Other parts of it. But on top of ukraine, between ukraine and the baltic states, is the large and still quite soviet country of belarus. Belarus did become an independent country when the soviet union collapsed in 1991. They established a new form of government. They constituted themselves as the republic of belarus. They held an election for president of that republic for the first time in 1994. In that first election in 1994, they picked this guy, alexander lukashenko, to be their first ever president. Again, they picked him in 1994. He is still there today. I say that belarus is kind of soviet because belarus is often described as europes last dictatorship, and he is the dictator. But belarus is both effectively a dictatorship and also nominally its a republic. It is a place that holds elections. And those two things may seem contrary, that you would be a dictatorship but also one that holds elections. But in practice, those two things often come together. I mean if you think about it, right, basically by definition, if you are an authoritarian leader, if youre a dictator, you dont believe in like checks and balances in government, right . You dont believe in anybody else in government, anybody else in any position in your country being able to interfere with you just dictating what you want to happen and getting it. By definition, right . Authoritarian leaders and dictators also dont have to believe in doing a good job in government, right . They dont have to. They dont have to worry about it. Under authoritarian rule, theres no democratic feedback loop from voters and constituents thats going to get in your way of doing whatever you want, right . I mean if you are a citizen living under the rule of a dictator or an authoritarian leader and it turns out you dont have good government, right, you are dissatisfied with the governing skills of the dictator in your country and how your country is going under his leadership and it is always his, not hers right . What are you going to do if youre a dissatisfied citizen in a country like that . Are you going to hold a demonstration . Are you going to petition the leader with your grievances . Really . Maybe youre going to run for office to try to unseat the guy who youre unhappy with . Yeah, good luck with any of those things in an authoritarian country. That said, places run by dictators and authoritarians quite often do have some form of elections. But the point of those elections in an authoritarian system is not to, you know, actually set competing candidates and competing Political Parties and competing governing ideas against each other to let the people decide in a free and fair contest. I mean the point of holding purportedly democratic elections in authoritarian states is just to validate the leaders hold on power, right . To sort of pseudoauthenticate the dictators position both to other countries, but also domestically as well, right . You ray iify the position of the leader. You shut up anybody who complains that hes illegitimately Holding Office or that the people of his country object to his continued rule. So in a lot of places that are dick tatsorships, you do get elections but there are often ways to tell maybe its not the way we think of an election here, right . So like in turkmenistan, you get the president , quote, unquote, reelected with 97 of the vote. In uzbekistan, the president gets 91 of the vote. Oh, hes slipping, right . Bashar al assad, the dictator in syria, announces 98 of the people have voted to keep him in power. Really . Tell me more. The castro brothers in cuba, 99 of the vote. Kim jongil in north korea, 99 of the vote. Saddam hussein, 100 of the vote. You know, these guys working it hard enough, they could probably get 110 of the vote. In the right precincts. But, you know, after going through those kind of motions, you know, voila, the dictator says to the world and his own country, look, im been overwhelmingly democratically reelected to my post. The people love me. Im not pushing myself on anybody. Theyve asked for me to stay. They love me. This weekend in belarus, the guy who has been the dictator there for more than 25 years, the first and only president that country has ever had since the collapse of the soviet union, he stood for reelection, and theres no reason to think in a real election that he would be reelected. He has badly botched, for example, his countrys coronavirus response, which has led to widespread anger and criticism. The economy in belarus is circling the drain. Heres a specific dynamic that applies to delbelarus. His relationship with putin and russia has been very, very important to his power. Russia has been propping him up, but his relationship with putin and russia has gone a little weird recently. Now that is in doubt. That has also sort of shook his hold on power in belarus. But, you know, dictators do as dictators do. In the days leading up to the vote, he arrested the Senior Campaign staff of the main candidate running against him. Lukashenko had his Security Forces attack Peaceful Protesters in the capital city of minsk including yanking people off the streets and throwing them into unmarked vans. Ahem. When his government announced this weekend that he had received, oh, say, lets call it 80 of the vote in this election, protesters nevertheless flooded the streets, and lukashenko called out the troops against them. And we have seen disturbing scenes out of the streets of minsk, Police Trucks driving at speed into protesters. The internet being cut off in parts of the capital. Phone service being mostly cut off. The candidate who stood against him in this election has now disappeared. The dictator, lukashenko, says he is facing a revolution thats trying to overthrow him, and thats why all this force is necessary, because