Need any votes. I've got all the votes we need. All i want to make sure is that we guard our vote. The trump plan to cheat instead of when hits a snag. I hope the people in nebraska understand this may come down to a single electoral vote. Can i tell the republican attempt to change nebraska's voting system six weeks before the election failed thanks to one republican state senator. In 2016 president trump one. In 2020 president biden one. Come in and work for the vote. He will join me live. Plus women will be happy, healthy, confident and free. Senator elizabeth warren on trump's message to women and national security spokesman john kirby on the president's final address to the united nations. My fellow leaders, let us never forget some things are more important than staying in power. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york, i am chris hayes. There is a basic dynamic in this election cycle that is not getting enough attention and it is this. The trump era republican party would rather cheat than when and i don't mean they will lie about migrants or teachers or trans people, they want to win regardless the votes or sometimes actually they prefer to win through subterfuge than actual democratic politics. If that sounds hyperbolic or weird, you don't have to take my word for it, just ask donald trump. I tell my people i don't need any votes. We've got all the votes we need to. I don't need votes. All we want to do is make sure we guard our votes. We stop the steel. There are a lot of expressions. I want the vote guarded because we don't need the votes. We don't need votes, we need protection of the votes once they are cast. We don't need the votes, i have so many votes. We don't need votes, we have more votes that anybody has ever had. We need to watch the vote. Think about this. He says it all the time. He is telling people considering to vote for him, i don't want more votes. What i want is to control the electoral system. And you should take donald trump seriously when he says that, because he keeps saying it. A campaign that is serious about winning the most votes starts with a serious ground game. A field operation that knocks on doors and helps writers find rides to the polls. He benefited from an rnc get out the vote campaign that worked. Trump is now outsourced the operation to super pacs run by charlie kirk and elon musk. The swing state republican operative told nbc news this month there is no tangible evidence that trump and the rnc have invested in the kind of ground game you need. Local republicans are not being asked to knock on doors, make phone calls, text rotors or even harvest mailin ballots. Instead they are being asked to be poll watchers in republican counties or localities with republican clerks. Instead of a ground game, trump and the rnc recruited 170,000 volunteers to execute the election integrity program otherwise known as protect the vote. Under this operation the rnc already filed 115 lawsuits across 25 states, compared with 79 four years ago and election day is still weeks away. So under trump, republicans believe they don't need voter outreach. They need poll watchers and lawyers and challenges to laws that make voting easier. As we saw in georgia last week when a maga majority on that states election board voted to require a hand count of ballots in that state. A move that could drastically lengthen the amount of time to tally results in the critical battleground state. The georgia republican attorney general's office suggested the move is legal and the republican secretary of state says it could cause chaos, but it was approved by board members who have been praised by former president donald trump. All of this is reminiscent of the 2020 election. Remember when trump made that phone call to the georgia secretary of state asking him to steal the election? now he did that behindthe scenes and secret, but when the news of the call broke in the media, he doubled down. He tried to launder the subterfuge by being like yeah, we did it. He acted like it was another perfect phone call and now he is doing it again, right in front of us. Not just battleground states. We know this is a very tight election. It could be one of the closest in presidential history, so every possible electoral vote matters because electoral votes decide the presidency. Most states give all the electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. Two states are not winner take all. Those states are maine and nebraska, where whoever gets the most votes in a district wins that districts single electoral vote. Even though nebraska is a pretty red state, the district containing omaha tends to vote blue. Since barack obama took the district in 2008, it has been a competitive district for democrats and republicans. A swing district. The converse is true in maine. The state where one electoral vote went to donald trump in the last two elections. In most elections none of this would be too important, but let's have a look at this map. This is what the electoral college would look like if donald trump want all the states he took in 2020+ georgia, arizona and nevada. It suddenly becomes critical that harris takes that single blue dot in omaha. That vote would be the difference between winning the election with 270 votes and becoming president or tying donald trump with 269 votes, a tie that the republican dominated congress could then break in trump's favor. So democracy itself could depend on the single vote districts. So of course back in april trump and republicans pushed hard for nebraska legislators to pass a bill making it a winner take all state. It was a push led by charlie kirk, the same far right commentator who super pac is now running trump's get out the vote. It did not work. Nebraska republicans did not change voting rules, in part because of the threat from maine that maine democrats would change theirs. Mutually assured destruction. If both states become winner take all, neither party gets an advantage and so the effort died last spring. In fact, listen to this carefully. Maine's chance to change its rules passed quietly last month. You see, that is because a bill takes 90 days to become a law after it is passed in maine. Last wednesday marked 90 days before the electoral college meets in december. Last wednesday was the deadline for maine to be able to change its electoral college system in time for the electoral college. Guess what happened last wednesday in nebraska? state lawmakers along with south carolina senator lindsey graham came together for a conversation regarding winner take all. In that closeddoor meeting we're told graham was trying to drum up support to change the way nebraska hands out its electoral college votes. Reservoir dogs. Both with the gun pointed at each other. Maine drops the gun and nebraska is like, why don't we talk about that winner take all? assured that maine could not retaliate anymore, low and behold it was back on the menu. Nebraska republicans moved to change the rules to favor trump and once again, once the behind thescenes move became public, graham openly admitted what he was doing. Trying to launder it as normal politics. Nebraska has been talking about this for years. It is a very close