bart gelman, writer for the atlantic, we appreciate it.nk you very much. >> thanks for having me. ♪ judy: the united states has left afghanistan but it is just one part of a region that general frank mckenzie counts as is was possibility. he oversees the middle east and southwest asia as the top general at u.s. central command. not only did he run the evacuation of afghanistan, but he commands troops throughout the region, especially in syria and iraq. he must keep his eyes on iran. it is a full docket and he sat down with nick schifrin this morning. nick: thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. nick: what is the threat from iran and how will they confront? >> it is the most serious threat in the region today, and it manifests in several directions. versus their expanded ballistic missile force, which they have expanded and in the past three years we have seen the addition of unmanned aerial systems, can be drones, typically of different sizes they could employ. the other thing that is concerning his proxy forces. principally in t

what bart gelman is talking about is another aspect of it as well.all of those different facets together with the electoral attempts to instill partisan election officials in office, and you've got a -- you've got a mix that you have to be really careful about. >> well, getting to something you laid out recently in the few seconds we have left, that you think can be done to kind of remove at least some of the threat to democracy is fix -- fix the final end around with the electoral count on january 6. fix the electoral count act of 1886 then. what is that going to do in short? >> well, this gets into a little legal nerd talk, kate, but the answer is that it -- there's a disputed election, a dispute sets of electors from the different states and that comes to congress. the procedures from there are a muddle. people on the left and the right agree that the law is antiquated and unclear, and so it just makes sense from any party, from both parties' perspective, to fix the law so the rules are clear. republicans use the electoral count act offensively as

i think it's something that echoes what bart gelman told me in the "crossover" episode, an interview i did with him, why is this happening, "all in," "crossover," a long interview. he said that, journalists are allowed to be biased in terms of certain things. one of them is the foundation for free expression that is essentially liberal democracy. we can do that, view that as part of what we're allowed to advocate for. mona, i wonder where you come down on this. because i'm not sure in some ways -- i feel a little more unsure about what i want from everyone. other than the focus. i mean, i think the focus on understanding what's happening is the key beginning to anything else. and i'm not sure what comes after that, i have to be honest. >> well, i would say a couple of things. first of all, it's really interesting that when you look at polling of americans and ask, is democracy under assault? you get huge percentages of republicans who say yes. >> yes. >> but not huge percentages of democrats, right? so the republicans believe that they are -- that the last election was stolen and the

house had any comment, have you had any discussions with the white house about an article that bart gelman january 6th was just a practice, and the moves being made in state legislatures around the country to install people sympathetic to donald trump and sympathetic to this idea that the election was stolen, are they worried about the threat to democracy here at home in 2024? >> reporter: that's an article that's keeping a lot of people up at night, gelman was spot on in his predictions what have we would see leading up to the calling of the election and some of the challenges that followed. now, it's interesting, as i mentioned, this summit is something president biden called for as a candidate. the issue of potential democracies backsliding, he gave a speech a few months ago in which he pointed out there are fewer democracies now than this were in just the last 20 years, it's been a real concern of his. it's especially a heightened concern now that we're seeing democracy at risk here in the united states. there are certainly questions about the u.s. standing to even host this kind of su

also joining us, msnbc political analyst, claire mccaskill and bart gelman, staff writer at the atlantic. bart, yesterday, i didn't want to embarrass you today, but i'll go ahead and do it. i said the sort of genre of journalism has a new standard bearer in you and this reporting. i wonder if we can put this piece of reporting in the frame of the election. so much of what you warned about and you quote people for that piece, all of it and more has come to pass. tell me about this moment now and what the future portends. >> the movement now is that we are in a place where republican operatives and conservatives and trump allies are analyzing everything that went wrong in the coup attempt last time. everything that thwarted trump. whether it was georgia, the secretary of state saying no, we will not find 12,000 more votes for trump than actually exist or whether it was court cases or legislatures. and they're going around methodically and finding ways to cure the defects as they see it, that prevented them from having the coup last time. so they're changing laws. they are, they're sort of