More breaking news tonight. Police in the District Of Columbia arrested the leader of the proud boys, charging him with possessing two high capacity firearm magazines. Henry Enrique Tarrio was also charged with burning a black lives matter banner taken from a black church during protests last month. During a rally in support of President Trumps baseless claims of voter fraud. That rally has authorities seriously worried about the potential for violence. A sign of just how serious things are, the Defense Department approved a request by the d. C. Mayor to National Guard forces. Theres a chance President Trump will address some of those demonstrators. The news continues. Lets hand it over to chris for cuomo prime time. Happy new year. Good to see you, anderson. I am chris cuomo. Welcome to prime time. Top of the new year and our collective state in 2021 will be greatly influenced by what happens this first week. The retrumplicans, they are insistent. They just want to ignore reality. Do you know that every 33 seconds someone now dies in america of covid. Every 33 seconds. Theres desperation everywhere. The vaccine is being wasted. The distribution is a mess. Theres no word of or worry about how to improve it by this leadership. And instead of obsessing over the reality, trump and co. Are engaged in the fantasy that our election was a fraud. And yet these same men and women who say theyre so worried about manipulation of votes that they must they must try to stop our constitutional transfer of power, the same people are stubbornly resistant to the strongest evidence of irregularities that we have. What is the strongest evidence of irregularity . What is in fact a smoking gun . This. Theres nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that youve recalculated. All i want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes. Flipping the state is a great testament to our country. If only on this, trump is the worst we have ever seen. Find me the votes. Nothing wrong with that. With pressuring georgias top election official to overturn his defeat . Listen, put a pinky ring on this guys little hand. He is nothing but a mob boss. Listen to this. You should want to have an accurate election, and youre a republican. Its more illegal for you than it is for them because you know what they did, and youre not reporting it. Thats a you know, thats a criminal thats a criminal offense and, you know, you cant let that happen. Thats thats a big risk to you and to ryan, your lawyer. Its going to be very costly in many ways. He has no proof of any of that. He offered no proof of any of that, but its going to be costly. Is he going to sleep with the fishes . Scorsese never had a more obvious malefactor in his films. Look, its a new year, all right . Just try to start open. Does this pass the smell test, what hes doing with this guy . No. Are you having trouble with that . Pretend biden was saying it. Now you got those eyes popping, right . Jim jordans moving his tie, rolling up his sleeves, right . Biden would be impeached on this alone if they had the numbers. The senate would be Holding Hearings announced yesterday. But the retrumplicans, theyre just pawns to a delaware illous gangster. He even gave them mobby nicknames, lyin ted, lil marco. Now theyre ignoring the realities in their own states and all over the country. We are in pain, and they are intent on causing more. They want to focus on a fiction that is nothing but an effort to tear us apart when we need to be together, and they know that. Remember them. Remember their names. Remember their faces. Remember their places and what they failed to do in this moment. You know, many retrumplicans were elected or reelected on the same ballots they now object to. Think about that. Theyre crying fraud for trump but not their victories. Those are legit. How stupid do they think we are . They argue, stop the steal alongside trump, and now hes on tape literally trying to steal the election again. Remember, this aint his first perfect call. Remember him with zelensky in ukraine . Yeah, were going to help you, but i want you to do a favor for me. And he wanted him to go after biden. This is who he is. Hes the worst. But its about everybody else around him that put him first. They are who you must focus on because they remain. And remember this. Their rationale for ignoring the reality. Here it is. Listen, we have to focus on the fact that the election was fraudulent because thats what has people angry. The people are only angry about that because youve lied to them. You lied about this election, and you know it. How do we know you know it . Because your bigbrained people who are arguing about it now, they dont have any proof. Theyve never offered you any. And theyve had dozens of chances to make it true in courts all over the country, at every level, with conservative judges, with republican state officials, with republican legislatures. Each and all negating their nugatory nonsense, and they know it. This has never been about law and fact. Theyve never had it on their side. Its about how angry can they make you . How inimical to your own interests . How much can you hate me such that you ignore what they are doing to you . It is the worst president and political poison we may have ever seen. And, no, no, its not something they all do. There are problems in our political culture, full stop. There are problems with these parties that i would like to discuss, but it is beyond my mandate. I think this twoparty system is killing us. But be very clear about where we are in this moment. This is about the retrumplicans, period. Exhibit a, the Top Republican in the house this morning, listen to this guy. I read about the president has always been concerned about the integrity of the election, and the president believes that there are things that happened in georgia, and he wants to see the accountability for it. But does anybody in america think the last election was done well . Uh, yeah, mccarthy, a lot of people think the election was done well, like the courts, like the 50 states that certified them, including your own. Thats exhibit a. Here exhibit b. Trumps Homeland