brad raffensperger has written a new book called "integrity counts." mr. , chuck. >> let me start. you have a full annotated transcript of the infamous call from president trump in the height of the efforts to overturn the election. i want to watch a specific audio clip that you write about. here it is. >> that is criminal, you know. that's criminal, okay? that's another criminal -- another of the many criminal events. many criminal' lentz here. i watched you this morning, and you said, well, there was no criminality. all of this stuff is very dangerous stuff when you talk about no criminality. i think it's very dangerous for you to say that. >> in your book, you break in after this point, he's talking about overseas ballots. you write i felt then and still believe today this is a threat. ':zdove today this is a threat. i was never concerned from the standpoint of that. i heard the threat he was making. obviously when he called me an en meef o of the people that ginned up his crowd. i responded in the book and said i would never not follow the constitution,

and so in 2020 brad raffensperger certified the election results in georgia, but what does it say if't? what's at stake for the people of georgia if you don't win in this next election? >> the reality is republicans are putting up secretary of state candidates across our country and in georgia that have already stated they do not believe the legitimacy of the 2020 election. trump's endorsed guy is one of those candidates here in georgia. they're running a coordinated sophisticated campaign and they're targeting states like georgia, arizona, michigan, wisconsin, all of those swing states that would decide the 2024 presidential election. so what we're facing here is not the effort to overturn the 2020 election. what we're facing here is they are setting us up for 2024. georgia could very well be the deciding state for the presidential election, and we've got a nominee on the republican side who is very likely to beat raffensperger if he's exactly somebody who would overturn the will of the people. it's no longer jaubt georgia put our entire country as a whole. >> it's going to be impor

i think you're talking specifically about the secretary of state in georgia, brad raffensperger.sylvania, they were the bulwarks democracy in overturning the election. what you're seeing it avocates to install the big leaders in the republican state nominees in the party with the hope you that can replace somebody like brad raffensperger in georgia with a candidate who would buy into trump's big lie. and use the power of that office to engineer an election in 2024 that could help trump win, even if the votes aren't there. it's a real threat to democracy, according to the experts and the people who really care about this. and it's something to keep an eye on. >> sahil kapur, phil rucker, thank you both. >>> coming up, the trial for lev parnas getting under way in new york city. there are two more lawyer names expected to come up a lot in the next coming weeks -- donald trump and rudy giuliani. we'll be right back. got a couple of bogeys on your six, limu. they need customized car insurance from liberty mutual so they only pay for what they need. what do you say we see what this bi

. >> reporter: but republicans, including top election officials, secretary of state brad raffensperger say state oversights will boost voter confidence. >> we never had that accountability issue before where we could replace a county election board if the situation was so severe. >> reporter: he gained national attention for resisting pressure from former president trump to find enough ballots to overturn biden's narrow win in georgia. and he now faces a difficult primary race against a rival endorsed by mr. trump. >> what we're saying is we need to have fulton county fix its problems that's why there is a review panel right now looking at what's going on. >> reporter: fulton county has had issues. in one of the first pandemic elections in june 2020, voters waited for hours to cast a ballot. democrat rick baron heads the board of elections. >> we had long lines we had poll workers dropping out we lost polling places the remainder of the year we had five elections after that, and we had no -- we didn't have any long lines. >> reporter: there is no evidence of fraud in that race but raff

all republicans are going to remove the brad raffenspergers of this country and put in cronies. i want to read what you write about why. republicans are preparing the battlefield for the struggle to overturn the next presidential election if it doesn't go their way. should they gain majorities in congress they just might be sum of even as i write these words, the idea is an astonishment. the effort to overturn the necks presidential election might be successful. i agree with you. but if that's the case, your party is not powerful. you control the house. you control the senate, you control the white house. why not urgently make federal voting rights legislation about protecting our democrat creation from the ongoing koop? >> i think you are absolutely right. i have had those conversations with the white house about the urgency here, about the imperative of finding a pathway to get the voting rights legislation passed, to guard against these efforts around the country which are a existential threat to our democracy. the infrastructure bill is important, a democracy needs to delive