election. The entire federal delegation of nebraska want this change. To my friends in nebraska, that one electoral vote could be the difference between harris being president or not and she is a disaster for nebraska and the world. Side note. The electoral college is a rube goldberg machine that invites this antidemocratic sabotage. What are we doing here? kampala votes. The person with the most votes should win like every other election in america except president. That said, republicans would rather cheat. We saw this time and time again in 2020 when trump and lindsey graham and the rest of the maga world pressured brad raffensperger to change votes in georgia after they were already cast. To appoint a fake slate of electors. In both cases, america's future hung in the balance. Trump's attacks on democracy only failed because the courage and integrity of individual republicans like brad raffensperger in georgia and rusty bowers in arizona, resisting the pressure to rigged the system. Now that appears to be exactly what is happening in nebraska. Nebraska republicans need a filibuster proof majority. One single republican senator could block that plan and wanted. His name is senator mike mcdonnell. A former democrat who announced yesterday he was a no vote on the change. If you look at my position, it has been known and i believe it makes omaha relevant. It brings dollars into our city. We are talking potentially $50 million impact this round. And also it means you've got to work for it. You've got to work for our vote. The last one is the biggest one, it seems to me. Trump on that district in 2016. It is not completely out of reach. He keeps telling his supporters and campaign workers, i don't need votes. I need to watch the vote. Ultimately donald trump would rather cheat than when. Nebraska republican state senator mike mcdonnell, the man of the hour, joins me now. Thanks for making time for us tonight. Good evening. Thanks for the invitation. I wonder for an informational start, if from your perspective you could guide us through the conversations in the statehouse and the republican caucus through this year, going back to april when it first surfaced as an idea and then it seemed to go away and made a sudden comeback last week. I like to start with thanking all the people that have reached out to me on both sides and 90% of them have been professional and polite. Of course, passionate. I understand this is a serious issue and a serious decision and i do appreciate all of the thousands of emails and conversations and going back to 2016 when i decided to run for the legislature and we are the only one house system in the country. We do that better and most states should look to changing over to that system, but i said the reason i want to keep the system we have and not go to winner take all, which was changed in 1991, was the idea that it makes omaha relevant and it makes the economic impact, but it makes people work for our vote. Come on in and talk to us and work for our vote. Sometimes people think it is a sign of weakness. It is not. We work hard and we play by the rules. Come on in, work hard, play by the rules. Don't try to change them with 42 days left to change the rules in place since 1991 and as you said earlier, look at the pass. President biden in 2020. Work for that vote and you can win, but you have to come in and work and you've got to talk to us. It seems to me days here is my feeling about this and i am curious what you think. If you went to winner take all in 2023 or you had a statewide referendum or even earlier this year, i would say that is political hardball by republicans, but it is okay. It is hardball. 43 days before the election, after maine has already past the window, seems like something not on the up and up. What do you think? i talked about this and others have talked about it. Let's do it in the midterm. Go ahead and let the people of nebraska vote. I would oppose this. To switch to winner take all. The people in nebraska want to do it two years out and let whoever wants to run for president of the united states know the rules, that would be fair. I think we should take winner take all and go around the country and ask the other parts of the country to look at our system. All 435 congressional district should look at the way we are doing things, because you are talking about going to the people and not talking about 33 senators make a decision. I know this isn't a game and i know a football game isn't very important, but the idea that the coach calls a timeout with two minutes left and says i want to change the value of the field goal and that is how i will win. It does not ring true and that is not part of nebraska values. We want to let the people make the decision and to president trump and vice president harris, come to omaha, have a debate. Debate in omaha. Again, work for that vote as others have done in the past, including president trump and president biden. Have you received any communication from x president trump directly? has he attempted to talk to you? i don't talk about private conversations. I can say that people have reached out through phone calls and emails and both sides really have worked hard, but they have been 90% professional and polite and i would say both campaigns were 100% professional and polite and we had good conversations. I tried to tell people, tell me why i am wrong. Teach me something i don't know, but since 2016 when i ran i have been consistent on this issue based on the idea that i think this is better than winner take all. Better for our democracy. Let people vote. Also how about the green dot? it is an economic boost to the city of omaha. Come and talk to the people of the second congressional district and work for that vote and that potential win. I know that trump said you were wrong about this sandblasted you on truth social, which i am sure is par for the course. Are you prepared, i guess, for the glare of that to intensify? well, i stand behind my word and for eight years you can talk to my colleagues. I have 48 colleagues that i know work hard and are good people, but i disagree with on a number of issues. You can talk to them and they will tell you that i keep my word and the idea of representing the people. I represent district 5, south omaha. I represent those people and i will stand up for those people and all the city of omaha and nebraska and the country. Are you running for mayor of omaha, did i understand that correctly? we're definitely thinking about that and looking at making an announcement potentially coming up, but right now we are focused on state senate until january 8. We are serving the constituents as state senator and i am proud and honored to do it and it has been a great eight years for me and all the people i've gotten to know. You agree or disagree with people and they say if you are pleasing everyone you are lying to someone, so of course there will be disagreements. Ronald reagan said if you agree 80% of the time i call you a friend. I don't call you a 20% enemy. I think that is the approach we have to have. We have to be passionate and work on things. At the end of the day decisions have to be made and as i said in 2016, i said no to winner t