July 15, 2023 • 58 mins
Stop the Steal: It’s the rallying cry of Trump supporters and election deniers who believe the 2020 election was stolen from them. In the final episode of Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy, Jordan dives into a theory about Italian satellites that led to a Biden win and the crack team that is working to set the record straight: an unidentified lawyer, a real estate agent, and Donald Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples.
Original air date: December 14, 2022
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
In the days after the twenty twenty presidential election, CIA
director Gina Haspell flies to Frankfurt, Germany on a secret
mission to secure a computer servers that contain evidence that
the election has been manipulated. These servers, owned by a
bankrupt Spanish company called Scheitel, could prove that the election
was ringed for Joe Biden. Haspel and a team of
(00:26):
Special Forces troops to send on Frankfort to destroy the evidence,
but in the reign, five troops and a CIA official
are killed. Haspell herself is injured, flown to Guantanamo Bay
and given a tribunal for treason. In two thousand and nine,
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez creates a voting system that could
change votes in elections in any country using this advanced technology.
(00:51):
One of the technology companies that uses it is called Smartmanic,
which supplies voting equipment to a single US county In
the twenty twenty election, the scheme between smart Manneic and
Hugo Chavez is a secret and successful effort to rig
the election for Joe Biden, even though Chavez has been
dead for seven years Pescara, Italy. A rogue employee at
(01:12):
the defense and aerospace company Leonardo Spa hacks into military
satellites to change the margin of victory in US States
where Trump has beaten Biden. It's a variable coupe ata
and it would go down as the most extraordinary effort
in history to overturn a presidential election. Oh you know what,
that one actually sounds pretty fun. Italian military satellites, Mama Mia,
(01:34):
these sound great. Oh I'm forgetting one. How can I
not mention the Hungarian vector. There's been so many bizarre
stories going on through the media.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
You can have some pretty far fetched ideas on both sides,
and what we're doing is simply proving or disproving as
many of those as we can.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Speaking of somebody on the outside, this feels like it's
just feeding into territorial thinking.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
We're MythBusters.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Great, Okay, we're doing things we think are foolish, but
people believe it's real. If we validate the something they
think might have happened didn't happen, then we're not throwing
fuel on the fire.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Are you looking into the Hungarian vector?
Speaker 4 (02:16):
I didn't know about that one. Hungary vector.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It's a bullshit thing I just made up that sounds
cool and a little bit spooky. This is Jordan Klepper
Fingers the conspiracy, And yes, those twenty twenty election conspiracy
theories do sound a lot more exciting when we put
public domain, suspenseful music underneath them. You may have heard
a few of those theories, partly because the White House
and Republicans in Congress were publicizing them in the weeks
(02:38):
after the election to convince Americans that the election was stolen,
and it worked to an extent. Sixty one percent of
Republicans still believe the election was stolen, according to a
Mond Month University poll from September of this very year. Today,
we're going to talk to someone who has had the
most legal success against Trump's efforts in court to overturn
the election, and we're also going to talk to a
(03:00):
Supreme Court expert about the cases in front of the
court now that could determine how future elections here are conducted.
But before we get there, I really want to go
back to the Italian military satellites. This is what became
known as Italy Gate, and it's filled with more juicy
content than a piping hotcl zone and the craziest part
of this conspiracy theory is that Trump's chief of Staff
(03:20):
Mark Meadows was emailing details of it to the Attorney General,
Jeffrey Rosen to try to get him to do something
or anything about it. I can't unpack Italy Gate alone.
So let's introduce Eric Levy. He's a digital research analyst
at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and a former investigative
journalist who wrote extensively about the Italy Gate conspiracy theory,
(03:41):
or as I like to call it, lasagna gazi. There's
just there's gonna be a lot of these, Eric, So
I hope you're ready. Thank you for being here. Let's
start at the very beginning of this conspiracy theory, which
comes from an organization called Nations in Action, a group
apparently based in Sarasota, Florida, which published a press release
titled senior IT expert at Global Defense contractor that testifies
(04:06):
an Italian federal court. He had others switch votes throughout
America in the US presidential race. Can you explain some
of this for US?
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Yeah, definitely. So it emerged it's sort of in late
twenty twenty, and it's still a little bit murky about
where it came from. The Washington posted a really good
article on it, but it possibly was. It had sort
of origins an article in Italian media, and then an
XCIA station chief named Bradley Johnson put out a video.
(04:37):
But the ones who really pushed it forward. To answer
your question were Maria's Zach from Nations in Action and
a woman named Michelle Roosevelt Edwards.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Let's start with, let's break down. Talk to me a
little bit about Maria Strollo Zach. You've talked to her, correct.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I talked to I called her number and an identical
voice answered the phone who said it wasn't her.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Uh So, yeah, theoretically, talk to somebody who may have
been herself pretending to be somebody else.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
That's why I'm reporting, Like, that's why I hate phone
calls and I like emails.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, the era of zoom works for you because you
see what that person looks like as opposed to distrusting.
But who is this person? Who is Maria Strolozak?