personally involved, including this infamous call to georgia's republican secretary of state brad raffenspergerhis. i want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. >> it didn't work. >> the facts are the facts. those are the accurate results of that election in november. >> in march, the republican-controlled georgia legislature passed a new law for future elections. a big component, removing the secretary of state from his role as chair of the state election board, stripping much of his power. >> he was removed, no question, because he stood up to trump and refused to find 11,780 votes in trump's attempt to flip the results in georgia. >> i think the republican party of georgia believes he is insufficiently committed to their cause. >> the republican majority in the legislature transferred the power to decide who chairs the state election board to themselves. >> they want to make sure that the people administering the elections in georgia in 2022 and 2024 are going to be of their political liking. >> you understand how it looks from the outside in, that t

reporter: brad raffensperger, the secretary of state, made a serious charge.of justice needs to take a look at what fulton county is doing and how their leadership disenfranchises fulton voters through into competence -- incompetence and malfeasance. it has the justice department reached out and how do you respond? richard: the justice department has reached out and i'm not surprised. he is in a tight primary race for next year and i think his press release is meant to play hoot to his base -- meant to play to his base. you cannot take politics out of this that is where you are at with the press for these. he had sent fulton county up to be his foil and he likes the relationship to be adversarial because it benefits him. reporter: i want to talk about that idea of politics more. this is the largest democratic leaning county in the state. the government is run by republicans in the state and they major county the first one for this new controversial way of reviewing elections and you are currently under of review process in which the state could take over your

such that the guardrails that allowed the secretary of state in georgia, brad raffensperger to push backe have been taken away by the republican-led legislature. so they have the ability to take over the election process if that happens again. that is one of the fundamentals of democracy. and by that i mean people out there, knowing that, a, their votes count, and, b, that they will be counted in a proper way. and, so that's in georgia. in texas what you just played, it is a state that donald trump actually won, but in the counties, in the big cities, harris county is where houston is, huge turnout there for joe biden. why is that? because of the pandemic, people were able to vote because they came up with creative ways like i mentioned, 24-hour voting, drive-through voting and what the legislature there has done, a lot of things, but one of the things that they did is take that away. they looked at basically what worked and worked well, and ended up working well in the democrats' favor and stripped it away. they say it is because they want uniform laws, but if that's the case, they coul

is the lesson they seem to have learned from the insurrection was that if they couldn't get brad raffensperger, the secretary of state in georgia, to find 11,780 votes that don't exist, they seem determined to make sure they have someone in that position and others all over the country who will fraudulently make up votes if they lose again. they are passing laws around the nation to disenfranchise people of color, but also to strip independent elections officials of their duties and give them over to acolytes of donald trump. and that, to me, is a very dangerous development and we need to bring all efforts to resist that. pass hr-1 and voting rights, to launch a stacey abrams-like effort around the country to mobilize the grassroots and push back against these efforts to use the instruments of democracy to tear down democracy itself. >> okay. author, fellow californian, and friend, and congressman adam schiff, thank you so much. good luck with the book and everything else you have on your plate. good to see you. thank you so much. >>> so much new disturbing information has emerged about the mo

in georgia, the notion of brad raffensperger, who is still the secretary of state, pushing back againstute because it is now the republican legislature who can take over if they don't agree with what he does. there are those kinds of safeguards that have been stripped away. it really is about the fundamentals of democracy and that's what we look at in this special. >> and how democracy is being chipped away, right before our very eyes. dana bash, thank you. you can catch dana's special report "stop the vote: the big lie's assault on democracy" it premiers tonight at 9:00 on cnn. >>> controversy erupting around the kyle rittenhouse murder child. a judge ruling the men he shot can be called a lotters and rioters, but not victims, the men he shot dead. why. or welcomed a new family member. they were all out of dogs. our deals are for everyone! it's not complicated. at&t is giving new and existing customers our best deals on every iphone, including up to $800 off the epic iphone 13 and iphone 13 pro. is struggling to manage your type 2 diabetes knocking you out of your zone? lowering your a

