What are you gonna do?

So first of all, Michael, uh, thanks for your support, even though, [laughs] um, we haven't updated the website, which I will, I will talk to our folks immediately about, so thank you for that, and we do wanna promote early voting.

Um, as it relates to what we're going to do, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do.

Uh, I've been asked by, uh, Leader Jeffries, who I hope will be Speaker Jeffries, to advance, uh, the most significant anti-corruption and democracy reform package probably since Watergate.

So I've done a draft.

It's about 1,000 pages.

Uh, we're gonna get started on it right the first week of January, but here's the problem, that I think most Americans are starting to completely lose faith in their government.

... it's one thing to wring, wring your hands and say, "I don't approve of this." It's another to say, "I'm willing to actually take some sort of power action that would stop this."

But as we consider the votes that are already being cast today in a number of states, how concerned are you about the security of those votes and the notion that those votes will not be contested when they're all tallied?

Well, look, I have great confidence in the system.

Uh, local and state election administrators do an amazing job, Democrats and Republicans.

Now, we have 50 different systems.

I'm not sure everybody fully appreciates that, but that's how the founders set it up, so every state has slightly different rules, uh, different procedures.

Some have early voting at one time.

Many use mail-in voting more than others.

Congressman, do you already have lawyers on retainer? How litigious do you expect the aftermath of this election is going to get?

Yeah

... uh, brutal conditions.

Um, and they're talking about spending millions and millions of dollars.

They should really, half the people there, more than half the people there, should just be home.

Um, and the interesting thing when I met with Omar, who as I said, he's been a small business owner.

He's a sweet, gentle man.

Um, and, uh, when I got up to shake his hand and say, "You know, let me know.

So the question is, why was he arrested? On what charges?

Have you gotten any response to that?

We have, and I think we asked to get a response by October 5th.

So hopefully by Monday, we'll hear something for the Justice Department.

Now, the Justice Department has in the past sent out observers in elections, although it's got some statutory requirements and they are exceeded.

So in the state of Wyoming, I think we referenced in our letter that the governor of Wyoming, who's a Republican, expressed real concerns about the way the monitors were acting during the primary election.

I don't think they have a thousand people to send out, frankly, but we're obviously watching carefully.

We will send out our own observers.

And Assistant AG, by the way, should say of the Civil Rights Division, do you buy any of that? Well, given

When you're back in your home district, what is the thing that people want to talk to you about the most? What is the thing that Donald Trump doesn't want us to be asking him about? And that's why he's keeping us on the other side of the gates today.

Well, look, in Rochester, New York, that I have the privilege to represent, they're certainly very, very concerned about Donald Trump's behavior.

You might hear about it every day.

But what do they care about most? They care about their families.

They care about whether or not they can afford their bills, whether or not they're going to have opportunities for housing, whether their children will be able to go to child care, whether they'll be able to afford it.

And the things that he's done are consistently at the root of why it's getting more difficult.

I mean, what's really interesting about this is whether it's the tariffs, whether he's chasing away labor for so many important industries.

I wonder where you see the administration turning next in their efforts to limit people from going out and exercising the franchise.

So Congressman Morelli, given what you said on August 27th, I don't think you were terribly comforted by what the Homeland Security Secretary had to say on Tuesday.

Well, in fairness, those are the things that I said people are concerned about.

I'm less concerned.

I mean, Secretary Mullen can say whatever he wants.

There will not be ICE officials in polling places throughout America.

It is against the law.

Presumably they'd be armed.

Can you talk to us a little bit about what you are doing to make sure that every vote that is cast is counted and protected?

Out of those 150 threats you've identified, Congressman, which one concerned you the most?

Well, I think certainly we're concerned about all manner of threats.

And I don't think we're devious, but we're certainly trying to be creative in thinking of all the ways that the president might try to continue to subvert the election.

I think people are most concerned about intimidation at the polls, whether it's deploying military personnel, ICE agents.

