'If You Can Keep It': Donald Trump And Election Interference

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Today, how might lawmakers respond to election interference ahead of the midterms? That was the primary question being asked during a meeting earlier this month between top Senate Democrats and election experts. It all happened just weeks after President Trump signed a second executive order on elections. It gives the U.S. Postal Service, part of the Trump administration, drastic new control over who gets to vote by mail. And it's facing legal challenges as well. But that's not all. The president has continued to spread unfounded claims about the insecurity of U.S. elections, including in the recent California, and mayoral elections, which he's called rigged.

He's characterizing his new order as a means to shore up trust in voting. And remember, it's about voter integrity. We want to have honest voting in our country, because if you don't have honest voting, you can't have really a nation. Trump's Department of Justice and FBI have also seized 2020 ballots from key voting district and launched investigations into voting rights groups. He's also installed election denier Bill Pulte as the act. Acting Director of National Intelligence.

So how is the president using his power to undermine the electoral process? And what's at stake for our democracy if election interference succeeds? I'm Jen White. And I'm Todd's Willie. You're listening to the 1A podcast. For our weekly politics series, if you can keep it, we ask how is the president using his power to undermine the electoral process? And what's at stake for our democracy if election interference succeeds? We'll be back with answers to those.

questions and more after this short break. Stay with us. This message comes from Granger. For the ones who get it done, Granger offers the professional grade products you need to get the job done. With fast delivery and access to technical product experts ready to help you meet any challenge, call, clickgranger.com or just stop by. This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab with its original podcast. on investing. It's hosted by Liz Ann Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist and Colin Martin, head of fixed income research and strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research. Each week, Liz Ann, Colin, and their guests analyze economic developments and bring context to

conversations around stocks, fixed income, the economy, and more. Download the latest episode and subscribe at Schwab.com slash oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts. As America marks 250 years, remember, We the people make a free press possible. Together, we hold the powerful to account with reporting for the public funded by the public at plus.npr.org. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. It's the latest installment of If You Can Keep It, our weekly politics and democracy series. With us now in studio is Ambassador Norman Eisen.

He's the former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic. He's also the co-founder and executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund. That's a nonpartisan coalition working to protect and restore American democracy. Norm, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. Also with us in studio is Eileen O'Connor. She's a senior counsel and manager in the Brennan Center's voting rights and elections program. She's also a former trial attorney in the voting section of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice.

Eileen, it's great to have you. Thank you. Norm, let's just start with what the Constitution. says about elections. It gives states and Congress the power to make laws governing elections, not the president. How does the Constitution define the scope of that power? The president's power to touch our elections is extremely limited by the Constitution. That principle has been the case for the entirety of our two century plus history. we have just reaffirmed it in a case that we at the Democracy Defenders Fund, together with the Brennan Center and others won last year when Donald Trump tried to impose his first executive order taking over American elections.

And the court noted the president has no such power. Now we are litigating his second effort to take them over together with these. interferences around the country, seizing ballots, investigating jurisdictions just last week, subpoenas in Ohio, all illegitimate. Let's take those two executive orders that you mentioned piece by piece real quick. Norm mentioned two of them. Eileen, what was the first one? What did the president attempt to do there? The first one, he attempted a wide variety of things that he had no authority to do.

And as Norm mentioned, it's almost entirely been. blocked or is, you know, will be blocked, I think. It ranged from requiring passports or birth certificates in order to vote, trying to get the EAC, the Election Assistance Commission, to implement that in their voter registration form that they mandate. It tried to have Doge and DHS review state voter files. That was also blocked. Tried to implement actions against states that had mail ballot grace period, so states that allow ballots to be accepted and counted, even if they arrive after Election Day, if they're postmarked by a certain time, tried to do that both through the EAC and through DOJ, and all of those have been blocked.