he wont allow himself to be overthrown. Well, lukashenko may or may not be facing a revolution tonight or in the long run in belarus. But what he is facing is a country that apparently does not want him in power anymore and is willing to say so. In a country under authoritarian rule, even when they hold elections, elections are not supposed to be for that purpose. Theyre not supposed to be a legitimate means by which People Choose the future of their country. In an authoritarian country, under authoritarian rule, elections are just there as window dressing. Theyre just supposed to validate the rulers hold on power. In hong kong, Security Forces have now started arresting even very well known, very well connected public figures including today arresting a media tycoon named jimmy lai. China has apparently looked around the world and decided that this year, 2020, is the perfect time to grind out any special freedoms that hong kong has enjoyed in years past despite a constitution that supposedly protects those freedoms. Under the draconian and farreaching new security law that china has imposed in hong kong, Security Forces are now just straightup raiding a major newspaper, denouncing it as includeding with foreign powers, security raided the paper, searched the desks and computers of reporters, seized and arrested the executive in charge of the paper. Why are they doing it . Because they can. Because theyve been testing what they can get away with in terms of international opinion, and theyre finding they can do whatever they want. I mean theyve been arresting activists and demonstrators and prodemocracy politicians. They have banned a whole bunch of prodemocracy politicians from competing, from participating in the elections that hong kong was supposed to have this fall. But then after banning all the prodemocracy politicians from participating in those elections, they then did away with any worries about what might happen in that election anyway by canceling that election altogether. They said, yeah, no, were not going to do an election now. Well hold it next year instead, maybe, well see. Here at home, President Trump of course has recently threatened to delay the election this fall here in the u. S. He does not have the power to delay the election, but he is raising that prospect for a reason. His attorney general, william barr, is now publicly denouncing american protesters and demonstrators as bowl she vics. He literally used the world bowl she vics and fascists and communists all at once. Anything else . Attorney general william barr has recently overseen the deployment of federal agents against american protesters on american streets this summer. With Coronavirus Infections now topping 5 million in this country, with a quarter of the worlds cases in the united states, with 164,000 americans dead, with front pages like this one this is the Sacramento Bee in california yesterday. You see those little dots . Really hard to see what they all are. Each of those is a coffin, pictorial representation of a coffin. 10,000 coffins on the front page, representing 10,000 californians dead from covid already and counting. With School Reopening efforts going bust all over the country simply because the spread of the virus is not under control and schools cannot safely open until the spread of the virus is under control, with realistic economic prospects remaining bleak, again, because the spread of the virus is not under control and that not only affects schools. It affects work and travel and everything. With unemployment still above 10 , the highest level since the great depression. With the Positivity Rate in terms of test results in mississippi up near 21 as of now, this far into it, which is astonishing. With texas Positivity Rate above 19 today. Even though it seemed like maybe texas was Getting Better there for a while, texas Positivity Rate is over 19 right now. For contrast, new york is well under 1 now. I mean with current polls, even with many grains of salt about polling, with current polls showing the president losing to his democratic challenger joe biden in nearly every swing state in the country, with all of that and with what we have come to learn about this president and what he is not only interested in doing but what he is able to do to the government when he puts his mind to it, there are now real worries about the means by which hes going to try to hold on to power in less than 90 days when the election happens. In the leadup to that election, during that election, and after. Here, for example, is a recent ad, a political ad. Its against the president. Its from priorities usa, and i want to show you this ad because i feel like it puts these worries in the starkest possible terms in a way thats sort of easier to show than for me to say. I will also tell you this ad is intense enough that if you are watching with kids right now, you might want to pause me for a second and not have the kiddos watch this, depending on the particular kiddo. I really believe this is worth seeing, but i will admit its not for everyone. All right. Are you ready . Its three seconds. Im going to show it in three, two, one. I am your president of law and order. Dont resist. Im not i am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and Law Enforcement officers. Please dont be too nice. Vote this out. That ad is called police state, again its from priorities usa. As a general matter, we associate authoritarian leaders and dictators with a government using violence at large scale against citizens of that country and also curtailing the rights and freedoms of citizens of that country, intimidating them, limiting the means by which anybody might object to that or get any recourse for it. Thats the very visible, very scary stuff that we think about