Speaker 4 (05:20):
So she's a conservative activist and an ex Georgia lobbyist
who I guess was pretty successful and I think she
ran for office a few times herself just on the
local level, just at some point got very involved in
this Italy Gate conspiracy and pushed it very far.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I feel like, if you're in this world, you're talking
about Italian satellites, those things flip and you're probably a character.
Is she a character?
Speaker 4 (05:42):
I'm guessing it's interesting because when I watched the videos, like,
she's clearly like a very intelligent person. That's what's also,
like said, there's a little bit of a you know,
you have this conspiracy theory obviously, which is which is false,
but then you have a person who's like, you know,
she's laying it out with confidence.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Tell us a little bit about Michelle Roosevelt Edwards.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
So she runs another organization called the Institute of Good Governance,
and uh, she sort of worked closely with Maria zach
On on Italy Gate. So the Washington Post had a
big article that at some point in icelandic film crew
went to interview Michelle Roosevelt Edwards. I don't know what
that was for, but in the house, I guess there
(06:22):
was some remember that movie The Game where there's like
there was something weird in like the house, and she
really like in Michael Douglas, it's like, no, like, this
isn't a real house. That the film crew was in
there and they're like, is this your house because it's
something and she's like, yeah, it's my house. Anyway, it
turns out that it wasn't her house. It was some
other woman's mansion and she's just a realtor like in
the area and it's not her house. And the poor
(06:45):
woman her husband died. She didn't even know. She's like,
why is this woman in my house?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Was that woman in the house at the time, She's like, oh,
dear lord, oh dear lord, who interviews in my leving.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Room somewhere else or something? But it was like I
felt I felt bad for her. No, it was like
she was just using this house for like, I don't
know business.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
You're telling me this person who'll put up an entire
false front to show that she's more successful than she is,
she's somehow connected to this whole Trump world. I don't
buy it. I don't buy it. It just doesn't It
doesn't sit well with me.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Yeah, it's tough to beale. That was like a was
that just that killed me?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Okay? And I want I want to dig into sort
of their roles within this but this this initial thought
was sort of revolving around an employee, Arturo Delia.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Correct, Yeah, there's I was thinking about this last night.
This is the hardest thing about Italy Gate, is I mean,
to state the obvious is like explaining it. The short
version is Italian satellites based in Piscara, Italy, UH altered
the votes, giving Joe Biden enough votes from Donald Trump
to win. That's the short version.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Of Italian satellites. They're the bad guys.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Well, there's a lot of players in the CIA, former
President Barack Obama, the hacker that you just referenced, and
a lawyer who put out an Affidavid. There's like those four.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Those are the four. And so the hacker he worked
for something called Leonardo Spa.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Yeah, he worked there. They said he left in twenty seventeen,
which is another problem because he when he was indicted
for a separate I think it was like data theft.
He didn't even work at Leonardo.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
What is Leonardo Spa? I mean it sounds like a
massage parlor and like a cheap one just outside Rome
that like you you splurge because you're on vacation, but
you don't have enough money. So you're sort of like,
what's a cheaper one, like, come to Leonardo Spa. It's
right next to Michelangelo nails.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
That was a very specific Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Not that this is a hypothetical. I've not had that experience.
I imagine if you're pouring in Italy and just had
had a hard time on a long plane because those
seats there's not a lot of space, and you're a
tall person, hypothetically you're gonna be looking for a Leonardo Spa.
This is not that kind of spa exactly.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
No, it's a somewhat more boring military you know, like
a military they make military equipment and satellites stuff like that,
like a Boeing.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Okay, so a'll bow and this is this Arturo Delia
Delia does he actually work for Leonardo Spa.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
My understanding is at some point he did work there,
but he was gone by twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Okay, And is there any information that says that he
had access to these Italian satellites in a way that
could alter it election?
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Zero?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
No?
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Zero?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Okay, okay, okay, but so walk us through this. So
the head of Nations in Action, this group, it's a
person named Maria Strollo Zak, who you've spoken with in
your reporting, what's she like?
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Well? And to be clear, I was telling your producer
that was that was a funny story because when I
called Maria Zach for comment, obviously being a phone, I
can't I don't know for a fact that I can
say that the personal answered sounded exactly like her but
told me very quickly it was not her and actually
said it was her secretary and could she the phrases
(10:07):
could she return? And I I was telling mad I
was like, it's this is a cell phone. But anyway,
I was like, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Sir, of course wit so did you did that person
then pretend to hang up, put on a gruff voice
and then attempt to then answer the phone.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
It was the same voice, but they were just like,
you know, can she return? And I was like, you know,
when you're a reporter, like it's things like that happen.
So yeah, sure, of course, no comment.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Just to be if you're also like a public figure
and somebody calls you and you pretend to be your
own assistant just because you think it gives you status,
that doesn't make you weird. That's just a savvy media
person thing. To do. And if my parents or my
friends think that's a desperate attempt or that I'm not
in a good place, well that's more on them. Can
you verify that?
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Yeah, what jumped out of me? I'll always remember that.