So that was March of 2025. This March, President Trump's second executive order on elections was issued. It would give the U.S. Postal Service unprecedented control over mail-in voting. Explain how, norm. Well, the executive order includes provisions that if it's allowed to take its full effect, could let the Postal Service withhold ballots that do not, essentially ballots that do not meet a series of criteria that President Trump and his executive branch are seeking to impose the postal service. Such as? Well, for example, if you do not align with a list that the federal government is attempting to build a highly flawed list of permitted voters in the country, the federal government should

not have the power to use the postal service as a gatekeeping function on these flawed, this save, so-called save database in the federal government of who is and is not a permitted voter. Norm, is the Postal Service even tooled to do that, even if it were legally permissible? Are they geared up with the staff and the expertise to take a list of voters per the White House essentially and say this one gets mail? This one does not. Absolutely not, Todd. There's legal obstacles. there's constitutional obstacles, but there's also logistical obstacles.

Over and over again, we've seen the federal government attempt to create these interlocking databases, essentially that would allow President Trump to pick and choose which voters' ballots can be accepted. Now, we are litigating this also, as are my colleagues at Brennan and many other civil rights orgs and others, the political actors who would be affected. And the result of that litigation has been to expose just how difficult this would be to implement. And at the moment, there was a big win in one of the cases last week, allowing that case to proceed.

At the moment, we're skirmishing about whether the cases are ripe. that is whether the federal government has moved far enough along down the path to implement. But make no mistake, this would be profoundly once we reach the merits, profoundly illegal. So that executive order gives the Postal Service sweeping new oversight into who gets to vote by mail. Second executive order also, this is an additional part, directs DHS, the Department of Home land security and the Social Security Administration to create and send a list of all adult citizens living in each state to each state's chief election official. And a list like that wouldn't replace voter registration rules in any particular state. But, Eileen, what would a state do with a

list like that if they got it from the feds? What are they supposed to do with it? That is a great question. And one of the reasons that this whole enterprise that the administration is undertaking is so damaging is it's really designed to just throw chaos into it. There's so many unknowns. There are so many questions of how would states deal with this? Some states might take the responsible approach and follow the state laws and federal laws that are in place and ensure that they don't remove eligible voters from the voter lists. Some states may just send lists out to their counties and their counties just remove voters from those lists. We don't know.

there are no procedures in place because this isn't how it's supposed to work. And so we just have no idea what states would do if they got these lists. Well, I want to hear from each of you on what I think is a really important question to ask. Because even if the courts don't rule in the president's favor, you point it to the chaos that these executive orders are creating. But what does this ongoing baseless assault on election integrity have on the public's belief that our election? are secure. I mean, I'll come to you first. I think the whole purpose behind this is to erode the public's trust in our elections. The first executive order, you know, as Norm explained, it was so outside the bounds of anything that the executive has the authority to do. There was seemingly no way any of it

could have been upheld. So what is the point of it? The point of it wasn't actually to get those changes in place. The point of it is to erode the trust that the public has in our elections. And similarly, this mail-in ballot, or excuse me, the mail voting executive order, this more recent one, is also just designed to throw chaos in and to just make Americans not trust our election system so that if the results don't go a certain way, this year, 2028, then there is room to, you know, challenge that, or the administration would see that there's room to challenge that. Norm, your thoughts? Both of the executive orders have an common focus on who is and is not a citizen entitled

to vote. There's a disinformation campaign around the false claim that non-citizens are voting. In fact, the extremely conservative Heritage Foundation says that happens so infrequently that it amounts to zero statistical incidents. Coming up, Senate Democrats and top election experts met earlier this month to plan responses to election interference scenarios. What that meeting reveals about the health of our democracy. We'll be right back.

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Listen to We Keep Us Safe on the Embedded podcast from NPR. Let's get back into the conversation. We're discussing potential threats to election security during the midterms. Ed in St. Louis messages to say, I worked as an election protection volunteer with Missouri Voter Protection Coalition. We monitor polling places on Election Day and assist voters who require special assistance to vote. Since 2016, I've noticed a major uptick in attempts to intimidate voters at the polls. In 2020, as I was working at polling places, there were groups

of men driving by in trucks with large magazines. They would yell at voters and the police never intervened. Well, last week, during a confirmation hearing for nominees to the U.S.PS Board of Governors, Michigan Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin questioned Jeffrey Bronsky about the president's executive order on mail-in voting. He's one of Trump's nominees for the board. Do you believe that the U.S. Postal Service has a role in adjudicating who gets to vote in this country? Mr. Brodsky, do you want to start? I think the Postal Service needs to receive the balance and deliver them as quickly as possible. But I have to get your approval as Board of Governor members to vote in my own state? We will follow the law. And as far as I know,

