Bunch of jerks. You have to dominate. Will you commit here today for a peaceful transfer of power after the election. Well have to see what happens. You know that. So, some remarkable things that, actually, could be both shocking and not surprising at the same time considering that they come from donald trump. But, mika, there you had the president of the United States yesterday saying that he would not commit to a peaceful transfer of power. That was a question. So lets, again, say that for the first time in the history of this republic, you have a president of the United States, who will not commit to a peaceful transfer of power. At the same time hes asking republicans to lie to their constituents and go back on what they said four years ago and ram through a Supreme Court justice. Why . Because he needs that Supreme Court justice to vote for him on any election disputes that he stirs up. Thats that is pretty much a fivealarm fire. Thats where we are. And you invoked maya angelou in your sunday peace in the Washington Post, when someone tells you who they are, believe them. In this case with donald trump, youve got to believe him. He ends up following through every time with pretty much everything he says. Willie, what was the exact comment where he said Something Like if there arent ballots, then there wont be a transfer, something along those lines. He said get rid of the ball los and there wont be a transfer, therell be a continuation of power. Lets be clear what hes saying, if you get rid of mailin ballots, mailin voting which has been used widely across the country, then i will be reelected. So there were two parts to the comment, number one well see what happens to a peaceful transfer of power. And we ought to think about getting rid of mailin voting so i can continue into a second term. Okay. And again, he and, of course, ted cruz saying we have to get somebody on the Supreme Court as quickly as possible to rule in my favor when i contest the results. Along with joey, willie, and me we have White House ReporterJonathan Lemire, host of politics nation and president of the National Action network, reverend al sharpton. His new book, rise up, confronting a country at the cross roads is out next week. Were also following the reaction to yesterdays announcement that a louisville grand jury decided not to indict the Police Officers directly involved in Breonna Taylors death. In louisville, two officers were shot and sustained nonlife threatening injuries. A suspect was taken into custody and several other arrests were made throughout an evening of protests. Most adhered to the 9 00 p. M. Curfew in louisville. But demonstrators took to the streets in reaction to the grand jury decision. Philadelphia, chicago, new york and los angeles were cities that heard chants of say her name late into the evening. We begin with the president s plan to contest the results of the november election. Yesterday he again refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. This isnt the first time. When fox news Chris Wallace asked the president in june if hed accept the Election Results no matter the outcome, the president said, quote, i have to see. But his answer to that question yesterday came with a much starker warning. Heres the exchange. Win, lose, or draw in this election, will you commit here today for a peaceful transfer of power after the election . Theres been writirioting in ma cities across the country in your socalled red and blue states, will you commit to making sure theres a peaceful transfer of power after the electi election . We have to see what happens. Ive been complaining about the ballots. But people are rioting. Get rid of the ballots and well have a peaceful there wont be a peaceful. Therell be a continuation. The ballots are out of control, you know it. You know who knows it better than anybody else . The democrats know it better than anybody else. Go ahead. The ballots are out of control . First of all, hes rambling incoherently. Nobody is getting out the point. He gets out his point he doesnt know what hes talking about, hes rambling because hes losing it and has been for some time. Hes a liar, too, of course you know that. 20,000 plus lies. Here the president saying the democrats know that. Actually, the truth is, one republican after another republican after another republican has said theres no problem with mailin ballots. Yes. Even the greatest suckups to donald trump, the men who have shamed themselves the most and the women who have shamed themselves the most over the past four years by sucking up to this autocrat in waiting, they have even said, there is no trouble, there is no problem with mailin ballots. The washington journal editorial page, who has written some extraordinarily embarrassing editorials in defense of donald trump, making me flinch, even they said mr. Trump theres nothing wrong with mailin ballots and if you are really that scared youre not going to win, get out of the race and let somebody else do it. That is, of course, the sub text of this, every morning we sit around and look at polls and talk about whos going to win. Donald trump is telling us whos going to win. Hes telling us he cant beat joe biden. Hes telling us that hes going to have to try to overturn the results of this democratic election, because he knows hes going to lose. And weve been talking about this, believe it or not, for a long time. I went back because a year or so ago in context of impeachment but we added if hes not reelected. Weve been expressing our concerns about what he might do. We were mocked by people on websites, well, he said it out loud yesterday. He said it loud and clear. You can continue to mock that, but i think its well past time to take seriously what hes saying about this. This is not a man who thinks he can win right now, we know that, Jonathan Lemire you know that by covering the white