I think they're concerned about intimidation.

members of the federal government seizing ballots, the FBI doing what they did in Fulton County, but instead of waiting six years until after the election's over, trying to seize ballots for the day after or the night of.

So I think some of those things...

So when you, as someone who's going to be working on this diligently, and you hear what Jackie just said, and Jonathan just laid out with this terrifying thing that Mark Elias talked about, what tools do Democrats in Congress without the actual gavel have at this moment to protect people and the right to vote?

Mm

... there's protocols, and oh, by the way, these people actually do a really, really good job.

Um, so we're watching.

We're mindful.

I haven't seen anything to this point, but as you can imagine, we're watching every day.

And while I have enormous confidence, and I really do, and I believe Americans will be able to cast their vote, have those votes counted, we'll see that the, the people continue to get to choose their leaders.

Nonetheless, it would be irresponsible if we didn't think about all manner of potential threats and take steps to mitigate and ultimately, if they turn out to be real threats, to make sure that we have a response to them.

Yeah

Describe it.

Yeah, so my responsibility's from now until Election Day, uh, when ballots are cast, and then the counting of ballots, and then, of course, the organization of the House on January 3rd, uh, in 2027.

And I don't think, uh, you know, that I necessarily believe it will happen, but what, in, in going through and looking at these scenarios, what we wanna do is make sure that the will of the American public is carried out and that there aren't games played, uh, to try to either stop Democrats who have been elected from being seated or any other way to disrupt the proceedings that would normally occur on January 3rd.

And frankly, look, the president did this on January 6th, we all know this, 2021.

So anyone thinks that he's incapable or unwilling to use, uh, all, uh, things at his disposal to just try to distract and disrupt the election, I think don't know Donald Trump.

So we're preparing for it.

I believe, uh, that he would be unsuccessful if he attempted it.

Does that appointment factor into your preparations at all now?

Very much so.

We used to call it the new normal when she was going through treatment.

And actually, Sunday mornings in those days, we'd still have breakfast together, but then at the end of breakfast, we'd get out our notepads and start writing down what appointments she had and who was taking her where and, you know, so it became part of what we did together.

And, you know, I'm grateful that she had enormous, uh, family support and friends and, and, um, and m- you know, she was blessed to have good health insurance.

But I think so much of women in particular, uh, who may be caregivers for family members, children, uh, who may not have all the advantages even Lauren had, although she, she, you know, ultimately succumbed to the disease.

Um, but, um, there's a lot of really lonely people fighting, uh, every day of their lives.

And also reminded me of one ...

Mm-hmm.

Oh, fair.

But those, tho- I mean, let's be clear, and what we've done is now added complete insult to injury, uh, by doing this.

This is Trump's personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, who maybe has a guarantee of future employment, who knows, who's the acting attorney general who has signed off on granting immunity to the president and his family and his organization literally forever, potentially-

For sure

... as we ought to get out of, everyone out of prediction markets as well.

This is insane, and the notion that the vice president would defend the president's actions, he should just be quiet sometimes and not sound so ridiculous.

Like, we get that the president's sitting at his laptop, but if you don't think the president has the ability to affect the markets, you, you must live under a rock somewhere.

I mean, this is obvious, and the president has enriched himself and his family by billions of dollars and monetized the Oval Office unlike any president in American history.

And when you're listening to the CEO of Exxon saying those prices aren't going down, meaning their prices aren't going to come down either, the American people are going to be dealing with this through the year, at the very least, it seems.

Yeah, it points out two things, actually.

The first is that you're right.

The president has managed to disrupt the flow of oil around the world.

There's a crude price that is a global price.

This is a global market.

So for all of his talk about increasing supply in the United States, it doesn't really have as much of an impact on the world's oil supply as he would like.

When you're looking at how Democrats and Republicans have been operating, that Republicans have been doing this over and over again, that even just this week you had Louisiana pause its primaries so that they could change the game and change the seats, as you said, when you look at that, what should Democrats be doing next, especially in New York?