that's not yet the law. Norm, just plainly, what's the likelihood? that President Trump's executive order on mail-in voting survives all of these court challenges. Like his first election takeover EO, the second one focusing on the Postal Service is going to fail. We've seen preliminary indications of that most recently in the ruling last week, allowing the case to proceed. the courts may want to look at the actual implementation because it's such a crazy Rube Goldberg machine that the president has built with this second EO. I think voters need to know that free and fair voting will be vigorously defended. We've been through this now, together as a nation, since 2020, including things

like those trucks driving by that Ed wrote you about. And we will all work together to make sure votes count. Voters can be confident, but it is going to be a big fight. At 2020, you're referring to, of course, January 6th, the attempt to overturn that election. Even since up until the very last month, Trump administration nominees come before the Senate for Department of Justice, U.S. attorney, ambassadorships. they get asked by senators who won the 2020 election, and person after person, they won't answer. So it's still in front of Congress even today.

Earlier this year, the FBI sees 2020 voting records from key swing districts in Georgia and Arizona. The Trump administration has also requested confidential voter files from nearly every state. And earlier this month, this was mentioned a little bit earlier in Ohio. the FBI sees documents from a group that supports voter registration efforts in that state. So, I lean, Ohio, Arizona, Georgia, these are all midterm battleground states or states that have battleground districts, at least. They could help determine the balance of power in Congress in November, of course. How are you interpreting the administration's actions in these states all the way up to these

Senate confirmation hearings that I mentioned where would-be officials refuse to say the fact that we all know to be true, Joe Biden won the election. I think there are a couple different ways to look at it. One is the backward-looking obsession with who won the 2020 election. And a lot of the Department of Justice and the administration's actions are motivated by that, just unable to let go, just unable to accept what the results of the 2020 election were. You know, that's the raid in Fulton County to get those ballots, was based, you know, the affidavit underlying the warrant. was based on, you know, lies about the 2020 election.

The fact that folks who come before the Senate, you know, refused to answer that question. Again, that's just this obsession. But then the forward-looking is the efforts to undermine American confidence in our electoral results that we've seen, but also really sinister, I think, efforts to tamp down civic engagement. And so what you saw in Ohio was really outrageous, this attack on a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that registers voters, gets them out to the polls, does all the good work that is necessary to keep our democracy robust, to keep people engaged to make it accessible for voters in Ohio. And so attacking them, and presumably that's that may be the first of several, that's sort of sending a message.

to folks who do this sort of work, watch out, we're coming after you. And so that's another, in addition to trying to damage electoral, the confidence of Americans in our system, also trying to make people scared to do the engagement that's necessary for a robust democracy. Well, what of you has a question about that raid in Fulton County?

Zach emails earlier this year, former Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was part of the FBI raid of the Fulton County, Georgia election offices. I haven't heard much about any fallout of what happened there. Have there been any legal challenges, executive orders or other consequences, either for the administration or elections as a result of those actions? Eileen, any updates?

So I believe that Fulton County is still engaged in a legal dispute with the Department of Justice over that raid. I do think one effect of that, which we've seen in courts across the country, and federal courts across the country is that the Department of Justice is no longer being afforded the presumption by the courts that they have done their homework,

that they are being honest and upfront, that they are doing the high-quality work that until last year was expected of and received from attorneys of the Department of Justice. As you know, the staff at the Department of Justice, the career staff has undergone a huge shift and you no longer have the same folks who were doing the hard work administration after administration, Republican Democrat, doing that work now.

And it's, you know, it's damaged the Department of Justice's reputation and, indeed, courts across the country and other jurisdictions, you know, outside of Georgia are questioning what attorneys from the Department of Justice are saying and, you know, looking much harder at what may be presented by an FBI agent for a warrant than they would have previous. I just want to mention briefly here that we recently had a conversation about the Justice Department's use of the grand jury process and some of the corruption that's been unveiled in the midst of their, let's say, the change of approach to how they're using grand juries. You can find that conversation over at the 1A.org under the If You Can Keep It series tab. Meanwhile, you mentioned the FBI, DOJ election deniers installed in important positions, both public. and not so well known in agencies like that, Kash Patel, who directs the FBI prominent election denier. Janine Piro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, famous for her election denial rhetoric on Fox News before she was hired by Donald Trump.

