Afternoon of the president very simple question would foreignpolicy figure prominently or at all in the election and are three panelists and myself included knew the answer to the question before he began. Not so today. The question we posed will american democracy survive november 3 and beyond is unanswerable. Maybe overly dramatically rendered but they are simply too many unknowns in too many uncertainties and fears about the consequences of this election. F however there also hopes. Rachel kleinfeld is written and i would put myself in agreement on this reflecting the fact that for many its hard to imagine that the u. S. Will find a way to muddle through and argued on sunday that well definitely muddle through and then some. Let me quote what he said. Meanwhile the scenarios that have been spun out in reputable publications where trump induces republican state legislatures te overrule the clear outcome in their states or militia violence intimidate the Supreme Court into vacating a blatant victory bear no relationship to the term presidency we naturally experience. Are we granting is not plotting a coup because the germ like plotting and capabilities that the conspicuously last maybe but our conviction i would argue end of faith in american story and in the american democracy will somehow magically and inexorably triumph and everything will turn out to be okay cannot and should not and never should be taken for granted. If our founders didnt do it neither did some of our greatest president s and leaders. Rarely has this republic been more stake and fewer elections have taken place in a sense of greater crisis and uncertainty not to mention the problem is mailin ballots which will constitute a huge percentage of the votes counted. I would count at least five crises interlocked, if pandemic the worst since the great influenza pandemic of 1918, an economican recession which has many economists scratching their heads with respect to structural problems and challenges in the economy, polarization and civil unrest driven biracial, class and political divisions a loss of confidence in our institutions with the post office to the census and a president the First American history who has already said repeatedly in publicly that he will not abide by the results of the election. As Barton Gellman has noted ttrump may win or lose but he will never concede and its more than just a wrister listed formulaic speech. Its a symbol that legitimizes the peaceful transfer of power in our electoral system so how bad couldal it get . Are nightmare scenarios likely . What are the core challenges to the election and do we have the institutional guardrails congress the courts the constitution to keep us on track . Rachel is pointed out how do we even begin to repair broken political culture and social and political contract and perhaps most important i think as Michael Steele has stated quoting Martin Luther king quote our life since the day we become silent about the things that mattered. So what can we do about alltt this . This challenge of this threat before it materializes if and when it does. Fortunately all is not lost. We have three extraordinary presenters to lead us out of the wilderness or at least to guide us and asked the kinds of questions that we need to ask and create some realitybased answers. I will skip their resumes and only say bam adebayo is a former and Senior Adviser to boykin project and Barton Gellman is in the atlantic and evolves in his recent article and wrote the book dark mirror Edward Snowden as was the bestselling angler and Rachel Kleinfeld senior fellow where she focuses on and i might have excels in an extraordinary fashion and writing and speaking on issues from law to security to government conflicter and postconflict and so the drill is simple. Each will president for five minutes or so beginning with a moderated round of questions and thank you and they from the audience. Ciep,. Org or tweet at us carnegie endow using the hashtag carnegie connects. So going on for too long. Michael, im going to turn it over to you. Thats no problem. Thanks, i appreciate it. Its great to be here and particularly fun to be on the panel with rachel whom aye gotten to know and work with over the past year or so and pjust i agree with everything u said, just incredible, incredible insightful talents. And great to be with you, buddy, i appreciate the work youre doing over at the atlantic. Lets get right into the questions because i think its an important one, democracy survive november 3rd. And3r the short answer is, yeah, yeah, it will [laughter] it may look a little different, but it will, you know . Its kind of ironic that ive got some of my republican friends like senator mike lee s,saying that were not a democracy, and thats not the most important thing now. [laughter] i mean, lets set that crazy awe side. But the fact of the matter, the fact of the matter is it really goes to the heart of the answer to the point, it survives if you want it to. It survives if we, the people, want it to. From dr. King which, for me, is so salient and important right now that, you know, we really become our own end when we sort of turn a blind you to things that matter. We, in this democracy, we end this grand american experiment when we decide to no longer care about the things that matter. So, folks, what matters to you . This election matters to a lot ofio americans, the outcome of this election matters to a lot of americans. But even more important than that is the various institutions that have safeguarded our rights and our liberties from our courts to our legislative branches, to our executive leaders from president to county executives. They all have played a role in securing the promise that laid out in our founding documents. You know, while the execution of those ideas and ideals have been flawed and problematic over the years, the underlying words still matter. We, the people, in order to form a morerd Perfect Union. It didnt say to form a Perfect Union or to say that we were. We are constantly striving in this republic to create a democracy, to create a vows and to