. >> reporter: in georgia, republican secretary of state brad raffensperger faced threats as well aftermp's baseless claims of fraud. most were directed at members of his family. >> sending your wife to high school, sending your wife sexualized text and other insulting garbage, and then breaking into your daughter-in-law's town house and leaving the lights on and you know that they were there and then driving by our house. and so those kind of things are stuff that you notice. you do look over your shoulder. and that was all just ginned up by lies and those stirring the pot. >> reporter: across political parties, election officials continue to be falsely accused of mishandling and rigging the 2020 election. there are fears the threats will increase into next year. >> if you count all the fraudulent votes -- >> reporter: as they spout conspiracies as the central complaints. >> that opens the door to adding more political actors, less professional, more political actors into the election space which, again, is incredibly dangerous. >> reporter: a report in 2021 from the brennan center for

was a close race last year, former president trump pressured republican secretary of state brad raffenspergernd him enough votes to win the election. of course raffensperger refused. now raffensperger is up for reelection and trump has endorsed congressman jodie heiss who is unabashedly promoting trump and the big lie. >> these candidates who say the election was stolen from trump, do you sense they are pushing these unfounded, disproven claims that have been overwhelmingly shown to be completely false, because they believe them? or do they just want a trump endorsement? >> no question, the possibility of a trump endorsement is a huge factor in this messaging. and one example i can give you is in the ohio senate race, there are six candidates, five are working strenuously for trump's endorsement. one of those candidates, josh mandel, we wrote about in the story. he talked about how even if this hurts him in a general election, because a majority of voters when you factor in democrats and independents don't think the election was stolen, he doesn't care, he says it's the right thing to do. but

you replace brad raffensperger with jodie hias, who is running to replace him, who knows what he wouldevin mccarthy was the speaker of the house, on january 6th, who knows what he would have done. if you put people who have no sense of ethics or integrity in these positions of power, they can overturn an election. what can the rest of us do about it to prevent that from happening and sadly i did not hear an answer from senator durbin. >> it is awful. it is awful that there is no answer to that. jake, thank you so much for joining us this morning. we appreciate it. i will see you at 4:00 when you're on "the lead." that's when i make dinner and i eat it at 4:45 because i go to bed so early. you're like my dinner companion and i'll see you later. >> well, i will see you. i always consider myself to be speaking directly to you. >> they say if you can reach one person, jake, you happen to know that. it is brianna. >> thank you. that's what i think as well. >> just so you know, tomorrow's saturday, just so you know. you don't have to get up early. you should be okay. >> yeah. i'm programmed.

. >> when her voice was heard assisting trump on the now in famous phone call with brad raffensperger. >> i just want to find 11,780 votes. >> her involvement with trump came as a surprise to many, including her law firm. and ultimately led to her swift departure. . >> thank you very much. . >> mitchell was first pulled in 24 hours after election day as she recounts in a little noticed podcast viewed by cnn. . >> i got a call from mark meadows. i flew to atlanta. and thus began my involvement with the post-election. >> three days later, on the day that joe biden's victory was projected, she was on national tv arguing otherwise. >> just because cnn or even fox news says somebody is president doesn't make them president. >> and she became involved with helping to fund the arizona audit in the 2020 election. >> he was certified as the winner in florida by the proper procedures established -- >> for years, mitchell has been well-known in conservative circles. operating behind the scenes as one of the right wing's most prominent lawyers focusing on voter fraud. >> welcome to the vast right

have taken from the failed insurrection was next time if he couldn't get 11,000, you know, brad raffensperger in georgia to find 11,780 votes that don't exist, he seems determined to make sure there's someone in that position and others who will stuff the ballot box the way raffensperger refused. and that is a real risk to our democracy. >> no, that -- that is really something that we are focused on and we're going to stay on that and as well as some of the -- as you wrote in your book. i was lucky enough to get a copy from you and it's a very well-written book. let's, quickly, talk about the governor's race in virginia. just two days away. there have been reports of a flood of gop poll watchers that have descended across the commonwealth to examine vote tallies and how voters are being checked in. leading fears of voting intimidation. do you see some of this activism at the polls by the gop as an extension of trump's big lie? and what happened on january 6th. do you see any connections? >> i do. absolutely. you know, the big lie about the election that we can't trust elections to decide who