That was how quick it was. It was very I mean,
you know you're comedian, you're an improviser. It was real quick.
There was no plause like like that had happened before.
Maybe that's you know.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
That's I mean, that's an interesting way of looking at
it as opposed to just somebody who's quick on the
on the go. All right, so you had a quick
interaction with this Maria Strollo, Zach. But again to what
what what?
Speaker 4 (11:20):
What?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
What is our understanding of this story? So she is
head of Nations and Action. What is Nations in Action?
Speaker 4 (11:25):
If you go on their web page, there's a lot
of sort of conspiracy theories, and I think they say
that their statement is, you know, good government bringing transparency.
Obviously whether that's true is up.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
To to be determined. And so, but she was able
to get this conspiracy in this idea in front of
important people. Can you walk us through some of that?
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Yeah, So she she used to be a lobbyist in
Georgia's So she's got like close relationships with as I
reported on Congress from Barry Laudermilk.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
One of the one of the top five in all
of Congress. Like, if you were going to, you know,
if you're going to articulate what it feels like to
hear a Southern Republican roll on louder Milk, feels right,
it feels feels obnoxious and white, which is kind of Spotify.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Yeah, he's he's an interesting guy. I think I think
they were, he and his staff. I think we're getting
pretty tired of my emails. After a while they stopped,
they didn't ever respond to me, but then they added
me to their mailing list.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
So that's how you shut somebody up. Just give them
the spam.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
She got it to him, She got it to Devin Nunez,
the staff. I mean she You know what I was
thinking about last night, Like the ordinary person has so
much trouble reaching their elected officials, and yet this person
pushing a complete, uh you know, conspiracy theory that's not true,
is able to reach very high up people.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, she claims she gave documents to louder Milk. Do
we know what was in those documents?
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Yeah, I don't know, did you. I know, you guys
are probably always working. Did you get a chance to
see the affid? Davidt that this is all based.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Around no tell us tell us about it.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
So the whole thing is that she delivered an aphid David. Basically,
what it is is it's a photograph of an actual document,
which right away is a little you know, unusual. It's
not the document, it's it's a lawyer stating that this
hacker that you mentioned in the beginning sat in front
of him and told his story. That's what it is.
(13:26):
No one's been able there is a lawyer that matches
this name, but no one's been able to actually show that,
like really that he that it was that lawyer. So
it's not clear if this thing is even real.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You can't even verify that that conversation took place.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
No, and the document, you know, I can't say I'm
an expert on court documents in Italy, but there's no
numbers on it, like it's just it looks like someone
like wrote it on Microsoft Word.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And she's also Maria Zach was doing an interview about
a Italy gate from the back of a car in Washington,
d C. On January six. What's going on there?
Speaker 5 (14:02):
This happened. It's very real.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
The President is right, foreign interference did occur and people
need to be prosecuted in our country. Who actually participated?
Speaker 4 (14:12):
That was the show called America Can We Talk? And
that's a very strange interview, just because, as you said,
it's taking place while our capital is being attacked. But
there's no mention of it till the end. They're like,
I think Maria's acts is something like, well, if they're
able to, you know, get this under control, we can
you know, get this affidavit to more people. It's like,
whoa like? You know, it's very strange.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So there's there's a lot of interesting red flags and
characters within this. But after all these conversations, meetings talking
to Congressman louder Milk, how high did this go? Like
who in government was actually taking this theory seriously?
Speaker 4 (14:53):
That's a great question. Seriously, I mean in terms of
as you said yourself, Meadows, I guess would be the
highest ranking person to get it. But taking it seriously,
you know a lot of work with conspiracy theorists. You
wonder who's an opportunist who's not.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Well, I mean, it's an interesting question, you say, like
taking it seriously. We don't exactly know what people actually thought,
but I would argue that part of the whole game
plan here was just so doubt so the fact that
there were different threads for people to hold on to
to grasp. Clearly, Donald Trump is somebody who was just
(15:27):
flooding the marketplace with any thought out there, so that
it's getting in people's heads. It's like, who had awareness
of it? We're talking Meadows, Meadows knew about this, which
means Trump had awareness of this. How did this thing
get into more mainstream culture?
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Yeah, and Zach too. She says she delivered or she
told Trump about this at mar Al Lago in twenty twenty.
I can't confirm that, but she said that a number
of times. Really, so, I guess to answer your question,
if that's true, then that reached Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Now what all this is happening? Is it fair to
say that we didn't know how much of the voter
fraud conspiracy theory would stick. These stories were so outlandish
that it didn't seem possible that millions of people would
believe them, And yet even today, the majority of Republicans
say they don't think the twenty twenty election was legitimate.
Does that encourage Republican lawmakers to push more conspiracy theories
(16:23):
knowing there probably won't be consequences and then doing so
probably will at least help them in some way.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Consequences are like obviously incredibly important. Like when there are
no consequences, we're given a wide latitude to speak and
that's a good thing. But as you know, some of
these conspiracies are incredibly harmful. So I don't know. In
cases like I don't know, let's say in Alex Jones,
when people are actually held accountable makes a huge difference.