in terms of authoritarian regimes, what were watching unfold right now, for example, in belarus. But as a Political Science matter, its not as visual, but it is worth noting that as a matter of Political Science, we are also really used to seeing authoritarian leaders get reelected, not because theyre popular, right . Not because their beleaguered populations like them and freely choose them, but because authoritarian leaders only care about elections as window dressing, right . They only care about elections for the purpose of validating the leaders hold on power. They dont care about real, free and fair democracy. But as a general rule, authoritarian leaders get reelected in part because theyre absolutely shameless about what they are willing to apply to an election to make sure they hold on to power. They are willing to use all the powers of the government that they control to ensure that they win the next election to keep themselves in power. As a general principle, that goes hand in hand with authoritarian leadership, and thats why authoritarianism and elections most often yield to what appear to be reelection results for authoritarian leaders. They bring the powers of the government to bear to ensure that they win the election to keep them in power. Now, were going to be talking this hour about the u. S. Postal service of all things. Because of the pandemic, it has emerged as a brandnew, neverbeforeneeded chokepoint in terms of the Trump Administration having potential direct influence over the next election and over voting nation wieds. I mean think about the contrast between this and previous elections. In previous elections, every state had basically total control over voting and elections, right . Independently, all 50 states all doing it their own way, 50 different ways. Thats how its set up in our constitution. This year simply because of the pandemic, all over the country all of us in almost every state, we will all be, for the first time, relying on one part of the federal government, controlled by the Trump Administration, to receive and cast our ballots. We have procedurally federalized our elections by running all of our receipt and submission of our ballots through one part of the federal government controlled by the president. And we dont think of the Postal Service as a particularly political thing. We dont think of protecting it as critical to our ability to stay a democratic country, but by circumstance and political eventuality, here we are. Friday night we reported on nearly two dozen senior Postal Service leaders being summarily removed from their jobs by the new guy who trump just put in charge there. Today politico reporting that the Trump White House is actively working on ways they can sabotage voting through their newly tight control over the Postal Service. They are spitballing new ways they may be able to use the power of the government they now run to make sure that trump keeps hold of power by sabotaging the vote through the Postal Service. The Postal Service is a new weird part of that power dynamic simply because of the pandemic and the logistical imperatives that its imposed on it. Theyre apparently going for it. That said, of course, theres no substitute for the Justice Department being used that way too, right . Having the Justice Department working for the president s political aims . Thats priceless. Clearing and protecting friends and coconspirators of the president , people who would lie to Law Enforcement or cover for him to keep him from getting in trouble. The Justice Department directing criminal investigations and potentially prosecutions of the president s political enemies and his perceived opponents. I mean that, as the president was coming into office, was seen as the sort of holy grail of what he might try to grab hold of in terms of corrupting the u. S. Government to his own purposes and to bolster his own hold on power. Well, you know, you talk about these things as worstcase scenarios. Then they happen. Then you just have to live with them and figure out the way out of it. We have now seen one by one, even the most supposedly independent federal prosecutors offices pressured and in some cases taken over by attorney general bill barr with direct consequences for the prosecutions of people like roger stone and Michael Flynn and ongoing investigations into the president s businesses and his lawyers, right . Now we are steaming toward the election with a public promise from attorney general barr that he will unveil the results of a criminal investigation targeting senior officials in the Obama Administration, and that public reveal, he says, will happen before the election in which President Trump, of course, will face off against the Obama Administrations Vice President , joe biden. William barr promising that the results of the criminal investigation he has ordered and he is supervising into Obama Administration officials, that will be out before the election. Use the power of the government you control to hold on to power. That is the game. Thats how they do it. Thats the basic principle. And behold, into this life that we are now living and that understanding of the circumstances in which the president is trying to hold on to power, behold, here comes Robert Draper at the New York Times magazine with the next maybe biggest shoe to drop along these lines. He tells the story, the astonishingly, mostly untold story of how the intelligence agencies are falling to it now too. Robert drapers long new piece at the New York Times magazine is, i think, due out sort of over the course of the next week. The New York Times put it on their front page for a hot minute this weekend then took it down. Now its hard to find. I dont understand that at all, but this piece is making news now far and wide