of state candidate is, i am backing them because i have full faith that they will do white brad raffenspergergeorgia. i am packing them with the understanding that when the time comes i will do what they want him to do. >> i have no doubt that mark finish him, who is a recent transplant from michigan, -- as of all arizonans do that, we don't all duda. if elected he will corrupt our process, he will do everything illegal he can to make sure donald trump wins. and there are many people like that all over the world. that's why i'm telling you, the insurgency, the coup, it's move beyond the streets, now it's moving into trying to get some of these men and women elected, it's the start scenario states office, everything they can, basically, because they know they can't win anymore on merit. they can't even win on their ideas because they have none, because all they -- so all they can do really is corrupt the ballot, and try to impose their idea of who should win against us, against isis in those people who believe in democracy, and they should cut across all politics at this point. >> congressman

brad raffensperger. he's now in political trouble and so it's the changing of the rules that i think is super important to pay attention to. but you also need to think about what almost happened in order to keep your eye on those rules. >> very well put. go ahead, elie. >> like i said, trump shot and missed. there is no guarantee that the next guy who takes a shot is going to be as poor of a marksman as trump is. so as we look towards 2022 and 2024 and exactly as emily is saying, they have already changed the very rules of the game to make it easier for trump or the next trump-like person to do exactly what trump was trying to do. >> i think that's the most important point and you're both overlapping on it, which is there was a rehearsal in public by someone who has a certain ability to do certain things, like donald trump does certain things related to fraud, being a con artist, being a communicator who uses media and has used media across the decades, from old school tabloids to new school twitter, and

their duties and give them over to partisans who will find the votes that don't exist that brad raffenspergermp pressed him to do so. what we can do right now is we can defend the right to vote around the country. we need to fight to get voting rights legislation passed in congress, but we also need americans all over the country to be fighting to protect these technocratic independent elections officials and their jobs, to be pushing back against state and local efforts to disenfranchise people. this is what people can do right now to defend their democracy. don't try to do everything. just try to decide in the next year or year and a half, here's the contribution i'm going to make to the protection of our democracy. >> we hear all the time from viewers who just want to know what is it they're supposed to be doing, so thank you for that. california congressman adam schiff. the new book is "midnight in washington: how we almost lost our democracy and still could." >>> in virginia it's neck and neck for governor. what happens on tuesday in a few counties will determine the result. steve kornac

do you think his january 3rd phone call with then georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger, numbernd more than 11,000 votes, is that a smoking gun? >> it is difficult and complicated question, but if you just look at his conduct on his face, calling state officials, asking them to find additional votes that he needs, you know, that's the sort of conduct that clearly rings the bell for criminal interference with an election. it's complicated, because there are difficulties involving the first amendment, involving official power, and frankly, it is a big burden to put on a district attorney in one county in georgia to ask her to shoulder that burden when others haven't. but alex, i still have taped to the wall in my office the exact number of votes he asked for, 11,780. it's been in front of me all these months, because if you simply think about what he did, asked them to find him one more vote than he needed to win georgia, a crucial state, there is no way that we can ignore that conduct. perhaps it's lawful, but awful. but increasingly, as more facts come to light, it looks like it

. >> reporter: but republicans, including top election official secretary of state brad raffenspergerl boost voter confidence. >> we've never had that accountability measure before where you can actually replace a county election board if the situation wasn't so severe. >> reporter: raffensperger resisted pressure from former president trump to find enough ballots to overturn biden's narrow win in georgia. and he now faces a difficult primary race against a rival endorsed by mr. trump. >> we need to have fulton county fix its problems. that's why there's review panel looking at what's going on. >> reporter: fulton county has had issues. in one of the first pandemic election in june 2020, voters waited for hours to cast a ballot. democrat rick baron heads the fulton county board of elections. >> we had long lines, poll workers dropping out. the remainder of the year, we had five elections after that and we had no -- we didn't have any long lines. >> reporter: there's no evidence of fraud in that race. but raffensperger points to earlier this month, when fulton county fired two poll wor