And you just mentioned, or Zach just mentioned Tulsi Gabbard, the former director of national intelligence. She's gone now, but the new acting is Bill Pulte. We've talked about him on this show before. He worked in the federal housing administration, helped Donald Trump. Trump prosecute some of his enemies. He's an election denier, too, a very public one, and now he's in charge, at least acting as DNI. Norm, how do you think people in these, I mentioned the high-profile ones. There are many dozens in less high-profile positions. As a former DOJ official, you would know

about them, but how does that affect any races that the president might claim are going to be fraudulent in November if he loses them? Well, the installation of Mr. Bill Pulte is a very important example at Democracy Defenders Fund. We represent Dr. Lisa Cook. We've litigated that case all the way up to the Supreme Court. That attempted termination of Dr. Cook was based on a baseless allegations that Mr. Bill Pulte made about Dr. Cook. They were, as a result, enjoined by a federal court, that injunction remains in place. having a and and Bill Pulte has been involved in so many others of these cases, Attorney Tent General Letitia James, for example, that's a case that was thrown out by the courts and then grand juries refused to charge that case.

So having somebody as the Director of National Intelligence acting who's shown such a propensity without foundation to attack the president's perceived. enemies is concerning. Again, the good news is, in all of these cases, powerful pushback. We also represent Fulton County where there's an effort going on now to obtain the names of election workers. And we've moved to quash that subpoena, and that's being litigated in court. So voters should know, as bad as the election denial surge is, all of us in the democracy movement are working together to push back on. And what stands out to me, though, is that we hear a lot about the president's actions. You hear about the subpoenas. You hear about the grand jury convenings.

And we hear less about the work pushing back. Part of that is because President Trump is one of the largest bully pulpits in the world. And so how are you thinking about the importance of not just doing the work you're doing, but also making sure the public is aware that you're pushing back in this way? That's a great question. The Brennan Center does a lot of communications work, and that's definitely one of our core modes of doing the work that we do in the democracy space. You know, we're not the litigators usually, but making sure that people do understand what is happening. So we do, you know, lots of podcasts and writing and things like that, but also a lot of work with election officials and helping election officials also get their messages out because they are. the ones who can best explain to all of their constituents, yes, these are safe and secure elections, and here are the ways you can engage and here are the rules. They are the professionals who are running those elections. So our work with election officials is also very helpful, I think,

in reassuring Americans that this elections will continue. They will continue to be safe and secure, and there will be little bumps here and there, but they will continue. Norm, same question to you. And I just want to remind people that this, the Democracy Defenders Fund is a nonpartisan organization. So you're not working on behalf of a political party. You're working on behalf of the American people as a whole. That's right. And in fact, we are comprised of those right, left, and center. A number of notable conservatives work with us or serve on our board, whether it's Judge Michael Ludig or Stephen Risher, the former Republican, very conservative. Mayor Copa County recorder Bill Crystal, many others who do this work. And we think of it as being work that you do in the Court of Law, where we have over 300 cases and matters, including focusing on elections, but also in the Court of Public Opinion, where it's very

important to talk about them. And I will say that in both of those courts, these efforts have suffered substantial losses, as happened in the attempted coup of 2020. And since we have not had a single successful incident of election sabotage. So as bad as it is, as a former ambassador, this is something I'm used to seeing in totalitarian regimes, not our own country. But as bad as it is, the pushback has been strong to defend voters. And they should know, turnout, your vote will be free and fair. And in fact, we have seen record high turnout over the past 17 months since January, 2025 as voters expressed their opposition to these kind of anti-democratic moves. Well, let's talk about California.