(16:49):
Some of them stop tomorrow and you never hear from
them again.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
What do you think it was about Italy Gate that
made it so sticky and interesting to people?
Speaker 4 (16:58):
So there's a conference call I think it was on
January fourth, twenty twenty one. It's between Maria zach and supporters.
So it's right before the attack on the Capitol. It's
like forty five minutes long, and it's just she lays
out Italy Gate and then it's weird, like all these
random people are popping in, like like I said, like
Marlon Maples pops in and just like it's just she's
(17:20):
the only everyone else is just a first name, so
you don't even know really who they are.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
What's Marl the Maple's doing there?
Speaker 4 (17:25):
I don't know, like a supporter, I guess, very strange.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
And all of this was sort of to just hip
everybody to the Italy gate theory so that they had
it in their back pocket.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
I mean, I don't want to say that. She comes
right in and but there's some hints of to continue
this work, we will need funding, like a private plane
has talked about at one point.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So oh, she's she's she's asking for a private plane.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
I don't know, it might have been one of the
other people, but there's definitely more than one hint therapy
it like we need, you know, money.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
This sounds like a timeshare situation. She gets everybody on
a conference call. Let me tell you about this fascinating
Italy situation. If you give me your attention and enough
money for a private plan, I have something that is
going to take your breadth away. And Pop's Marlon Mapoles
was like, ooh, tell me more. It's like thanks, Marlo.
Marla has been on this for quite some time. Her
and her family our big Italy Gate supporters, and you
(18:24):
two could be an Italy Gate supporter for just a
mere two thousand dollars. We can give you the correct
mindset to keep you happy from this day forward.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
This is the last seven years kind of feel like
a time shared. Like do you ever feel like that,
like you're just trapped?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I yes, I do feel like I've given over a
portion of my life to live in a different reality
every year. And you look at it, You're like, I
think this is a bad investment. I think the timeshare
is giving into all of this bullshit that we're talking about.
It just it sucks away so much time that I
could be using for something else. It's not a time
I'm sure. Maybe that's maybe what we're describing as a
(19:02):
time suck. We've all invested in a time suck that
we will never get back. We can all agree is
a really bad investment.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
It's wild. I mean, this is the conspiracy theory that
like I think I was telling your producer, Like even
other conspiracy theorists are like like, like, that's how far
this one is out there?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Like, yeah, what does this Italy Gate conspiracy rake in
terms of all the conspiracies related to the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
I would say, in terms of the ones that are
like the wildest, this has to be at the top.
I can't think of I know you guys have been
doing this for a while on your podcast. If there's
another one, I can't think of one.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
You got Hugo Chavez so dead. Hugo Chavez is a
fun one. It's definitely takes a stretch of imagination, but
there's intrigue, there's sexiness to this. I'd have to put
it up there as well.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
It's also like the little details that kill me, Like
the data. It wasn't enough that it was the Italian
satellites they routed through Germany. It's like like why, Like
that's what I don't understand, Like, but it's just fascinating.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
There's somebody on the ground or in the air in
Germany that was getting this information or or or working
through the satellites through Germany.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Yeah, they're saying like at some point they never got
into the sort of like how the the stuff was transmitted,
but it was from the satellites and went through I
think some servers in Germany and then I guess back
to the US.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
So they're theoretically, if this were real, not only are
there folks in Italy who are culpable, but there are
folks in Germany as well, which is what always kind
of blows my mind with a lot of these conspiracy theories,
because they they hype the idea behind it involves so
many people that even afterwards, you'd expect. One thing we're
(20:49):
really bad at is keeping secrets, especially if it's a
multinational effort to overturn results in very specific states.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
And then it just disappears into the void, which is
sort of a I think people should consider a major
I don't know if red flag is the right word,
but if you believe so strongly in something you believe
has happened, and then thirty seconds later when it doesn't,
you know, when it's gone, You're just onto the next thing.
It kind of questions like credibility, sure, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I think we lost that a long time ago. Well,
Eric LaVey, thank you for unfolding this conspiracy theory, like
carefully needing a perfect pizza pie.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
We're going to take a short break. When we come back.
We would talk to Pennsylvania Attorney General and Governor elect
Josh Shapiro. We'll be right back. In the days after
the twenty twenty election, Pennsylvania became the focus of Republican
efforts to overturn the results. They ramped up their attacks
on the legitimacy of mail in ballots and claimed that
(21:49):
ballots would arrive after election day and be mixed with
ballots that arrived before election day. Anticipating a possible Supreme
Court showdown, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro began separating those
post election day ballots and became a high profile example
of a Democrat fighting back against the voter fraud conspiracy theater,
and as the Trump team became litigious before and after
(22:12):
election day, Shapiro beat Trump more than forty times in court.