for good reason. Robert draper speaks with 40 sources for this story, including multiple sources who he says have served in the Intelligence Community under this president. Draper reports that last year, last summer, last july, the National Intelligence estimate rendered as one of its key judgments, key judgment number two, quote, that in the 2020 election, russia favored the current president , donald trump. Quote, the intelligence provided to the nies authors indicated that in the leadup to 2020, russia worked in support of the democratic president ial candidate Bernie Sanders as well. But the lead author of the nie explained to colleagues, quote, that this reflected not a genuine preference for Bernie Sanders but rather an effort to weaken the Democratic Party and ultimately help the current u. S. President , donald trump. Interesting details, key judgments in the National Intelligence estimate as of july last year. Now, thats in place as of july last year. Thats what the National Intelligence estimate had concluded in part. Draper reports, though, that the president was, quote, displeased with this assessment and that resulted in the thendirector of National Intelligence, dan coats, being told to change that assessment. Quote, i can confirm that one of my staffers who was aware of the controversy requested that i modify that assessment, dan coats tells Robert Draper. Quote, but i said no. No. We need to stick to what the analysts have said. Dan coats said he was told to change that assessment july of last year. Days later, from Robert Drapers reporting, quote, not long after he was approached about the change to the nie, dan coats was fired as director of National Intelligence, or, rather, the president announced by tweet that dan coats would be leaving much sooner than he expected to. So they forced coats out. Then the next guy arrives. The next person installed in the director of National Intelligence job is joseph mcguire. When hes installed in that job, the nie still wasnt finalized, and apparently the white house still wanted that assessment about russia to be changed. And then in september of last year, with mcguire in post because dan coats had been fired, in fact, that assessment was changed. Quote, no longer did key judgment number two clearly state that russia favored the current president according to an individual who compared the two versions of the nie side by side. Instead the new version concluded that russian leaders probably assessed that chances to improve relations with the u. S. Will diminish under a different u. S. President. Such a change, a former Senior Intelligence official said, would amount to a distinction without a difference and a way to make sure that Joseph Maguire doesnt get fired. But the distinction was, in fact, both real and important. A document intended to explain russias playbook for the Upcoming Elections no longer included an explanation of what russias immediate goal was. Omitting that Crucial Detail would later allow the white house to question the credibility of the testimony of intelligence and Law Enforcement officials who informed lawmakers of russias interest in trumps reelection. In a closed door Congressional Committee briefing early this year. It would also set in motion maguires own departure in spite of the efforts to protect him. Joseph maguire, who is installed of director of National Intelligence after dan coats gets fired dan coats, says, no, i wont change that assessment in the nie. Maguire gets put in. Maguire okays the change, this change to the intelligence, dropping the clear statement that russia was working to elect trump. Joseph maguire was also the intelligence director who refused to forward to congress the whistleblower complaint from a cia analyst about the president and ukraine, the complaint that ultimately led to kicking off the president s impeachment. And this is remarkable. Ultimately from drapers reporting, it appears to have been the same day that Joseph Maguire testified about that whistleblower thing in the morning, public testimony, he indignantly stood up for his own integrity saying in all his years in government service, his integrity had never before been questioned. In the morning he went up to capitol hill and gave this soliloquy to congress about sitting on the whistleblower complaint to protect donald trump, and how nobody should question his integrity around that. Thats when he did in the morning. And then that afternoon, what did he do . He went back to his office and voted to approve the National Intelligence estimate that took out all the worst stuff about russia, all the stuff that the white house wanted taken out. And then after doing both of those things to benefit the president , Joseph Maguire got fired anyway. The president fired him anyway because a deputy in maguires office who was put in charge of protecting our elections against foreign interference, she briefed congress and told them the truth about what russia was doing in 2020 and why. And so the president fired maguire anyway. Robert draper also reports that then Homeland Security secretary Bridget Nielsen was upbraided by the white house when she warned foreign diplomats from multiple countries including russia that they shouldnt interfere in the 2018 midterms. Draper also reports that the 2018 cyberattack that shut down the Internet Research agency in russia in 2018 and stopped them from interfering in the 2018 midterms, draper reports that that was something that President Trump had nothing to do with, and he did not order it. But this is just a remarkable story, particularly given the moment that we are in. The president bending the intelligence agencies to say what he wants said, to present what appears to be intelligence information but to present it in a way that looks