We're looking forward to the midterms, but there have been primaries already. California just recently had mayoral race in Los Angeles gubernatorial elections, as Jen mentioned earlier. and President Trump attacked California's historically slow vote counting process as rigged. He got right in there and because his chosen candidate didn't win, he called the whole thing rigged. Now, here's House Speaker Mike Johnson fanning those flames for Donald Trump in the Capitol. Listen. Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream that is impossible to prove, but I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.

This is tennis without the net. So far upstream and so diabolical, you can't. possibly prove it. This is not Donald Trump himself, but this is Mike Johnson. He has a long history of doing this kind of thing on Trump's behalf, blaming undocumented people for non-citizen voting, for which he has no evidence. So while the president and the House Speaker's claims of fraud is clearly unfounded, California, Eileen, provided an opportunity for Trump here with their slow vote count also. It gave an opening. He's not an excuse for him to jump in and lie to people, but they did provide an opening with a very, very slow count.

What can California do better to tighten this up and make it harder for Donald Trump to undermine their election? I would hate to put this on California because... Well, I try to stipulate that it's not their fault. Right, right. You know, as we just heard, it's impossible to prove that it was fraudulent because it wasn't. In terms of, I think it right now just goes back to messaging and making sure people underwereux. understand, the count took a long time because they were following the rules that they had in place. Different states have different rules about how you can cast a ballot, how the ballots are counted.

You know, one of the details people don't realize, like, when you can start processing the ballots. Some states don't allow election workers to start opening the ballots and processing them before election day, and that might not sound like it takes a long time, but it does when you're talking about millions of envelopes that need to be opened. So there are ways that states can, you know, change their rules to make sure that things are, you know, done as quickly as possible. In an election year, it does not make sense to change your election rules because that just inserts chaos into the process. But I think here it's a public messaging issue. It's getting the people to understand what the process is.

Still to come, the SAVE Act has stalled in the Senate. But some states have taken up election reform in their own legislatures, where election laws are changing. changing when we return. Stay with us.

This message comes from Granger. For the ones who get it done, Granger offers the professional grade products you need to get the job done. With fast delivery and access to technical product experts ready to help you meet any challenge, call, clickgranger.com, or just stop by. This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab, with its original podcast on investing. Each week, you'll get thoughtful, in-depth analysis of both the stock and the bond markets. Listen today and subscribe at Schwab.com slash on investing or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. President Trump has tried passing his election agenda through Congress.

He's come up against a brick wall so far called the United States Senate three election-focused bills, the Save Act, the Save America Act, and the Make Elections Great Again, or Mega Act, would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and eliminate online and mail-in voter registration all across America. So far, none of these efforts have passed the Senate. Here's the president earlier this year talking about the Save Act. I think the elections are so rigged and we have to do something about it and we're going to do something about it, but we cannot continue to have, and frankly, the Senate and the House, they ought to get together and they ought to pass the Save America Act so that you have voter ID and it's so important you have proof of citizen.

citizenship, little thing like proof of citizenship, and also mail-in-voting, which is so crooked. Now, as we've already noted earlier in the show, it is already illegal for non-citizens to vote, and non-citizen voting is extremely rare, according to all the credible studies. And we should also note here that President Trump has voted using mail-in-voting himself. Yeah, so we just wanted to remind folks. And his party has begged him to back off of the attacks on mail-in-voting because it is becoming increasingly popular and convenient for his own voters. So operatives in his own party wish he wouldn't do this, but he's focused on it.

Here's one study, the Center for Election, Innovation, and Research. We're talking about non-citizen voting. They found that in Michigan, here's an example, election officials identified 16, 16, credible cases of non-citizen voting in the 2024 general election out of 5.7 million total votes. I can't do the arithmetic, but do it if you'd like. The president is repeatedly called on Republican senators now to eliminate the filibuster and pass the Save Act, but so far they haven't done it. They told him they do not have the votes.

The president is back for more. Last week, he upped the pressure on Congress when he rescinded his own nominee for Director of National Intelligence. That's Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan. He also threatened to block the extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, critical national security legislation, unless the Senate also passes the SAVE Act. And we mentioned Bill Pulte. He's in the mix here.