In last month's midterm, Shapiro won the race for governor
of Pennsylvania, defeating one of the country's most prominent voter
fraud conspiracy theorist, Doug Mastriano. And Josh Shapiro is with
us today to talk about the exciting world of voter fraud.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Good to be with you, Jordan, Thanks for having.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Me, of course, and we were debating a current governor
elect soon to be governor, Josh Shapiro. That's most of it, right.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
Yeah, And look, I only require our four children to
use all of the titles when they address me. You
can call me whatever you want, well, not whatever you want,
but you can call me one of those titles.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I was gonna say, Do you also throw in the
beat Trump forty times in court, moniker or There's probably
a lot of people will also have that in their
name as well. The guy's been to court many, many times.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
I don't know about that, but listen, we went to
court forty three times against the former president and his enablers,
and we beat him every time. We protected the right
to vote. We had a free and fair, safe and
secure election here in Pennsylvania back in twenty twenty, again
in twenty twenty one, and most recently in twenty twenty two.
The will of the people was respected each time.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
When you've been at the center of these claims over
voter fraud for over two years now, even though you
did win the race for governor, it appears as if
the state is moving forward. Does it still alarm you
how many voters, obviously many of them Republican, appear to
have bought into these conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It does.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
But Jordan, I don't blame the voters, and hear me
on this. I blame the leaders who've been lying to
them for the better part of the last two and
a half years about voting by mail, about this phony
election fraud of leaders who you trust, who you put
into positions of authority, and then they lie to you
(24:05):
over and over and over again. It's hard to blame
the public. I blame the leaders. And the good news
is we're defeating those leaders who pushed the big live
from the former president to his chief enabler here in Pennsylvania,
who I just beat in the governor's race, And hopefully
now what we can do is continue to speak truth
to the good people of Pennsylvania, to the American people,
(24:26):
and help them understand reality from the fiction that the
former president pushed and get us back to having a
healthier democracy.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Well, I went to one of the rallies your opponent
held right there at the state Capitol and talked to
some of the tens of people who showed up.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
I think about twelve people showed up that day, and after.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
A minimal amount of fanfare, Mastriano appeared, and he was freaking.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Hilarious going after the pillow. Guy, are you serious? Give
me a break? Beat Scotty, beat me up. No sign
of intelligent life anywhere.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Boom. But even with the coveted Trump endorsement, the crowd
was tiny. Was it small because of Masteriano's far right
policies and election denihalism? Nope, this is Facebook.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Suppressing convative speech.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
The reason that aren't people here because Facebook is silencing
these silencing Yes, it was a low turnout. I felt
like it seemed as if you had a good shot
of winning that race. I want to talk a little
bit about Masteriano though, because he may have spread more
election related conspiracy theories than any other candidates. Let's go
(25:36):
through a couple of these. He was claiming the voting
machines glitched in Michigan and switched six thousand Biden votes,
so we're also responsible for one hundred thousand vote dumps
that were all for Biden. In the middle of the night,
sharing a Gateway pundit post of suspected fraud issues that
included a way for people to search for dead people
who voted using something called the Social Security death master
(25:59):
file to catch you he was claiming dominion voting machines
were built intentionally to rig the election for Democrats, and
claiming that Act seventy seven of Pennsylvania law that allows
no excuse voting by mail was illegally passed and was
responsible for Biden's win. Can you walk us through some
of these and tell us how you push back against.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Them, Well, by calling them what they were, complete and
utter bullshit, that's what they were. He was lying to
the good people in Pennsylvania and his conduct to try
to overthrow the last election. Remember, he was part of
the violent mob that stormed up to the Capitol on
January sixth, and he went there that day. And this
is real important, Jordan. He went there that day not
(26:39):
just to hear a speech from the former president or
be part of some peaceful protest. He went there that
day with a singular purpose. That's why they were all there,
and that was to deny people's votes from county. Because remember,
when you vote here in Pennsylvania. It's true in other states,
but let me focus on Pennsylvania. You vote for the
presidential race in Pennsylvania, your vote gets tallied by your
(27:02):
local county Board of Elections gets certified by the governor
and the Secretary of State in Pennsylvania. But then in
order for your vote to finally count, it has to
be read across the desk in the US House of Representatives.
That's what they were there to do on January sixth,
and he was there as part of the violent mob
to stop them from doing. Then he comes back home
(27:23):
to Pennsylvania launches a campaign for governor, and Jordan he
says in his campaign that he was going to use
his power as governor to be able to review all
the voting machines, make corrections as he calls them, and
then he would pick the winner. That's not how our
democracy works. That is not how our republic has survived
(27:46):
over the last two hundred and forty six years. And
so it was important for us to beat him, to
just obviously win the election, but also to protect our democracy,
to protect the will of the people, and to make
it clear to foe that spewing conspiracy theories, being part
of a violent mob pledging to overturn the next election
(28:07):
is not the way things work in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Were in this country, well, I was surprised many of
the people I talked to that day, were also there
at January sixth. It was almost a mini reunion. You
have been aggressive at pushing back and it made headlines
for that. Do you think that your victory is a
sign that voters are energized by candidates who push back
(28:31):
aggressively against election deniers.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
You got to fight back against it, and look, we've
done it in big ways in small I mean, I've
been to the hunt clubs in rural communities in Pennsylvania
and confronted folks directly, and they'll say to me, they
were saying to me, you know, the election twenty twenty
was stolen, So so what evidence do you have of that.