. >> reporter: in georgia, republican secretary of state brad raffensperger faced threats as well afters claims of fraud. but among the most disturbing were those directed at members of his family. >> sending your wife sexualized text and all that other kind of insulting garbage. and then, breaking into your daughter-in-law's, you know, townhouse and leaving lights on and you know that they were there and then driving by our house. and so, those are the kind of things are, you know, stuff that you notice. you do look over your shoulder. and that was all just ginned up all by lies. and all by people that were stirring the pot. >> reporter: across the u.s. and across political parties, election officials continue to be falsely accused of mishandling and rigging the 2020 election. there are fears the threats will increase into next year. >> well, i guess, if you count all the fraudulent votes. >> as some republicans spin up doubts about midterms and spout conspiracies as a central plank of their campaigns. >> local election officials are going to leave and then that opens the door to addin

trump backed candidate, i am backing them because i have full faith that they will do what brad raffenspergern georgia, which is i'm backing -- when the time comes, they will do what i want them to do. >> right. they will. and i have no doubt that mash, who is a recent transplant from michigan, we call him a fake cowboy, he walks around in a cowboy -- like all arizonans do that, we don't, fyi. if elected he will corrupt our process, close down polls, do everything illegal he can to make sure donald trump wins. there are many people like that all over the world. the insurgency, the coup has moved beyond the streets. now it's moving into trying to get some of these men and women elected into secretary of state's offices, because they can't win on merits or their ideas, they have none. all they have is a real hate and angst and even then they can't win. all they can do is corrupt the ballot and try to impose their idea of who should win against us, against us as in those people that believe in democracy. this should cut across all politics at this point. >> congressman ruben gallego, thank you s

if brad raffensperger wouldn't find 11,780 votes that don't exist, then donald trump is determined the next time to find someone who will. so we feel a great sense of urgency to protect the country. look, my expectation is we sent in the majority. but regardless, we're going to move quickly, because our democracy is at a really fragile point right now. >> i want to talk about your book, but i want to remind people that during the first impeachment in 2020, i believe it was in your closing speech, you warned -- you warned members of congress and the senate and you warned the american people that if donald trump weren't held accountable then, that he would once again abuse your power and you could be right back there all over again, which the country was after the insurrection on january 6th. let's talk about your book. i want to read this quote, which is -- anyone who has followed you will not be surprised by what you've written or will not be unfamiliar with the passion behind this. you write, our system of government depends on two functional parties. and now we have only one. the gop

the guy that made sure donald trump didn't find his 11,740 votes, brad raffensperger, no hero, is nothere and he's been relaced by someone even scarier. what is sort of the state of alarm? what is the plan for making sure that that slide toward voter suppression, toward rigging the count, toward voter nullification that happen in georgia, doesn't happen every where? >> first, you're right. thank you for correcting me. the reality is that they hit a roadblock and then gave themselves the tools to do it again next time which is that states can overturn elections. and donald trump who could take office in 2025 will be much more authoritarian and surrounded by much more autocratic idiocy than even when he came in in 2017 and he wanted to rely on republicans and generals. we will be starting from a much more authoritarian place in 2025. if you look at the coordinated effort that republicans have to be introducing kind of mirror image voter suppression laws at this level, to be introducing mirror image capacity to overturn the election, to frankly be parroting these conspiracy theories, i t

for example, a taped conversation of donald trump on the phone with brad raffensperger, the secretary of state from georgia, trying to coerce him into fraudulently finding 11,780 votes. because i think so if you or i did that, we would be under indictment by now. >> so, claire, the question is, do you believe that under merrick garland, d.o.j. will enforce these contempt votes in the house? >> it will be interesting to see, first, how quickly d.o.j. acts, and what they do, whether they pursue civil contempt or criminal contempt. if they quickly pursue criminal contempt, we have another problem. that is, there will be every effort by bannon and trump to delay and to try to make this take months, even years. so it's really important, i think, for congress to do a gut check and for nancy pelosi and the chairman of that committee and other members of that committee, including liz cheney, to decide should we go also down the route of inherent contempt, that congress has done in the past. it would be incredibly unusual. but after all, january 6th was incredibly unusual. extraordinary times

these are the exact people and brad raffensperger's perhaps the most famous but not the only one.d out and these are the exact people who donald trump needed in his corner to have a different outcome in 2020. do you feel like if 2020 were to happen again, if we were to call an election tomorrow, that trump has installed enough loyalists to have the outcome different? >> look, i think that the greatest risk to our democracy, i've written this before, is in the election certification process. so, you know, you outlined in the introduction two things. number one, make sure people can vote. the second is that their vote counts. the third, which we didn't used to have to think about in america, was that once the votes are counted, that the people responsible for, you know, the calligraphy certificates and putting a seal on a fancy document would do their jobs. and i am very worried that the certification process in our country, which is essential to being seated in the house and in the senate and to having your electors vote during the electoral college, that ceremony of democracy is b