give power a voice and to give power to t people. So when i look at this election, that is paramount for me. It is why i stand in opposition to few own party my own party, because i feel theyve wawalked away from those ideas d those values for the musings and the rantings of one man. George washington proved that this country was not just about one person, it was not about one individual. Donald trump, unfortunately, is trying to prove him wrong with. Wrong. And i have faith and reliance in the American People when they look at this and they see where we are and what this means to them and their families who, more importantly to the future of this country, that they will step into the power that is granted to them in those founding words, we, the people. The Court Challenges that we face right now to having a legitimate election is how we shore up those institutions. So the writings of individuals like bard and the work of individuals like rachel and a lot of smart people across this country matters now more than ever before. Their ability to coalesce and condense ideas and facts and information,ts to inform the citizenry not just about whats at stake, but the underlying truths that support whats at stake, that supports an open, free, Fair Election where we see litigation now in places like texas where the governor said, well, we only want one dropoff box in a county of 5 Million People. Okay. Let that sink in. Now, they will say, oh, no, thats not Voter Suppression at all. 5 Million People going to one location to drop off a their ballots. Yeah, thats Voter Suppression. So being informed and engaged and understanding what the thing is youre seeing and hearing mattersin at these times and whw conferrings like this thconversations like this with people way smarter than me im just a political guy. Im just a guy happened to get elected, i know a little bit about that and politics, but i rely on my secretaries of state and, you know, people who have studied this, the political scientists, the lawyers and, you know, the folks who kind of deal with the machinations of these things from a legal as well as a societal standpoint so that we anl understand exactly whats at stake. The prospects of what happens over the next few weeks leading up to the election is are ctcertainly in the referendum between the election and the inauguration itself does matter. So as ive said repeatedly on Election Night, folks, just get a tall glass of your favorite adult beverage [laughter] sit back and watch the process unfold. Stay calm. And that, and the reason i can be calm is because of the hard work and information thats being put out front to sort of help me understand exactly what to expect on that, on the back end. Yes, we have a president whos saying he wants his supporters to go be poll watchers. Well, lets be clear about that, they just cant show up and be poll watcher. Being a poll watcher is a specific regulated position in every county in this country. You have the county parties and the state parties have to identify ahead of time who those poll watchers are. So i just cant show up at my neighborhood poll and start, you know, injecting myself into that process. Understanding what can be done, what cant be done, the consequences, the violations that may occur does matter. And thats why conversations like this are so important, and im so glad to be a part of them. So ill turn it over now so smarter people can lay out more. Michael, i must say your reputation has preceded you, and youve given us all, me for sure, a boost of enthusiasm and hope. And i wouldnt rule out, by the way, the rules of politicians. Because the problem you described is not its necessary. Bart and rachel are critically important, necessary to the repair of what alls us. Yeah. But its clearly not sufficient. Committed individuals like you involved in the pluck conversationon and the political in the public conversation and the political process, thats also going to be extremely important. Thanks again. Bart gellman, over to you. Well, i find michael reassuring, yeah, and because the sort of voice of experience plus paying very, very close attention to whats happening now and look at things with a bit of perspective. Hi am, nonetheless, somewhat moe concerned, i think, about the prospects for a normal election or for getting through it intact at the far end. This is not going to be a normal election. Were already past that. Theres no chance ofdy it. We have a president who has worked hard to delegitimate the vote count, to tell people in advance that they cannot trust that the vote count will be accurate. There is almost nothing that could undermine the electoral process more than that, than to have an Authority Figure telling you9 that the one mechanism we have for deciding who rules us, who we, the people, are delegating our political power to is broken. Its filled with fraud, its rigged. Now, trump has said explicit explicitly not off the cuff, but in his prepared remarks as he accepted the republican nomination for president on august 24th, he said the only way that we can lose this election is if the vote is rigged. So he has already ruled out the possibility that we, the people, democratically by our own act or volition are going to remove hum from power. I mean, in any other country if the ruler said that, we would be veryry concerned. He also has given several versions, which weve all heard, of a refusal to guarantee that he would honor the results of tthe election and enable a peaceful transfer of power. The one that was most alarming to me is the one, and you always have to be careful about imposing too much coherence on the sort of word salad that comes out of his mouth, but i thought the message was fairly clear. He said in answer to the question about peaceful transfer of power, well, as you know, we have p a very big problem with e ballot and with ballot fraud, and i think he meant the mailin ballot. If you fix that, then therell be a peaceful and then he switched direction in his sentence. There wont be a transfer, frankly. Therell be a continuation. He is saying that if the countingin goes