Let's just have a conversation. Well, there was massive voter fraud,
(28:55):
and I say, you know, I'm I'm the attorney general.
It's my job to prosecute election fraud, along with some
district attorneys as well. And we had about a handful
of cases of election fraud in twenty twenty, by the way,
where each of those individuals who were prosecuted, we're trying
to cast one extra single vote for their candidate for president,
(29:17):
by the way, for Donald Trump, now for Joe Biden.
But even if they were trying to do that for
Joe Biden. It wasn't going to affect the outcome of
the election. It was not this widespread voter fraud, and
they were prosecuted for it. And so I confront folks
with truth and try to force them to think about
the reality of what they are saying. In addition to that,
(29:39):
it was critically important for us here in Pennsylvania, in Arizona,
in Michigan in other places to defeat those people who
continue to spread the lies. Now, I said on election
night when I won Jordan that this is the beginning
of our work. Just because we beat these election deniers
doesn't mean that it's rid from our system. We have
(30:01):
to now do the hard work that folks have been
doing for the last two hundred and forty six years
in this nation, right our ancestors and their ancestors, to
perfect our union, to speak truth, to make sure that
the will of the people is respected. So I think
we've done step one defeating those extremists. But now we've
got to do the hard work of perfecting our union,
(30:22):
and that tesk now falls.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
To me as the next governor of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
How complete do you think step one truly is because
I do looking at those the major election deniers, the
races in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Here's swing states where the
people in control of verifying those ballots could have very
well gone to election deniers. Those big places, they were defeated.
(30:47):
But there's still a lot of people who are election
deniers who are in position of power in America, a
lot of very close races where perhaps election deniers were defeated,
but it didn't. When I looked at this, I didn't
exactly see the idea of election denialism expunging from the
American narrative. But perhaps stepping back for a little bit,
is there a fear that Democrats are a little too
(31:10):
confident in the pushback of election denialism after this election, Well, let.
Speaker 6 (31:16):
Me say, I'm not confident that it's over at all.
So don't you know, certainly don't put me in that category.
I'm in the category where we had a good day
on Tuesday, November eighth in defeating those extremists, those election deniers,
but we have so much more work to do now.
I believe that these election deniers are Masterriano in particularly,
(31:37):
just profoundly and pathetically weak people.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And let me explain what I mean by that.
Speaker 6 (31:43):
They know it's bullshit, but yet they say it over
and over again because they're willing to sell out our
democracy and our country for some short term political gain,
for some short term attention, maybe some love from the
former president. That's why they do it. That's the definition
of weak if you're willing to sell out your nation
(32:05):
and our values on behalf of your own short term goals. Well,
now we've denied many of them that short term goal,
and hopefully in defeating them the way we have it
forces that next batch of candidates to go along and say, JESU,
is that really the path I want to take to
be successful? It doesn't make them any stronger. It just
(32:26):
speaks to how again, how kind of spineless so many
of these folks are, and letting them know they're not
going to be rewarded for the lie. And so I
think hopefully this will have an effect on the politics
as we go forward. We also need to work on
ridding our system of these weak folks and getting some
people with backbones back in it. And by the way, Jeordan,
even folks who might disagree with me on some policy
(32:48):
that's okay, But we got to get back to the
point where we have strong, capable people in positions of
public trust who argue about tax policy and healthcare policy
and educational policy and all the things that we should
be arguing about, the healthy fights we're supposed to have.
But we've got to continue the battle against these weak
people in defeating them in their elections and defeating them
(33:10):
in their political aims.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Did you have any Democrats from other states reach out
to you to ask advice on confronting this election denihalism.
Speaker 6 (33:20):
I did a lot of them, folks running for governor
and other offices, and I spoke. Obviously, I'll keep those
conversations in private, but I did speak to them about
the need to take the fight on directly, to not
give an inch on this. You know, when they say
that something was stolen, challenged them on it. Put the
facts out there. Make sure that you're going directly to
the good people in my case of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
With the facts. Do not let any of that nonsense stand.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Okay, Looking forward, well, where we are right now, Trump
is running again, Elon Musk is green lighting misinformation all
over Twitter. We know that voter fraud conspiracies. They're gonna
get worse in twenty twenty four. What are tangible steps
the Democratic Party can take to fight and to push back?
Knowing the world we're in right now, you.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Know, try to meet people where they are. That's why
I'm talking to you today. I mean, you've been out
front on the importance of combating election denialism. You have
exposed a lot of these folks and the lies they
tell by you know, mocking them and showing not the
humor in it, because obviously this is incredibly serious, but
showing people this in a way that they can comprehend
(34:29):
it if they don't read, you know, from page of
the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times. Not to
say that your listeners don't read the New York Times,
but the point.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
At least read the headlines. Good at reading the headlines.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
But like, you know, you got to meet people where
they are.