SecurityDepartment Says what i just told you, okay . His cyber chief, his own attorney general said no mass fraud. What happened to them . They dont get the mccarthy treatment. They dont get to talk to the Smiling Faces on the couch, right . Gone within days. For what . Telling the truth. You want to stick around, you got to be like mr. Mendacity there. Play the game. Play the game. David perdue, one of the gop senators in the spotlight in georgia, right . Fighting to keep his job. He was asked about this tape. He says, its disgusting. Not what trump did. The secretary of state recording and releasing it. Leave it to a moneyed stock jockey to hate the exposure of an inside game. The truth literally sickens these people. And remember this. Im not telling you something that isnt known, that you dont even know by now. The truth is known. Their own Party Members confirm it. Takes us to exhibit c. There is no shredding of ballots going on. Thats not real. Its not happening. No one is changing parts or pieces out of dominion voting machines. That is thats not a real i dont even know what that means. Thats not a real thing. Secretary raffensperger does not have a brother named ron raffensperger. That is also not real. The president tweeted that out as well. That guys a republican by the way. It is the night before the runoff elections in georgia. They will decide the balance of power in the senate. Now, look, i dont know who wins, and frankly to me it doesnt matter because i know what has to change. It doesnt matter which party wins. The focus is what has to change, and it has to be on you. Congress has to get off of their inside game and back on to you. Thats part of my job. And, you know, really the responsibility of you in watching me to create the mandate of checking them. Your problems are real. Theyre resonant. And the people gifted the ability to do your business and bidding and it is a gift you give them they need to remember who put them there. So far this president elect does seem to get that. Politicians cannot assert, take, or seize power. Power is given, granted by the American People alone. Were a nation built on honor, decency, dignity, and respect. Thats who we are. Thats who we are at our best. Now, sometimes you got to go through a test to get to your best. And i, for one, hope there is a really ugly and obvious event on january 6th in congress. Why . I dont want drama. But i want you to see the truth. I want you to see who stands up and on what basis and remember the names and faces who tried to give the bums rush to uncle sam. Make no mistake, thats whats happening. They are attacking our democracy and therefore our countrys foundation. Be clear. Theres no way to qualify an opposition thats based on no proof. It can only be a brazen broadside. Thats how they set it up. But heres the good news for 2021. We won. I dont care what party you are. Again, i think that whole systems part of the problem. Well get to that another time. The institutions that secure our democracy won. They got the rust knocked off of them by revolt, and they withstood the worst blows from these people that weve seen in the modern era. Uncle sam was too much for trump and co. You know, i was looking at this picture of him, and i got to be honest. I never got it. I never got the look. Why so wizened, such garish clothes . Why . But now, doesnt uncle sam seem perfectly suited for the moment . Hes got that covid look, the scraggly beard, the long hair because he cant get it cut. Hes got the added wrinkles. Even the outfit. Its kind of cool, man. Turns out fighting for democracy never goes out of style. And that look in his eye, thats what gets me. A lot of us have that look now. Check it out. Pointin at you. Why . Its the stink eye. Hes sick of it. Hes sick of being sick. Hes sick of people trying to make us sick. Uncle sam is us. United states of america, uncle sam. There has never been a time that calls for us to remember that we have to come together, that our strength is in the collective, than right now. So lets point forward. Lets find a better course, and lets get after it. Tonight that means starting with an election official in the state making the most headlines. Matt mashburn is a member of the Georgia Election board. He is a trump voter, okay . He has been investigating the fraud claims, and he wants to come on to tell us what the reality is in his state on the eve of it being the focus of the nation. Welcome. Best of the new year to you and your family. Happy new year to you, chris. Glad to be here. You know, i know people have been talking to you about your position and saying, man, im sorry youre in such a jam. I dont feel like that. Yeah, youre a republican. You should be proud of it. And your party does not have to be coopted by one man and his interests. What do you have for this audience to understand in terms of how the election was conducted in the state of georgia and how you feel about the results . Well, the first thing id like to point out in georgia is for the first time ever, weve had voterverified paper receipts that each inperson, inprecinct voter looked at and verified that, yes, this was my vote. Now, traditionally, every election that weve had computerized voting for 20 years, we had about 300 to 800 complaints that the machine the vote because of calibration issues or whatever. But this time we didnt have a single report i didnt get a single report of a voter who said the machine printed out the incorrect candidate that i did not choose. And weve never had that before. The signatures were fake. They found ballots thrown out, and they found ballots that were played with, and dominion is taking stuff out of its machines. You looked at those, and what did you find . Yeah. The signature check was the largest mobilization by the gbi in its history to examine signatures, and there was a specific complaint about cobb county, so we investigated cobb county, and they didnt find a single instance of fraud. They did find two voters who probably should have been notified of a signature mismatch, and they tracked it down, and the voters confirmed, yes, that was my vote. So there was zero