the best for him and that omits things that look really bad for him, at his insistence. In Robert Drapers reporting, not one, but two directors of National Intelligence have been fired shortly after they told too much of the truth about russia trying to keep him in power. In dan coats case, he would not change that estimate in the National Intelligence estimate. In maguires case, his deputy told the truth about what russia was doing to reelect trump in 2020. In both cases, soon thereafter they had to unexpectedly get out. In maguires case, he kowtowed to President Trump in other ways, tried to placate him in other ways, but it doesnt matter. Draper says, quote, the optioned faced by the or assert that independence and find yourself replaced with a more sycophantic alternative. Or bend and compromise the agencys independence and find yourself replaced anyway. Leaders with authoritarian tendencies and designs do tend to get reelected. Whether or not they can get elected in the first place is one thing. Once theyve got the reins of power, they will use the reins of that power to hold on and not leave. Authoritarian leaders tend to get reelected because they are willing to improperly abuse the power of the government they control to keep themselves in power. That is true as a general principle. Theres no reason to believe that any country is immune from that. We believed heading into this presidency that the most potent, the most grave parts of our government, the really serious parts of our government, right, the parts of our government where abuse of those elements of our government could be catastrophic for our democracy, we came into this thinking those institutions had enough internal strength, a Strong Enough internal culture, enough internal protections, enough strong minded and brave career professionals in them, that efforts to corrupt them would fail, right . That they could never be rotted on purpose and turned toward the political designs of a president with authoritarian intentions. Thats what we thought we had. Turns out this was not an idle test. This is our country now, and Robert Draper joins us live here next. Weve always put safety first. And we always will. For people. For the future. And there has never been a summer when its mattered more. Wherever you go, summer safely. 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Evony the kings return download now evony the kings return alice loves the scent of gain so much, she wished there was a way to make it last longer. Say hello to your fairy godmother alice. And longlasting gain scent beads. Part of the irresistible scent collection from gain its more than just fast. It keeps all your devices running smoothly. With builtin security that protects your kids. Protects your info and gives you 24 7 peace of mind that if its connected, its protected. Even that that petcamera thingy. Can your internet do that . Xfinity xfi can because its simple, easy, awesome. Get advanced security free with the xfi gateway. Download the xfi app today. Joining us now is Robert Draper, writer at large for the New York Times magazine. Hes the authors of several books including to start a war how the Bush Administration took america into iraq. Robert draper has just published this landmark piece of reporting called unwanted truths inside battles with u. S. Intelligence agencies. Among the scoops embedded here is news that the white house pressured the director of National Intelligence to change an Intelligence Community conclusion that russia wanted President Trump reelected in 2020. The intelligence director at the time, dan coats, said no. He was then fired. His successor signed off on the change, but he was then fired after one of his deputies briefed congress that, in fact, russia is working to reelect President Trump this year. Mr. Draper, thank you for this reporting and for joining us here tonight to help us understand it. Thanks very much for your time. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Ive said a lot of words about the even more words that you have reported here and have printed. Let me just ask if ive got any wrong. Thank you for asking because i did want to issue two clarifications. The first one and the most important is im not aware that joe maguire had anything to do with the alteration of the National Intelligence estimate. This took place when his hands were very much full with the ukraine whistleblower incident as you correctly pointed out. So this really when the he was testifying on the hill all day long, so he wasnt able to chair that meeting. So thats the first thing. The second thing is that, you know, i dont want the story to give anyone the impression that the Intelligence Community as a whole has been bent to the will of donald trump. Theres still plenty of analysts and case officers who are doing very, very good work. The problem is that the people above them have been in the line of fire with the Trump Administration and have begun to water things down, such as the intelligence products do not have the integrity that they once did. That does not mean they are saying black and white and up is down but they are saying things in a more equivocating fashion. We saw this most recently this past friday when an official and i released this Election Security report saying that for the first time, yes, it did appear that russia favored trump. But essentially in the same breath saying that china and iran favored biden, as if it were kind of a jump ball or something. That is the kind of equivocation that you did not see before the trump presidency. I feel like thank you for those clarifications and for drilling down on those things in that way. I feel like when i read at the beginning of your piece that dan coats was pressured to change the National Intelligence