Speaker 6 (34:44):
You got to communicate to them, You got to show
them the difference between fiction and reality. And then I
have responsibility now as a governor to hold myself up
to that high standard and to continue to speak truth
and continue, you know, to communicate me people where they are,
whether we're talking to them on TikTok on your podcast
anywhere We've got to meet people where they are and
(35:05):
continue to share the truth.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
You say you went to hunt clubs, You went to
places where people had questions about the election. I get
the question all the time, do you ever change people's minds? Boy,
that's a unicorn. I can't say I'm watching people change
their minds about information when you were at those places.
Being confronted with outside facts doesn't always is often met
(35:28):
with resistance and a doubling down of the things they
think they believe. They feel challenged in a way that
I have not found conducive to reaching a new understanding.
Did you actually see that in those moments in those
hunt clubs with people who were confronting you and you're
pushing back?
Speaker 6 (35:45):
Sometimes I did directly, But what I was really going
after was was not to embarrass anyone in front of
their peers, or force someone to have to look at
me in front of their peers and say, you're right,
I'm wrong. What I've thought for the last year, you know,
is incorrect. What I really wanted was when they left there,
(36:06):
to be thinking about it and to process it and
to maybe make a change in their thinking, or their politics,
or the way they might vote. And Jordan, I got
some pretty good evidence that we made a whole lot
of people think because I won this governor's race by
a big margin. We won by about fifteen points, but
I got more votes than anyone in the history of
Pennsylvania running for governor. And the reason I'm telling you
(36:29):
that is not to pat myself on the back, but
because it would be impossible to win with the number
of votes we did in the margin we did with
only Democrats. We got a whole lot of Republicans and
independents cross party lines to support us, a whole lot
of people who clearly rethought their politics after twenty sixteen
and even twenty twenty and said, you know what, we're
going to go with this guy. We're we're going to
(36:50):
go against the election denier. We're going to believe this truth,
and hopefully we're going to all be able to continue
to come together to repair our politics.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Well after such a clear hubble brag such as that,
chill about that. Now, you did a pretty good job.
That's what You're a savvy politician. Even the bragging does
come across somehow as as humble and informative. That's that's
well played.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Well.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Your high profile and your success here has upped some
of the speculation where people have seen you in the
light of somebody who could be a Democratic nominee for president.
Do you want to use the Jordan Klepper Fingers the
Conspiracy podcast as a platform that you confirm loving hearing
that speculation.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
Now, man, Look, I'm just so excited to be governor.
I haven't even been sworn in yet. I got a
lot of work to do. That's all I want to do.
That's all my wife and kids want me to do,
and that's all I am going to do.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Well, well, thank you for talking to me. Governor Elect.
Josh Shapiro will be right back. We're back, and we're
talking election fraud. It's obviously something I hear over and
over on the campaign trail. But unlike some of the
other conspiracy theories we've covered on this podcast, this one
(38:10):
has some serious implications on the future of our democracy.
This about the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a
case called More versus Harper, and it could fundamentally change
how elections are conducted. To break this down with me,
I am Supreme Court expert, author of Lady Justice, Women,
The Law and the Battle to Save America and host
of the Slate podcast Amicus Dhalia Lithwick. Welcome to the podcast. Hi,
(38:34):
Jordan Dahlia. I have to call it the fact, and
you're well aware that you are wearing not one but
two headphones today. Is there a conspiracy in this? Do
you want me to do a secondary podcast on your
hyper attention or are you just a super big Jordan
Klepper finger's a conspiracy fan.
Speaker 7 (38:54):
I mean, I can repurpose the joke I made the
first time you tease me where I said that if
Rudi you can wear two watches, I can wear two headphones.
But I you know, I'm a Belton Suspenders guy.
Speaker 5 (39:06):
I went to law.
Speaker 7 (39:07):
School and we learned to be very, very, very compulsive.
So that's my story.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
I'm sticking to it.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
You're a Belton Suspenders guy. What does that mean? That
means it's is that an overabundance of caution or fear
that your parts could at any moment fall like what
is again? This is what we do on this podcast.
We really get into the nitty gritty, but this is
a move out of fear respect true story.
Speaker 7 (39:33):
I heard the expression at one point very early in
my career covering oral arguments at the court, and I was.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
Like, what the hell does this mean?
Speaker 7 (39:41):
And all these lawyers were like, it just means being careful, idiot.
So I think not to suggest that you're not knowing
this term implies anything, but it was. I learned the
hard way that apparently everyone but me knew that Belton
suspenders is just kind of shorthand for lawyerly over cautiousness maybe,
(40:04):
and also fear that your pencil full. Dow.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I was going to say, it's interesting, isn't like you.
It's it's all about spin. It's either caution or its fear.
But but I see how the attorneys do it. It's
a it's a deductive sound, and I appreciate you taking
that certain suspenders action. To listen to this. I want
to talk about, you know, the potential collapse of democracy.
(40:27):
It's a it's a hobby of mine, and I want
to discuss this more. V Harper, Can we talk about
that case itself and what that might mean for elections?
Speaker 5 (40:39):
Sure it is.