house, his campaign, they are worried about the prospects of reelection and what happens in the space between election day and however many days or weeks it takes to count these mailin votes is the space the president intends to fill with doubt and conspiracy about why he may lose. Willie, what we heard yesterday from the president wasnt just unprecedented but downright dangerous. Coming at a time we did see more violence in louisville last night and we have seen outbursts from occasional American Cities all summer long. I think it should be clear that some of those in louisville last night seemed to be armed militia types, spotted wearing protrump paraphernalia. We have the president continuing his months long crusade to sow seeds of doubt about the election. Its because, of course it started with his assault on mailin balloting and we should underscore this every time, despite his claims of widespread fraud with mailin balloting, theres no evidence of that whatsoever, we know that he commissioned, in 2017, after taking office, a panel to study allegations of voter fraud then because he lost the popular vote and suggested there might have been 3 million fraudulent votes cast, that panel was disbanded quietly, found no evidence of voter fraud. We know the president and his team have hired an army of lawyers. He said the other day he expects this election will be decided in the courts. Theyre going to focus on mailin balloting. Theyre going to try to invalidate a lot of these ballots. Theyre going to make it difficult for americans in portion of this country to vote. Thats why since the death of Justice Ginsburg, theres been a focus on the future, how the court could decide matters like abortion rights and gun control. It shouldnt be lost that part of the plan here, part of why the president and Senate Majority leader mcconnell are trying to push in a justice now, even though theres some wisdom to say they should leave that seat open until after the election, making an incentive, fill it in the lame duck but they feel they want to do it before the election, because one they feel its a victory and republicans will be fired you, but secondly so that justice is seat odd the bench for any legal challenges that may come to the election. We shall expect there will be many in the days and weeks after election day. Donald trump said as much and ted cruz said as much. We have to shove through a Supreme Court nominee and get them on the court so they can vote in Donald Trumps favor. Im not exactly sure how whoever is that person on the court im not so sure how they even rule on such a case since the person who is nominating them is already said, before the nomination, that hes making the nomination to help him get reelected president of the United States. Bit of a conflict. Huge conflict. But i want to underline again. Willie is right, donald trump has been saying for years, im not sure if ill recognize, going back to 2016, the results of the election. Never before has he been asked will you commit to a peaceful transfer of power, the question was asked repeatedly, will you commit to a peaceful transfer of power, and the president of the United States refuses to say he will. But pops a word in there continuation. There will be a continuation. I think sometimes his rambling is to get the message out and hit on those flash points. Hes done this before. He said to george stephanopoulos, i will collect dirt on a political rival within and he did. When it comes to coronavirus, he wont mention 200,000 people dead, he wont mention them. He believes in herd mentality. He means herd immunity he got the word wrong. And the president stated yesterday his push to get a ninth justice on the bench before the election is so he can strengthen his hand should the Supreme Court have to decide the election. I think this will end up in the Supreme Court and i think its very important that we have nine justices. This scam that the democrats are pulling, its a scam, this scam will be before the United StatesSupreme Court. I think having a 44 situation is not a good situation. You know, all of his allies, except of course for roy cohn, his attorney general, all say the scam is questioning mailin voti voting. This has been going on decades. Its been proven time and again say republican governors, senators, members of congress, it has been proven time and again to be safe. But there we go. Reverend al, in any other point in American History, a Supreme Court justice who is elevated to the high court would recuse themselves. Would recuse themselves for a case that involves a president of the United States that the president of the United States stupidly says outloud what he should keep in his head if he really wants to be good at corrupting american democracy. And that is, im going to appoint you so you will vote for me when i put up challenges to the election, im going to vote for you, but you have to help me get back into office for another four years. If we are to have any iota of a democratic process in this election, the republicans in the senate, if they move forward as they seem determined to do with the process of the confirmation hearings or whoever the president nominates saturday and a vote, they are to insist they recuse themselves. Because in effect this president has therefore not only violated the whole procedure they set up in 2016 against justice garland, nominated by president obama. He has, in fact, put in place how he can checkmate american democracy by putting in a judge that will guarantee, if proceedings go through the courts up to the Supreme Court, his reelection. And for him to be able to checkmate american democracy, is, in fact, a coup rather than an election. And this is the challenge the republicans have to deal with from the public if you insist on doing what you should not be doing you should at least make sure they recuse themselves