be enough of an incentive, but to change the way votes are counted, to take out people like brad raffensperger as it gets but simply refused to overthrow the election. that's the scenario that i have -- that i feel like get lost somewhere. >> yeah. but what was the point about the principle? that's the question. you started out with that, going towards the principle. which principle are we talking about? >> i'm talking about the democratic party. if they're going to have another six months of wringing their hands about how noble the filibuster is and how we can't get rid of it to pass federal voting lights legislation and we're just going to watch. 33 states have passed laws that do the nullification thing, most of them. and if we're going to head into the next election with our election systems weakened and corrupted and politicized by taking out the kinds of people who walk the line, even though they were republicans, they're all being primaried by trump picks. if that's where we're heading, we're not going to have federal legislation, at some point it becomes preordained. >> yeah. well, loo

laws being passed, they have been proposed in 48 states, the primaries being run against the brad raffenspergershe game for '22 and '24 and they're doing it really quickly and effectively and doing it with almost zero democratic resistance except for mark elias's lawsuits, which take a lot longer to make their way through the courts than these laws take to make their way through legislative -- legislatures controlled by republicans. and i wonder what you think the remedy is. >> yeah. nicole, there's only two ways republicans return to power. it's by changing hearts and minds or by stealing an election. and you can look at everything that the republicans have done in the last year. there's not a single thing they've done to expand their coalition. there is nothing they have done to expand their coalition based on policies or politics, but what they have done is exercise the authority they have to try to create the tools going into '22 and '24 to essentially rig and steal elections, either by oppressing the opportunities for people to get to the ballot box or by giving authority to otherwise parti

of state brad raffensperger in georgia who refused to participate in donald trump's election fraud, refusing to find 11,000 votes that donald trump said was all he needed in order to overturn the salt in the state. there were election officials across the country who repudiated donald trump's claims of corruption and fraud. in fact, his own homeland security department to clear the 2020 election the most secure in american history. then he went to court, and 61 federal and state courts in the land, from the lowest courts in the land, county district courts, federal district courts, all the way to the supreme court, definitively, meticulously, and comprehensively refuted and rejected every claim that donald trump supporters made, that there was election fraud or electoral corruption. even the claim that some of our colleagues have decided to float again today, which has been rejected all the way up to the supreme court was one that was thoroughly vetted. the idea that when state election administrators or state supreme court's under state constitutions, under state legislative command act in

of state brad raffensperger in georgia who refused to participate in donald trump's election fraud, refusing to find 11,000 votes that donald trump said was all he needed in order to overturn the salt in the state. there were election officials across the country who repudiated donald trump's claims of corruption and fraud. in fact, his own homeland security department to clear the 2020 election the most secure in american history. then he went to court, and 61 federal and state courts in the land, from the lowest courts in the land, county district courts, federal district courts, all the way to the supreme court, definitively, meticulously, and comprehensively refuted and rejected every claim that donald trump supporters made, that there was election fraud or electoral corruption. even the claim that some of our colleagues have decided to float again today, which has been rejected all the way up to the supreme court was one that was thoroughly vetted. the idea that when state election administrators or state supreme court's under state constitutions, under state legislative command act in

brad raraffensperger. he said the country needs another exam nation of election practices like the one in 2005 that was co-chaired by former president jimmy carter and secretary of state james bake e democrat, republican. raffenspergert year after donald trump asked him to look into voter fraud in georgia. >>> let's start there with axios's reporting. how does this work with raffensperger. how is it with the most secure election in u.s. history? >> i think this is something of a safe harbor for him. his state was a ground zero for some of the election disputes last november. he's been pilloried by donald trump and the republican party over his handling of the election. democrats have offered proposals, ways to try and improve the voting process, and so by calling for independent commission, that seems to be the safe maribor every politician falls back to when they can't find their way out of a problem but they want to show they're committed to find some solution. ironically we're at the 20th anniversary of something that seemed to have clarified and called into question the integrity of the voting process, the disputed election in the george bush/al gore election, and yet here we are 20 years later with the commissi