It's a big mess of the president forcing his view on a Senate where Republicans don't want to pass this. Norm, why are senators, even some senators who call themselves supporters of Donald Trump? Why are they so resistant on the SAVE Act? It starts with where we began the show with the Constitution and Laws. there's no proper role of this kind for the president or for the federal government. This is really a question that is left to the states. The effects of these policies would be, as Trump's own political consultants,

he'd like him actually to cramp his own base. Many of his voters do not have the forms of ID. For example, women who marry and change their names, their birth certificate is not an adequate form of identification anymore. Many of his voters and all American voters don't have passports, rural voters who count on mail-in voting. So the SAVE Act would be a disaster for all voters, including for Republican voters. That's the second part of it. And then finally, it would require a change to the filibuster rules where 60 votes are needed to move legislation. And there's not support to change that rule with the Senate current majority, perhaps looking at a political future very soon where they're going to want to use that rule to stop legislation.

So for all those reasons, it is DOA. but the president just doesn't get it and keeps escalating. Well, we heard from Maggie in Virginia, who emails Trump has lost touch with reality. To him, elections are only fair if he wins. Elections are rigged if he doesn't. He believes that by laying the ground for being able to claim rigged elections in the future, he can get away with it. Unfortunately, to this point, that has generally been true. No one holds him accountable in this or any regard.

Congressional Republicans and the Supreme Court must grow a spine and be the check on executive power that the family. fathers envisioned to keep balance in our federal system. I'm grateful that Virginia offers the option for people to vote absentee in every election. I appreciate that I can fulfill my right to vote without needing to deal with hours-long lines on election day. Now, despite the same act, stalling in the Senate, at least 10 states have passed legislation reflecting one or more of President Trump's preferred election policies that since he resumed office in 2025. Eileen, what are some of these new state election laws and where will voters experience them firsthand this November?

So some of the new laws that you're referring to, I think probably haven't yet taken effect because there are various states that have tried to implement the part of the state of action, you know, that would require a passport or a birth certificate. that doesn't work with the current federal postcard, basically the current way that any voter in the United States is supposed to be able to be able to register to vote. There are some states that may split and have two different, like Arizona has federal only voters, and those are the ones who didn't provide the passport or the birth certificate or some other proof of citizenship. So that's one way that voters may begin to feel that. I don't think any of those changes are going into effect this year, but there may be other states you see where you have a separate federal and state voter rolls. Well, last week, Michigan Democratic Senator Alyssa Slott can introduce the Protect Our Polls Act, which have passed, would block President Trump from deploying soldiers and federal law enforcement agents ahead of midterm elections.

And the bill comes after President Trump said he would not rule out sending guard troops of ICE agents to the polls. Norm, how else are we seeing Democratic-led states pushing back against potential election interference or intimidation? In California, they've passed legislation that would limit and create liability for those who wrongly interfere in elections. In other states, they've expanded their attorney general, the very successful, Attorney General litigation campaign that has stopped Trump again and again. They've added additional litigators. In other states, they've increased funding for poll workers and protecting the casting of ballots.

So the states are getting ready for this unprecedented onslaught that we've seen. And I think voters should feel confident. that the pro-voter majority in this country, it's a super majority in polls. You see high, high numbers of the American people who believe in the nonpartisan administration of elections and frown on these kinds of shenanigans. And don't believe the 2020 election was stolen supporting this. So Donald Trump and the election deniers are up against a very substantial set of hurdle. and so far they've been tripped up, even in the United States Supreme Court, which we at Democracy Defenders Fund worked on this case, ruled that Trump cannot freely deploy the National Guard for these kinds of shenanigans. So the obstacles are there to allow free and fair voting, the obstacles for the election deniers.