estimate around russias intentions for the 2020 election and he said no, it felt like, wow, thats really big news about dan coats to find out that that happened just before he was fired is itself a scoop. But then to find out that the National Intelligence estimate was, in fact, watered down sort of in the way that the white house wanted under joe maguire, it does seem like the sort of bending to the white houses will, equivocating on things that arent equivocal, casting things in a way that is designed not to upset the president or put things in the way that he likes. It does feel like its not just pressure, but its effective pressure thats actually working on the i. C. Oh, for sure. You know, i should also probably point out, rachel, that the matter of russia and Election Security has been a sore subject since before trumps presidency. Everyone knew in the nsc, in the west wing, and certainly in the Intelligence Community that to bring up the very matter of russia interfering in 2016, its likely interference patterns through the midterms and into 2020, and most of all that it favored trump would be to call into question the legitimacy of his presidency. Thats how he would receive this. So because it was such an unpleasant thing, as i report out, then chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and then National Security adviser john bolton went to considerable lengths to keep this completely off the agenda. And when it would get on the agenda, for example, when there was a single nsc meeting relating to russia and Election Security, kirstjen nielsen, then the secretary of Homeland Security, didnt get five minutes into it before trump started interrupting her and asking her questions about the wall along the mexican border. So this has been a distasteful subject to him. People around him have known that and they have adjusted themselves unfortunately accordingly. And as they have adjusted themselves, its not only maybe at least for a short term sort of lubricated their own relationship with the president to keep themselves in office among other things for however many more days they can sustain it, but it has compromised what the Intelligence Community has concluded or said about these things. I guess i found myself wondering, because you talked to so many people for this piece, both people directly involved and smart observers. Dan coats going on the record with you by name about what he went through and what happened here is just a remarkable achievement in terms of the reporting here. It just made me wonder if you got the impression through all this reporting and all these conversations that there is a way out of this, that there is that there isnt a no way out set of options for intelligence officials, particularly people at the higher end of the Intelligence Community. Is there a way to do their work with integrity, without bending it to the president s will, in ways that arent compromising and dont ultimately kind of screw over the president for shortterm political survival . Well, yes and no. I mean if there are subjects that are not deemed politically sensitive, if the president has no interest in them, doesnt care about them one way or the other, then those people working on those particular subjects are free to go about their business. But when it has to do something that is a hot button issue for the president russia is certainly right up there. But also we saw in late january 2019 when thendirector coats gave his annual worldwide threats testimony and routinely just went over all of the Foreign Policy threats that this nation faces. But in so doing implicitly was issuing a stinging rebuttal to President Trumps supposed Foreign Policy accomplishments by saying, in fact, that russia is interfering in our elections, and north korea absolutely does not intend to relinquish its nuclear capability. These kinds of things that coats got in hot water for it. The president brought him into the oval office and demanded to know why he was saying these things, and coats and cia director gina haspel said those are the facts. Those are the facts that we have been talking about in the nsc every day. Those are the kinds of subjects where the top intelligence officials and for that matter the people who give the daily brief to the president find themselves walking into the propeller as it were. Robert draper, author of this blockbuster piece of new reporting at the New York Times magazine, unwanted truths inside battles with u. S. Intelligence agencies. Walking into the propeller is an absolutely apt metaphor for what you have described here. Remarkable reporting. Thank you. Thank you, rachel. Much more to get to us tonight. Stay with us. Stay with us jim, could you uh kick the tires . Oh yes. Can you change the color inside the car . Oh sure. How about blue . Thats more cyan but. Jump in the back seat, jim. Act like my kids. How much longer . Exactly how they sound. Its got massaging seats too, right . Oh yeahhhhh. Oh yeahhhhh. Visit the mercedesbenz summer event or shop online at participating dealers. Get 0 apr financing up to 36 months on select new and certified preowned models. Techand your car. , were committed to taking care of you tech well fix it right with nocontact service you can trust. Tech so if you have auto glass damage, stay safe with safelite. Singers safelite repair, safelite replace. Whatintroducing the new sleepld . Number 360 smart bed. Now temperature balancing, so you can sleep better together. 