Um, so just to set the scene before we get into your work on this as ranking member of the House Administration Committee and how you became involved on this issue, tell us a bit about the election landscape right now and why you're concerned President Trump and his allies could pose a threat to our election system.

Well, it's a great question, and by the way, thanks for, uh, the invitation to, to join both of you.

I'm, I'm grateful for, uh, to be able to spend a few minutes with you.

So under normal circumstances, most people don't think about elections, nor should they have to, right? They register to vote, and they find their polling place or however it happens to be done if they vote in person.

But in many states, as you know, because the states are all different, in many states, people get their ballot, they mark it, and they mail it in.

And then they sit and, uh, wait maybe on election night if they're, uh, really interested, if they're junkies like you and I are, or if they're just, you know, citizens who care about the future of the country.

They'll tune in and watch TV or watch their, uh, go online and, and get their results.

I mean, are you running any kind of tabletop exercises or war games to respond to different scenarios? And also, you know, how much are you engaging with outside organizations like, you know, legal groups, maybe some state officials, groups like Defend the Vote, you know, Marc Elias who might also be involved here?

Yeah

...

but have voted for the extension in the past.

I mean, this is a very important intelligence gathering tool, uh, for certain foreign, uh, individuals.

It does sometimes, as you described, capture American citizens.

The question is whether or not you need a judicial warrant to be able to include their information and gather their information, and there's people on all sides who I think are rightly concerned about the overreach, uh, of the government intelligence gathering but also need to recognize that this is an important intelligence tool.

Uh, the Biden administration at one point said it was one of the most important tools, if not the most important, uh, tool that they have for gathering information of people who might have malign interests against the United States.

But you have it, right? Isn't it a trillion dollars [laughs] they've asked for, for the defense budget?

Uh, can I just start with the idea of tying, uh, the Save America Act to the negotiations that have been ongoing and seem to be fairly close to a breakthrough, uh, on government funding? Uh, how do you think your Republican colleagues would react to that?

Well, look, I, I think many of them are frustrated and as angry as Americans are right now.

I don't know that Jesus has a position, but he probably cares about taking care of the hungry and the homeless and, uh, uh, those who need assistance.

And look, we could do this pretty simply.

Uh, i- there's clearly gonna be a continued debate about ICE and ICE agents and whether they're gonna follow the rules of law enforcement, but in the interim, we could certainly fund TSA.

We can fund the Coast Guard.

We can fund FEMA.

Why, why is that not the case?

Can you picture yourself voting against the supplemental when you have service members in the battle field?

I think it's, it's a challenge for the, the, the reason you raised, which is munitions are being depleted, some of the exquisite, uh, interceptors, uh, that we're gonna need to replenish.

So they put ...

It's essentially putting a gun to your head.

But we'll see.

I think it's, it's, it, it's premature to talk about it, but it'd be nice to have a real accounting, uh, from the Department of Defense or the President on what exactly is happening, what the goals here are, how we'll know whether we've completed this mission.

I mean, every day it's just taking, uh, you know, what Donald Trump's opinion is at any given moment on what we're doing, and we're putting men and women in harm's way, and there's no clear reason for this.

Yeah

Yeah, is that a number you're hearing?

Uh, it's, it's also...

Yes, we, yes, we've heard it repeated.

We haven't seen any formal request.

But it's important to remember too, this administration has increased the federal debt by four and a half trillion dollars, largely for tax cuts.

Now we're gonna be spending money that we clearly do not have.

Uh, okay, if, if it's a national emergency, we do what we have to do.

But are Democrats actually against this war or just against President Trump and the way he got into it?

What is your response?

well thanks for having me well it will be one thing if there was any degree of lack of confidence by americans or there was evidence of fraud in america none of that is true actually elections come up very well local and state election officials do elections incredibly well with this is really is the chaos and recklessness of the Trump administration, who the president knows the American people are very, very frustrated and angry with what's happening with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE on our city streets.

They're very concerned about the lack of affordability and how badly this economy is going.

70% of Americans think the economy is worse direction than it was when Donald Trump became president.