the only way he thinks is acceptable, then hes reelected. So i think we can safely say based on his record and based on husband actual his actual words that under no circumstances literally will trump concede defeat in this election. And that turns out to be a very big deal, because concession is the way we have ended elections in this country for well over a years. Its the moment of concession that tells you the fight is over and that as the political scientists would say it constitutes the authority of the incoming president. It is that more than any other single fact about the election because we have no umpire. This is a game in which we dont have someone who keeps track of the score, keeps track of the time, blows the whistle and say, and says, okay, well, you won and you lost. And it doesnt matter how much the players or the coaches belly ache about it, thats e the result. Its over. And everyone understands that a decisive result has been achieved. People sometimes talk about the risking with trump or the concern even though it sounds pan tsa call fantastical is that he might lose the election and refuse to leave. And, in fact, our system does know very well how to respond to that. Ou would be escorted out. He would have some e help with his luggage. The oval office would be readied for the next, the next occupant. Thats not the concern. The concern is that trump could use the power of his office and the power of his control over his followers to prevent a decisive result from being obtained, to prevent a decisive result against him. If he has we have never had a president who has said amud the count amid the count that there is fraud happening, the vote being rigged before our eyes. Andat it is unclear how well respond to that. Especially if he uses his, the power of his office, if an alternative official point of view. Not just his twitter can account, not just the words that come out when he faces a microphone, but actions of the government itself. Suppose that the Justice Department announces a fraud in progress and an immediate investigation as the vote is being counted. Suppose votes are impounded as evidence . Suppose postal inspectors find irregularities with the maul vote and suspend delivery of mail ballots . Or decide to reprocess everything to make sure that a valid postmark has been applied . Its actuallyy not the case that the Postal Service requires by regulation that a postmark be stamped on every letter. Sometimes theyre not. But election laws in some states require a postmark for mailin ballots. So suppose the postal inspectors say, well, lets make sure we reprocess all of these and that theres a ballot in postmark to comply with electoral law and by doing so takes that past the deadline. Trump has power that could be abused and might even be found to be unlawful eventually after the fact. But we dont get doothers in the election. And after the doothers in the election. Theres also what happens on election day itself. This is the first election in 40 years that is taking place without the cover sight of the oversight of a federal court over republican, quoteunquote, ballot security measures. Which is another word for Voter Suppression. Theres a from text of guarding a pretext of guarding against voter fraud. Voter fraud is almost entirely a fictional concept. It is, it is vanishingly rare. There was a good study done of one billion votes cast between 2000 and 2014, of which 31 were identified as fraudulent. 31 out of one billion. This is the scale of the problem, if you can call it a problem. It certainly has no prospect whatsoever of affecting the results of an election. But on grounds of voter fraud, on grounds of this pretext, republicans used to do things like they would have offduty police and sheriffs and former military folks and large people carrying gun withs, wearing arm bands, confronting voters, demanding to review their credentials, warning them that its a felony to vote if youre not eligible or if youre in the wrong precinct, putting up big signs, generally intimidating people of color in minority neighborhoods. And trump has, for example, called out philadelphia which happens to be a large democratic strongholdld in an essential swg state that he must win to be president. And he may be behind in the polls in pennsylvania, but if he can shave a couple of points off by intimidating voters on the day of and by causing mail hundred votes not to be mailin votes not to be counted, who knows where that goes . And then theres what michael mentioned, the whole time between election day and the swearing in of the new president. There areth milestones in that process that actually decide who the president is going to be. Ordinarily, they are mere formalities and even a wellinformed voter would be forgiven for not a knowing that december 14th is a very big day, or that january 6th is a very bug day which is when conference formally counts the votes that have been cast by the Electoral College. And there are many opportunities, as i described in my piece for the atlantic for a candidate who has influence over fellow members of his party to interfere with the normal functioning of the Electoral College or the normal functioning of thehe count. And i think if you take trump seriously as a man who will not concede and who is prepared to breach all norms and boundaries as long as he can get away with it, then the question is going to be how far the American Public will allow him to go, how far fellow members of his party will allow him to go. If you asked the average republican senator or member of the house or governor, state legislator g whether they would allow the president to steal the deection, whether they would allow the president to use his power to keep control of his office notwithstanding the votes of the people, they would all say no. And this would probably mean it. But if they are committed already, i say are, or to a narrative of voter fraud and if trump says its not that ive otbeen outvoted, its that the count has been poisoned, im not as confident that i know how they will respond. And thats the concern that we have t