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On friday night we had latebreaking news that President Trumps new handpicked head of the Postal Service had, without warning, removed from their jobs nearly two dozen top execs at the Postal Service, which has the effect of centralizing power over mail delivery under trumps new appointee there. That sudden shakeup came on the same day that democrats in Congress Asked the Inspector General to investigate the dramatic lastminute changes the new head of the post office has made to deliberately slow down the mail. This of course is all happening before the First National election that will be conducted mostly by mail because of the pandemic. But now today we have further reporting that the president and his team at the white house are busy dreaming up what else they can do to undermine voting this fall beyond just having trumps handpicked mega donor break the Postal Service on purpose. Remarkable reporting from politico today. Quote, around the time trump started mudsing about delaying the election, aides and outside advisers began scrambling to ponder possible executive actions he could take to curb mailin voting, everything from directing the Postal Service to not deliver certain ballots to p toing local officials from counting them after election day. Quote, trump has mused to aides about what executive orders if any he could sign to curb voting by mail. Some conservative allies have suggested trump could try to stop local officials from counting remote ballots after election day and direct the Postal Service to not deliver certain ballots to voters using an emergency declaration. Thats not so much a reelection campaign, which implies that the goal is to earn more votes than his opponent. Its more of a playbook for how to use the levers of power and the apparatus of government to keep the leader in power no matter what happens. Oh, a pandemic requires that most people vote by mail . Then we will set about controlling and disrupting the mail because we can. That said, can they . The president and his allies will not be able to do this without a fight. The Democratic Partys foremost litigator on these issues joins us live here next. Stay with us. Ay with us dont just think about where youre headed this summer. Think about how youll get there. And now that you can lease or buy a new lincoln remotely or in person. Discovering that feeling has never been more effortless. The lincoln summer invitation sales event is here. I hope my insurance pays for it. Can you tell me how much this will be . [cashier] 67. Sorry. Wait, have you heard about goodrx . Goodrx finds free coupons to help you save up to 80 on your prescriptions. Wow, i had no idea. [announcer] goodrx, stop paying too much for your prescriptions. You know when your dog is itching for a treat. Itching for an outing or itching for some cuddle time. But you may not know when hes itching for help licking for help or rubbing for help. If your dog does these frequently. They may be signs of an allergic skin condition that needs treatment. Dont wait. Talk to your veterinarian and learn more at itchingforhelp. Com. Arab archers eagle guards dragon cavalries ninja warriors champion cavalries who will you choose . Make friends and conquer the world. Evony the kings return download now is a friendly neighbor. Theyre teachers, retirees, vets, people committed to doing right by getting the count right. If you havent responded yet, theyll be stopping by to ask some simple questions that will inform how billions in federal funds are spent on local Services Every year for the next decade. So when they come knocking, say hi from a safe distance and do your part to support your community. Time is running out. Shape your future. Start here at 2020census. Gov. Mark elias is a bigdeal lawyer in Democratic Party politics. He has argued and won four cases before the u. S. Supreme court. Hes represented dozens of senators and governors and members of congress and president ial candidates. He and his team are currently litigating three dozen Voting Rights cases ahead of the november election. By necessity for this pandemic election, a lot of their work right now is aimed specifically at safeguarding peoples ability to vote through the mail. Well, today mark elias issued a warning that the u. S. Mail system is not ready for november, and he says that is partly by design. Quote, the Trump Administration has turned to weakening the Postal Service in a cynical effort to keep people from voting. Voters cant be forced to cross their fingers and hope that their ballots will count. Our job between now and election day is to make sure we keep up the fight for Voting Rights, including making sure all ballots cast by mail are counted. Joining us now is mark elias. Hes the founder of democracy docket. Mr. Elias, i really appreciate you taking the time. Thanks. Happy to be here. Is the stuff that is going on around the Postal Service, including this reporting today from politico that the president and his advisers are thinking about executive orders to try to stop the counting of votes cast through the mail is this just one in a long line of things like this that youve been fighting for years, or does this feel qualitatively more worrying than the usual stuff . Well, i think its qualitatively more worrying for two reasons. First of all, for the reasons you set out earlier, which is that donald trump has, at a minimum, authoritarian impulses and seems willing to violate every norm that any other president would abide by. The second, of course, is that we are going to have more voting by mail in 2020 than weve ever had before. So all of the flaws in the process will show up bigger, and all of the ballots that are at risk will grow in size. The Postal Service is not a typical battleground. Its not a typical sort of arena in which we fight these things out. I mean obviously absentee ballots are a thing, and overseas mailin ballots are a thing, and weve always conducted some proportion of the vote by mail. There are a few states that have been doing mostly vote by mail for a long