otherwise youve handed over this democracy to a whole situation that is nothing short of that we are now going into an autocracy headed by a man who is not able to get through a sentence without revealing his inner most thoughts of ultimate power. Lets bring in staff writer at the atlantic barton gelman, whose latest piece is titled the election that could break america. Also with us professor of government brendon nyan. Good to have you both on board this morning. Barton, let me ask you about your report that trump will first claim victory before mail ballots are tabulated and prevail in a republican state legislators to appoint their electoral votes to trump. Thats your chief concern. Talk about how that would happen. Were used to the idea that we cast votes and then the popular vote winner in a state gets that states electoral votes but the constitution doesnt say it has to be that way. Trump and his people are aware of this. The state legislature has the power, according to the Supreme Court, to seize back from the people the decision over who the electors will be. And trumps people are talking about a strategy in which they would go to the legislatures in some of the six swing states that are controlled by republicans in the legislator in both chambers and say you should reject the vote count because its corrupt, because its rigged, because its filled with fraud, and you should therefore appoint electors that would be trump electors regardless of the vote. Lets be clear here in the swing states of michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, you have democratic governors but you have republican legislatures there. Republican legislatures in ohio and florida as well. Are you saying that Donald TrumpsDonald Trumps campaign and his lawyers are talking to some in this those legislatures and telling them to overthrow the will of the voters in those states . Well, i know that theyve had that conversation with the head of the Republican Party in pennsylvania, who told me so. And i know that the pennsylvania Senate Majority leader and speaker of the house are aware of this talk and have talked among themselves about the possibility. Trump is running a campaign premisesed on the idea that he cant win enough votes if all the votes are counted and he has to change venues. He has to change to a different way of counting. The thing about a president ial election is that it depends on the consensus of the loser. If the loser wont concede, particularly if the incumbent wont concede he has reps he can work, theres no single umpire with the ability to say the game is over, we called it. The american system isnt built a single efficient umpire that way. Let me ask, it seems to me weve already had a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year on electors that didnt follow the will of their of the people in their states. Would it then go to the Supreme Court of the United States to force the state legislatures to follow the will of the people in their states . They were different kinds of cases and its not necessarily the courts it would go to, it would probably go to the court as well. But the electoral count act that was passed after the only other time e in history we had a debacle like this with possibility of the multiple competing slates of electors where two groups of people said im the state of elector for the state of pennsylvania, for example, its supposed to go to congress. Congress is supposed to decide who are the legitimate electors, if any, from the state. And the problem is the electorate count act is one of the most garbled statues ever passed by congress, which is saying a lot, and there are a number of scenarios, likely scenarios if you have a split of control between the house and the senate, in which congress cant make the decision. In which you have both sides deadlocked. They sort of checkmate each other on who are going to be the people who cast the votes from, in this case, pennsylvania, and the problem is that when you have chaos going on for a long time, which is trumps strategy here, then as time passes, the president the person whos got the troops under his command and has the apparatus, or the federal government, at his command is going to take advantage of that deadlock and stay in power. So professor, this delayed count is coming. Weve known it was going to come for many months now because of this pandemic, because so many people will vote by mail in record numbers. We get to election night. We have the vote we can count that night and we know because even some ballots in some states arent opened until election day, its going to take no question of whether it will or not, its going to take days or weeks. And the president laid out in that space this is what im going to say, we shouldnt have had mailin voting, an anecdotal story of something that happened in one state and say mailin voting is fraudulent. What do you see happening in that spate from election day until date unknown. We have no idea. Barton layed out the possible scenarios and theyre grim. Its essential for the public to demand a fair and complete count in that moment. Thats the potential constrain on abuses of power in that time. Its a period of unique vulnerabili vulnerability. The period between when votes are cast and we have resolution. Theres potential for the president and his allies to destabilize that process, sow chaos and then use that chaos as a pretext to try to undermined the validity of the result if it goes against him or tries to change the outcome of the election. I want to be clear, this is a democratic emergency. Sometimes you see things on television and maybe theyre hyped up a little more than people think. This is something that experts are incredibly alarmed about. My colleagues who studied the erosion of democracy in other countries are terrified what theyre seeing in the United States. This