evidence of signature fraud in the largest examination of its type in the gbs history. You are a rino. You are a republican in name only. You have been duped and paid off, and thats why you are ignoring the audience. Thats what youll be told. Your response. I actually have been told that about things that i witnessed myself, and so its kind of awkward when, for example, i was at the English AvenueTabulation Center when the election director announced, were counting again at state farm to everybody in the room. And then people will come to me and say, there was secret voting at state farm, and i was like, well, that was a terribly kept secret because everybody at English Avenue, five miles away in a different building, knew about it. So that was a pretty terribly kept secret if it was supposed to be secret because we all knew about it. What do you say to members of your party or supporters of trump who say, if you say what youre saying right now, you keep saying this, especially to cuomo, youre not one of us. Youre going bad on your own party. What do you say to them . Well, i there are people who are upset, and as we talk to them, theyre very passionate about the election. But most of them are involved in things like tabulation for the very first time. So its like when youre on an airplane, and youre on the airplane with a firsttime flyer, and the landing gear goes up in the wheel well, and you hear this thump. Well, for a firsttime flyer, thats very disturbing and, you know, theyll say, whats that . Whats that . The planes got a problem. And ive been doing tabulation for 25 years, so a 25year frequent flyer will go, no, thats just normal. Thats okay. And so to give an example about the shredding of the ballots, those were in cobb county at jim miller park. You know, it took me five seconds, and i saw thats the white envelope. It does have the word ballot on it, but its the white ballot envelope that the ballot goes in. Right. Every good conspiracy has a little bit of truth in it. There is an envelope. In says ballot. It just wasnt a ballot. Lastly, you know, it is no small irony, im sure, to you or to me, that the same men and women that say, cant trust that mashburn. There are real problems down there, are ignoring what trump said to your secretary of state on a recorded call. Have you ever heard anything like that from somebody in high office, and how do you explain members of your party in congress ignoring it . Yeah, first i thought the secretary and ryan germany did a really great job. If i have an employee who needs to tell someone in a position of Positional Authority over them that theyre wrong about something, i would like to use that as a training model. I thought they did a remarkably good job in doing that. But im glad there are people that are upset that the tape was released, but im glad that it was because when the Lindsey Graham thing happened, i didnt know who said what to who. But here i was able to listen word for word, who said what to who, and the things that i knew personally from my own personal knowledge that were related by ryan and the secretary were correct. Would you have voted for trump, mr. Mashburn, if you had heard a call like this before you cast your vote . Him saying find me the votes. Come on, look. I know i won. Just find me the votes. It would be a good thing. You could just say you recounted. Give me the votes. It could be bad for you if you dont do it. Would you have voted for him . The recalculating is a real problem. Election lawyers, election contest lawyers are used to hearing margin plus one, margin plus one. Thats the holy grail of an election contest, so i can get the remedy. But thats of illegal ballots. Thats going to switch margin plus one or go to recalculate margin plus one, so thats problematic. Im with you. But if you were aware this is where trumps head was on this, would you have voted for him . I would have to i would have to i cant answer a hypothetical, but i would have to first say, who is who is advising him and telling him how contests work . And so, you know why does he have to know how a contest works to know that you dont cheat and dont ask somebody to cheat for you . Thats what hes doing in the call, is he not . Well, you got this margin plus one, margin plus one, and everybodys heard about it. He never mentions that, matt. He just says, find me the votes. He doesnt know that the remedy of an election contest is you dont declare the true winner. The remedy of an election contest is if its a state race, you order a new election. If its the president , you just dont seat the electors. So hes still stuck on this idea that somebody can still, at the state level, declare him the winner, and thats just not true. Well,ize wrong about the process, but hes also wrong about asking somebody from his own party to cheat for him. But, matt mashburn, you did your job the right way. Youre willing to talk about it in a time that that could carry a heavy price. Thank you for your candor. Thank you for having me. I would rather people put their passion into standing in the voting lines and go vote rather than be on twitter. And its good to know you can tell them it will be carried out the right way. Be well. Yeah. This will be the most looked at election thats ever been possible in georgias history, and so i have no i have no theres nothing that has caused me to thats proof to doubt the outcome. Good. Thank you very much. All right. So there you have it, okay . Another republican voted for trump, looked at these things, says there is nothing there. By the way, hes still giving a lot of cover to trump. He doesnt understand what it is. Guys asking had imto cheat. The question is, what he did on that call, how wrong is it . Is it a crime . Should it be investigated . I think its a legit question. We have two perfect guests, a former trump piempt counselor and former Trump White House lawyer, next. Commercials with n. So to help you remember that and former Trump White House lawyer, next. Mpiempt counselor and former Trump White House lawyer, next. Epiempt counselor and former Trump White House lawyer, next. Apiempt counselor and former Trump White House<