time now. But the idea that a National Election would have this sort of chokepoint in this one part of the federal government where we see the president trying to exert new control, it does feel new. As a litigator who fights this thing, is this a new thing is this something new that you and your colleagues have to learn in terms of what levers there are to make sure that the post office does things right . Yeah, this is entirely new. I mean in that respect, you know, im glabflabbergasted tha are in a circumstance that donald trump first replaced the postmaster general with a political crony, and now is taking step after step after step, including a friday night massacre of 23 employees before that, there had already been resignations and replacements of the nonpartisan staff, and every day we get another indication that, as you say, the Postal Service is being weaponized to be a chokepoint against vote by mail. And that is unprecedented in our history. Make no mistake about it, weve had the Postal Service deliver ballots through wars, through a civil war, through a great depression, and never, ever before have we seen a president or Political Party try to weaponize it to systematically keep voters from voting. Americans in some ways like to make fun of the Postal Service or complain about the mail and things like that. But i think by and large, people love the Postal Service and think of it as something that is, you know, not only rooted in the constitution but something that is sort of a miracle, that you can put a stamp on something, and it gets across the country almost always to where it needs to go, almost always in a surprisingly quick amount of time. I think people also have a soft spot for their letter carriers and for the people they know are involved in this. Theyre integrated into American Life and our infrastructure of daily life in a way i think people have a soft spot for. Given that and given the kind of stakes that youre describing, is there something that regular citizens can do to kind of to help in terms of protecting the Postal Service and to help in protecting this type of voting that were all basically being forced into because of the epidemic . Yeah, so id say two things. First of all, as you pointed out, the Postal Service is quite popular in red states and in blue states. In fact, its even more popular in some respects or more necessary in rural areas that tend to vote republican. So one thing, you know, a lot of people come on your show and say, you know, Call Congress or put pressure on republican elected officials. This really is an area where putting pressure on republican elected officials can make a difference because their constituents very oftentimes in red districts really, really rely on the mail service. So thats one thing. The second is, you know, everyone who wants to vote by mail should and should have confidence in it. But they need to make sure they vote by mail early because what were likely to see is not a stopping of the postal of the post office or a halting of vote by mail but, rather, what were seeing are systematic delays. The Trump Administration is taking efforts to make the mails move slower around balloting. So people should make sure they are registered, make sure they apply for their absentee ballot early, and make sure when they get it, vote it right away. Get it in. Dont wait until the last minute because getting those ballots in on time is going to be really very important for november. Marc elias, democratic lawyer on elections and Voting Rights, thank you so much for helping us and for your clarity on this tonight. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right. Well be right back. Stay with us. I like liberty mutual. They get that no two people are alike and customize your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. What do you think . I dont see it. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Sir. Youre talking about a first [runnigeneration americanren] from the streets of the Imperial Valley who rose to beat the odds. She worked nights and weekends till she earned herself a masters degree. 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Xfinity xfi can because its simple, easy, awesome. Get advanced security free with the xfi gateway. Download the xfi app today. Heres one way to test if youre a rule of law dork. A little bit of a civics dork maybe. Behold, the youtube page belonging to the u. S. Court of appeals for the d. C. Circuit. Does it thrill you the way it thrills me . That page will light up tomorrow morning at 9 30 a. M. Eastern for an audio only livestream in the mike flynn case. Flynn, of course, was the first trump National Security adviser when he lied to the fbi about his contacts with the russian government, he pled guilty twice to having lied to the fbi about that. But tomorrow is the Appeals Court case over whether attorney general bill barr and the trump Justice Department will be allowed to somewhat inexplicably drop that prosecution even though the judge in that case says he will not be a rubber rubber stamp for them doing so and he wants to look into why exactly theyre dropping that case. Well, tomorrow morning at 9 30 a. M. , well all be able to listen in as ten judges hear that appeal in the mike flynn case. Should be fascinating. All right. That does it for us tonight. See you again tomorrow. Now it is time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. Welcome back. The one regret i had about taking vacation last week was of course i was going to miss the big Vice President ial announcement. Joe bidens running mate. But now i have no regrets. Glad i did. It was nice of joe biden to hold that for you so that you could have a more exciting return to work. Do you have any idea when its going to happen . It has thi