden's victory in arizona, it really had no capacity to confirm it because it wasn't like a serious investigation. what it was, i think, clearly from the point of view of the sponsors was a pretext to both sow doubt in the election process and thus seed the ground for trump if he runs again in 2024 to make similar claims of fraud as he did in 2020, but also to provide the pretext for measures to restrict access to the vote. you know, the republicans in arizona came out of this today kind of unashamed and basically saying, well, let's look at more ways to make it tougher to vote. i think that is the real message here. this is part of a bro