Is acting out of weakness right now. Not from strength. You dont attack legitimacy of an election and sue to undermine Voting Rights across the country and make it harder to vote and talk about invalidating tens of thousands, if not millions, of mailin ballots and refuse to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. You dont do all those things if you think you are winning. Right . What donald trump said yesterday was extremely disturbing and outrageous and actually disqualifying, but does this really sound like someone who is expecting a victory . Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferal of power after the election . We have to see what happens. You know that. Ive been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster. Do you commit to making sure there is a peaceful transfer of power . We wont have get rid of the ballots and youll have a very well have a very peaceful there wont be a transfer frankly. There will be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You dont promise to get rid of the ballots if you think the ballots are going to keep you in power because people are voting for you because they like you. No, you actually know that you are hated when you say that. Donald trump knows that things do not look good for him, that the American People are not with him. Right now the polling average shows him down more than seven points nationally. That 43 number, thats basically what his approval has been throughout his entire presidency. Just yesterday there were three Different National polls that showed trump down by ten points. No incumbent has lost by ten points since i think hoover. Joe biden in those polls also at least 50 support, which is key. Donald trump is the incumbent president amidst a pandemic that has killed more than 230,000 americans so far. Just another thousand today. He is overseeing an economy that has lost nearly five million jobs since he took office. And early voting has already begun. The latest nbc news wall street journal poll found that nearly 90 of voters have already made up their minds. They already know who they are voting for which makes sense because can you imagine looking at the Current Situation and thinking, ive got to see a little more . So there isnt a lot of opportunity for the president to make up ground. All that means that donald trump is looking for his second option. Trying to actually win, again, appealing to more people so as to win the election legitimately, it just is not the strategy, clearly, at this point. And as dangerous as it is, and it is indeed dangerous, were going to talk about that in a bit, the danger we see is, dont forget it, born of his political weakness, born of his unpopularity, not his political strength. I mean, this is someone who views himself as president of the 40 of the country that likes him. Hes the king of red america. He brags about his Approval Rating among the Republican Party, and he says it shouldnt count really the coronavirus deaths in blue states. You shouldnt count those against him because those are blue states. This is someone who surrounds himself at every opportunity with nothing but the most rabidly adoring members of his own base, people who are willing to risk a once in a century respiratory infection to watch him riff about low flow toilets. But if he for an instant sets foot into the rest of america to see the majority of americans that do not approve of him, this is what it looks like. This was the scene today when the president went to view the casket of Supreme CourtJustice Ruth Bader ginsburg, whose dying wish was that he not appoint her successor. [ boos ] [ crowd chants vote him out ] that man there, he is not strong. He is weak. Striking, isnt it, to see him confronted with just a tiny little assemblage of the people in the majority of the country that do not like him . Its been a while. I mean, the campaign tries to keep him in front of only the most adoring audiences in an effort to project the idea that, well, Everybody Loves donald trump. They take great pains to keep him from ever appearing before regular americans. When they do make that mistake and send him into nonmaga parts of america, this is what happens. Remember when he went to the Washington Nationals game last year and got audibly booed by the fans . That was a disaster. So then they had to make up for it. They figured what about a ufc fight at Madison Square garden . Ufc folks, those are his people. But there were a lot of boos there too. Not quite as bad but it was close. Then they figured good lord, lets try an lsu versus alabama Football Game in tuscaloosa. And that worked out. Lots of applause. Took three tries, and the president found his safe space. Tuscaloosa, alabama. This is a politically weak president who wants desperately for you to believe hes strong. That political weakness is the thing that prodemocracy forces in america have on their side. But at the same time, that weakness is also what is driving him and his party into ever more dangerous actions which we have to take seriously and confront. He is dangerous as hell, particularly because hes being enabled by the Republican Party, and we are in a very dangerous moment. If he manages to stay in office, if he manages to plow over our democracy and throw out our votes, then all bets are off. Two days after the 2016 election masha gessen wrote this piece titled autocracy rules for survival. Listing out six rules to understand how to live under on aut autocrat. Nearly four years later, those rules seem too real. Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Im joined by masha gessen, staff writer for the new yorker, author of the new book surviving autocracy. First of all, masha, this is not surprising that he said this. He has essentially been laying the groundwork for this saying any election he loses is by definition not legitimate and tainted. But it was still striking to hear him say that yesterday. You know, he actually said that before the 2016 election as well. Yeah. Any election that he wins to him is also illegitimate. He has always run against the system. He has always run on the platform of delegitimizing elections as such. So i dont know that i would stress so much that he is afraid of losing and he is running on weakness. I think there has been a sort of simultaneous underlying understanding of a lack of legitimacy of this presidency that has been an undercurrent the entire time but also delegitimizing the entire system as he found it, right . And the whole sort of drain the swamp rhetoric has always referred to destroying government as it was constituted. How do you think about this sort of to me there is these sort of twin imperatives here. Right . One is to be cleareyed about the danger, to take him seriously, to take the efforts to do profoundly Dangerous Things to american democracy seriously, at the same time not imbuing him with more power than he has. Theres a kind of projection of strong manness here. The republicans saying were going to figure out how to take your vote away and send our own slate of electors. Which i think is meant into timid at a certain level. How do you interpret these competing imperatives at this moment . Well, my rule is always to try to zoom out and look at the larger picture, and the larger picture is that were at a stage in the autocratic attempt where we probably face the last chance to try to stop this autocratic attempt before i use this framework invented by a hungarian sociologist who says theres an autocratic attempt, autocratic breakthrough and autocratic consolidation. So i think were still in the attempt stage. The breakthrough will happen if he wins this election or even in spite of losing the election succeeds in maintaining power. And so we really have to use this chance to get rid of donald trump. Elections are not the perfect instrument. There is rampant voter suppression. There is rampant the opportunity to vote has never been equally distributed and it is suboptimal at the moment. And, yet, this is currently our best instrument for stopping the autocratic attempt. And that means he has to lose by an absolutely overwhelming margin. That is really useful. The attempt, the breakthrough and the consolidation is extremely useful framework to think about. And its interesting you reference you reference hungary because i think of i think of viktor orban who many people have compared him and orban is running this sort of what he calls an illiberal democracy in europe. Orban and the law and Justice Party i think its called in poland which is sort of aligned, the kind of hard right party, orban has been fairly popular. It does strike me we would be in much worse shape if donald trump were like legitimately polling at 60 , that in rebuffing the attempt, if we think about this as the autocratache tempt, rebuffing the attempt is easier and youre in a stronger position when the person making the attempt is not actually popular. I dont think that we can accurately measure the popularity of an autocrat, orban or Vladimir Putin or at this point erdogan simply because when theres a scorched earth policy of governing, when they completely dominate the information stream, or almost completely dominate information share, theres no way to see an alternative. Theres no way to gauge popularity in the absence of any kind of imagination for what would happen if it werent viktor orban, right . We are not there yet. And at this point, you know, especially in the week after the death of judge ginsburg, justice ginsburg, i think its super important to pull back and look at all the things that we still have. We still have the opportunity for donald trump to not be popular because there are other options. Right. Because we have media. We have actually still a robust public sphere that he has not come to fully dominate. Because it is actually possible for him to be unpopular. That is a great point. Right. Thats exactly what i was trying to say. Like because were still in the attempt phase, because we are not in the breakthrough or consolidation phase, because the consolidation has not happened, because im speaking to you right now in front of millions of people, because were on this side of it we can beat it back. And i you know, i have really started thinking about the election and the prodemocracy forces conceptualization. Like that is, quite frankly, barack obama said this and alexandria ocasiocortez said this and Bernie Sanders today, people on the right have said this, bill kristol believes this, that thats what were facing right here. Yes. I seized up inside when i saw the figures you were using at the top of the broadcast showing how donald trump is trailing joe biden because of course he is trailing him nationally, but the Electoral College isnt looking so great. And, you know, and we have this hugely imperfect system that we have to try to use to stall this autocratic attempt and then try to rebuild the system in a way that is actually much more democratic, right . And we have to have total mobilization for democracy, not to protect a democracy that is under threat, but to even have a chance of building a democracy. Yes. Yes. And that is a sort of guiding moment, particularly amidst this catastrophe that we all continue to work our way through that presses down on each of us each and every day. The other thing that i wanted to sort of end on, one of the rules which i remembered since my first interview with you, i think, after that Election Night was just be outraged. I have to say im not an angry person, but have felt a kind of whistling tea kettle sense of rage recently partly born of mourning honestly because of the devastation, of the death around us and the illness and the suffering and the misery that didnt have to happen. But also because i love my country deeply and i feel like im watching someone try to take it away. Someone is trying to take it away. Someone is actively facilitating the deaths of more than a thousand people a day. It is very, very hard to maintain