This is really a misdirection.

It's a way, as the president has said, he says the quiet part out loud, a way to seize American elections, to nationalize them, take that power away from the states, and give voter data to the Department of Homeland Security.

I don't know of anybody in America who thinks it's a good idea to give Secretary Noem access to private information that you supply when you register to vote.

But how would you respond to what else President Trump would say? That Democrats want illegal aliens to vote because they vote Democratic.

You heard Mike Pence saying this is a cautionary tale because of harassment and people interfering with ICE's work.

Yeah, I think it's a cautionary tale.

First and foremost, this is heartbreaking, an American citizen killed by a federal official, no matter which side of the aisle, no matter how you see it.

But frankly, what's really frustrating about this, I saw Speaker Johnson's comments, who immediately says that there's been this effort to encourage people to engage in violence with law enforcement officers.

That's not true.

I haven't seen that anywhere.

I actually thought Minnesota Governor Walz actually set the right tone, which is someone has lost their life.

And at a certain point, is there an activist group that says, this is not the way to go, this is not helping?

What are you talking about?

It's, it's...

What they did was so incredibly outrageous.

Americans should be beside themselves with anger.

I- To your point, they first of all changed the rules and retroactively changed the rules so it applies to these eight senators.

Lindsey Graham has said publicly he intends to sue the United States government for tens of millions of dollars.

And what was it that the DOJ did? They looked at, by the way, senators who seem to have some role or had some connection to the January 6th attempted overthrow of the United [laughs] States government.

It's, it's you who did it."

What are you talking about?

It's, it's, uh, what they did was so incredibly outrageous.

Americans should be beside themselves with anger.

Uh, to your point, they first of all changed the rules and retroactively changed the rules so it applies to these eight senators.

Lindsey Graham has said publicly he intends to sue the United States government for tens of millions of dollars.

And what was it that the DOJ did? They looked at, by the way, senators who seemed to have some role or had some connection to the January 6th attempted overthrow of the United States (laughs) government.

Their phone records were looked at and, and to the point you raised earlier, not the contents of their conversations.

It's, it's you who did it."

That would actually be a golden age if that was taking place, but how do- when you sit with, like, your colleagues on a very serious committee where you go through numbers and you have to talk about appropriations, like, how do they even look at you, like, like how do they look at you with a straight face?

Well, I think there's a lot of them that are sort of metaphorically looking down at their shoes, kind of hoping nobody's gonna call on them in class.

I mean, here- h- the funny thing is, you know, Trump Administration touts eight trillion.

Of course, the- the president can't help them so he's got to double a number, and by the way, the eight trillion, to your point, is all a fantasy.

I mean, this doesn't exist, this is, you know, where a country says, "Oh yeah, we'll invest in America," and he just starts writing down the numbers as though they've already happened.

Um, I mean, the truth is, um, Biden actually got real investments in the United States by foreign governments and by companies that were relocating and re-shoring in the United States, because manufacturing is a big deal.

We do want more companies, uh, back in the United States.

(laughs)

Is it as serious as Blake is making it out to be?

Well, it's serious in this sense.

I mean, obviously, we're out there to have fun and we raise a lot of money for charities and it's it's great to build camaraderie.

But look, no one wants to walk on a field, a ball field and not perform well.

So I think, yeah, it's serious when you're out there.

I have had the privilege of of being I've caught a lot.

but not in the game in practice.

First off, how great are the wings in Rochester?

First of all, t- tell me what we think is happening right now at the Library of Congress.

Well, what's happening right now, and I thank you for pointing out this is the Library of Congress.

I wrote it at the top of, uh, my notes, uh, the other day when we was having conversations about this.

So, there should be no confusion about this.

This is a legislative branch authority.

Uh, the president has dismissed Carla Hayden, who is a, you know, extraordinary person, has done such a great job.

Uh, he dismissed her the other day.

Is there, is there more bipartisan collaboration, or are they sort of zombie members of Congress on the right?