Now, one of the very public concerns of pro-democracy Democrats and Republicans, people of good faith across the political speculations, has been what's the plan? What's the plan when the election interference comes? The writing is not on one wall. It's on every wall. And the president has tried it before. So the assumption they say should be it's going to happen. So in this case, Democrats or elected Republicans of good faith, what is the plan for when it happens? That's been the question. And a lot of people feel like they have not heard enough. Norm, you were in a meeting, I think, within the last month with, I believe, Senate Democrats, going. over this question of sort of a war game, a war table about what to do when. Take us inside that meeting. What was discussed? Well, it was convened by a Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, and it was a big square table with about 14 senators

and representatives of civil society and elections experts. The Brennan Center was represented there. In my capacity, I was asked to, was a tabletop exercise role playing what's every different way the election can be attacked and how would we respond? And everybody had a different role, the senators, the civil society representatives. I played the Republican election lawyer and attorney general whose mission was to attack the election. I've done that often in tabletop exercises because I've been litigating for so long. And we went through every major scenario and talked about how pro-democracy forces, irrespective of party, can step up to defend. What if ballots or voting machines are seized, as we've seen in Fulton County? What if there are criminal investigations, as we just saw in Ohio?

What if the litigation system is abused, as we saw in 2020, with those 63 cases to attempt to block certification of elections? What if ICE or the National Guard is deployed? And there are good, strong moves. And I believe the courts ultimately and the court of public opinion will hold if and when those things are tried. And of course, many of them, the preliminary skirmishes are happening now. This is not a fantasy. But as I say, voters can know the pushback is very strong. You mentioned, sorry, you mentioned courts and voters.

They're up to the challenge. What about Democrats and Republicans of good faith? There's a lot of criticism out there that they are not stepping up. There's no credible threat. hey, in the future, you'll, I don't know, you'll go to jail, you'll be impeached, we're going to use our power to prevent you. And I've read a lot of people, not just Democrats, complaining that that type of deterrent doesn't seem to be there by elected officials. Well, flipping to the other side of the hill, minority leader of the House, Hakeem Jeffries,

has been very strong that if, as is expected, the House changes hands, there will be accountability. There will be investigations. States are moving legislation to hold those who do wrong accountable. In the ICE arena, for example, we're seeing prosecutions. DAs have banded together to prosecutions of those who have violated the law in manhandling protesters. And DAs have banded together to say we will hold people accountable. So I think there will be strong accountability in the future. I want to quickly touch on something, Eileen, that we haven't really spoken about yet, and that's the effect of all of this on local election offices, how they function, how willing people are to be election workers in the current climate. Yeah, one thing I wanted to add to what Norm is saying was that in addition to, you know, Senate Democrats doing tabletop exercises across the country, you know, there are thousands of election offices. our election administration system is very spread out across the country. Election officials as well have been doing these tabletop exercises for years now, have been preparing for all of the what-ifs. And so are very much hard at work.

Republican and Democrat elected officials, the secretaries of state, a lot of Republican secretaries of state are pushing back against what the administration wants. But to your question, the impact on election offices has been, and devastating. People understandably do not want to be subject to the type of harassment and intimidation that they face, particularly in 2020, Fulton County, you know, election workers there

were treated just inhumanely. It was terrible. So it is getting, it's harder to recruit, you know, and these are not high-paying, you know, people who are just poll workers, you know, our election day, our election season workers are, you know, a lot of them are volunteers.

They're not well-paid. They're doing it out of us. sense of civic duty and are being, you know, the incentives are not there. And similarly, we've had a lot of, you know, very seasoned election officials, the, you know, the professionals, the county recorders, the folks who run our elections, stepping aside because they're just not up for the maltreatment that they've been getting. Well, that takes us to this question from Jim in Omaha who emails, I'm scared of Trump's election interference, but realistically, as a voter, what can I do? Calling my Congresspeople has never had any effect. Briefly, Norm,

what do you think? The ultimate safeguard of American democracy is Americans, and it has been for our entire 250-year history, certainly voting. You can volunteer to be an election worker in a poll or otherwise we need you very badly. Stay informed. Keep on top of how we can keep keep it. I'm going to suggest the new show how we can keep it. If when and up. And talk to your friends and your family. You can get them to work in elections to vote and knock down this terrible disinformation, these lies. So there's so much voters and Americans can do. Well, we'll leave the conversation there for now. That's Norman Eisen. He's former

U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic. He's also the co-founder and executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund. Also with us today, Eileen O'Connor. She's a senior council and manager in the Brennan Center's voting rights and elections program. Norm, Eileen, thanks for speaking with us.

Thank you. Today's producer was Lauren Hamilton. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Jen White. And I'm Todd's Willie. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk more again.

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