a level of rage to you know, and it is objectively hard because were not talking about normalization. Were talking about normality. This has been normal for this response to the coronavirus has been normal for seven months. This way of shameless abuse of power has been normal for nearly four years. This is our everyday reality. And so the only thing i would say is that, you know, as difficult as outrage is to maintain, it is a much more constructive emotional state than anxiety. Thats right. It is what makes us controllable. And it is a natural response to whats happening. But it makes us you know, it makes us slow to act and unable to act and outrage will drive us to action. That is really well said. Masha gessen, as always so wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much for talking to us tonight. Thank you for having me. Tonight republicans are telegraphing they hope the election will be decided by the courts and not so much by the voters. Elizabeth warren warns us that democracy as we know it is on the line. She joins me next. She joins me. Republicans trying to distance themselves from the president implicitly threatening violence to stay in office. As he did when he refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. But the way the republicans are trying to distance themselves from that odious comment is xeemly unnerving in itself. The theme from republicans is less, well, the people will decide who our next president is after we count every vote and the winner of the Electoral College will be the next president , and it seems a lot more we will abide by the decision of the courts. But the courts are like a real emergency backstop here. The courts should not be the main plan. Lindsey graham, the chair of the senate committee, said, people wonder about the peaceful transfer of power. I can assure you it may be peaceful. We may have litigation about who won the election but the court will decide and if republicans lose well accept that result. This is particularly unnerving after the death of Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg when the president and republicans are all saying we need to ram through a Supreme Court justice so that that person can rule presumably in our favor if there is an election lawsuit. An equally divided court 44 cant decide anything. That could make this president ial election drag on weeks and months and well into next year. That is an intolerable situation for the country. We need a full court on election day given the very high likelihood that were going to see litigation that goes to the court. We need a Supreme Court that can give a definitive answer for the country. With all of the talk about universal unsolicited mailin balloting where we see states around the country that are now extending the deadline, there is a possibility that election issues may come before the Supreme Court in the days following the election and all the more reason why we should have nine justices on the Supreme Court to be able to resolve any issues that may arise then. Here with me now one of those senators who will vote on the Supreme Court confirmation, senator Elizabeth Warren, a democrat of massachusetts. Great to have you, senator. First let me just get your response to this line, this sort of i find it a strange line from some of your republican colleagues about, well, you know, well listen to the courts and the courts will decide and we also need to get this justice on the court because the courts going to decide the election as if thats kind of a fait accompli. What do you think when you hear that . So, you know, lets start with donald trump. When donald trump says that he is not necessarily going to accept the will of the voters, hes flirting with treason. Hes saying peaceful transition of power doesnt matter to him. All that matters to him, once again, is donald trump and whatever donald trump wants. And for republicans, once again, to step up, these republican senators to enable him in that, to support him in that and to start to talk about the november 3rd election as if this isnt about voters getting their choice but it is about Supreme Court justices getting their choice means that they are a party to it. And that means to me that come november 3rd we need to hold them all accountable. And when i say hold them all accountable, i mean donald trump. I mean those republican senators. I mean those republicans up and down the ballot. And we need to not just beat them by a little bit. The idea that they can go litigate when its close. I mean beat them big. Thats what weve got to do. You know, there is after the death of Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg, there is a sort of open question about, okay, well, what now . And in relatively short order it looked like Mitch Mcconnell assembled the votes he needed to move forward. Lindsey graham assured us that sight unseen the nominee has the votes. And then the question youre shaking your head. By the way, he has put new meaning to the words advice and consent the constitution of the United States requires. Right . Lindsey graham has simply said donald trump has my proxy on this, the senate doesnt need to look it, if the president s good Lindsey Graham is good. There is a man with a spine, a spine kept in a box somewhere else because he certainly doesnt have it to exercise for himself. Lets talk about spine and about fighting here. I mean, there is some sense i get that there is no magic button, and i get that they probably have the votes. But there is some sense of, like, what do you do, right, as a Senate Minority . Do you not agree to unanimous consent . Do you insist on quorum calls . Do you not vote for judges . But my understanding is in the last 24, 48 hours all that stuff has happened. Right . I mean, the senate is functioning normally. I think there was a confirmation vote on a district judge today 932. Im not sure how you voted. But there is kind of normal business happening. Like explain to me why that is happening. Look