Speaker 7 (40:42):
It's hard to say this crisply, Jordan, but it's both
the most.
Speaker 5 (40:46):
Serious and least serious case of my career.
Speaker 7 (40:50):
It's serious because the implications are vast, which we're going
to talk about. It's also rooted in so much nothing
that it's almost painful. Like when they call it the
independent state legislature doctrine or the independent state legislature theory.
Almost everybody puts doctrine in theory in air quotes because
(41:10):
there's no there there. It's not something that is rooted
in constitutional history. It's not something that's rooted in tradition.
It's something that was almost entirely plucked from a chunk
of a Renquist opinion in bushfe. Gore that only got
three votes. It's not a majority opinion where he was
(41:32):
kind of spitballing.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
You may recall bushv.
Speaker 7 (41:34):
Gore also not a serious decision.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
So this is like a Reest fever dream that we're
in the midst of right now.
Speaker 7 (41:40):
It's a Renquist fever dream where he's sort of spitballing.
Speaker 5 (41:44):
Hey, maybe state.
Speaker 7 (41:46):
Legislatures have you know, kind of plenary unreviewable power and
state courts can't come in in bigfoot on them.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
It gets two votes, that should be the end of the.
Speaker 7 (41:56):
Story, but instead it's being lifted up as this important
piece of doctrine and.
Speaker 5 (42:02):
Not to get too in the weeds.
Speaker 7 (42:03):
But the reason it's serious is because if the claim
in this case, and this case comes from a North
Carolina gerrymander, the North Carolina Supreme Court says, oh, hell no,
do your maps again. And the North Carolina Republican Legislature
takes this to the Supreme Court and says, we're here
(42:25):
proffering this completely asinine, rootless theory that when a legislature
does election stuff, no court can review it.
Speaker 5 (42:35):
End of story is.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
That it we are in a nutshell. If you're to
explain it to our audience, read our host. Pretend there's
somebody who read the headline of a Vox article but
maybe didn't get all the way through because they're busy.
Is that basically it. It's something that's looking at the
power of state legislatures over federal elections and questioning whether
or not they have ultimate power. Is that ballpark?
Speaker 7 (42:58):
There's but there's one clarification. There's one section of this
that has to do with the Elector's Clause in the Constitution.
That's the federal elections. There's one that is the elections
clause that has to do with state elections. So this
particular case actually doesn't implicate some of the stuff we
talked about Brad Raffinsberger and you know, state electors and
(43:21):
sending over fake state electors. This is not scooping up
that this is about state processes. But it does mean
that if a red state, and let's remember thirty of
the fifty states have read state legislatures, if they decide
they want to make up new rules about ballot initiatives,
they want to do new vote suppression, they want to
(43:45):
close polling plate, whatever they want to do. They are
saying nobody can take this to a state supreme court,
not even a federal court, a state supreme court and
complain because basically nobody is the boss of me. So
this particular one is about the state house state election.
Speaker 5 (44:02):
Procedures are handled. But one tiny wrinkle there, Jordan, that's
worth saying.
Speaker 7 (44:06):
One consequence of that is that if they win on
that claim, you're going to have on the same ballot
they used to have state and federal elections complete chaos
because one set of them can't be reviewed and one
presumably can. So one of the things that this is
going to inject into the system is totally different lanes
for state and federal office.
Speaker 5 (44:26):
Okay, so you're looking perplexed. I'm worried that I've.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
I mean, it sounds it sounds like there may be
should be a checker of balance in there that these
state legislatures shouldn't be able to be the final say.
Where do the justices stand on this? Like, what is
the actual likelihood that state legislators will gain control of
federal election procedures?
Speaker 5 (44:47):
I mean, here's the tricky part.
Speaker 7 (44:49):
We already have four justices on the current Supreme Court
who've evinced real enthusiasm for this theory. So we have
Justice as Alito, Gorsach, and Thomas that are kind of
like pedal to the medal, this is cool, And in
some of the pre twenty twenty election cases we saw
them sort of effusing about how cool this was. And
(45:10):
then we have a fourth Justice, Kavanaugh, who's done some
like chin stroking e like, oh, this is kind of
I think this is pretty compelling, but isn't necessarily all in.
Let's remember it takes four votes to grant a case,
so that might be it. We don't know where Amy
Coney Barrett sits on this. We do know that Chief
(45:31):
Justice John Roberts doesn't think this is necessarily a fantastic idea.
We also know he's irrelevant, so there might be five
votes already going in.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
So it's probably coming down to Amy Cony Barrett is
going to decide this case. That's that's your best guess
right now.
Speaker 7 (45:48):
My guess is that John Roberts thinks this is too extreme,
and he's written lots of prior cases, famously an Arizona
case where he has said time and time again, we're
not taking state just judges powers away over state legislatures.
So I think he's pretty much going to adhere to
(46:09):
some version of that.
Speaker 5 (46:10):
This is wackad do right. Have we made that point enough?
Speaker 7 (46:13):
This is insane, and John Roberts is many things insane,
he is not, so yes, I think it comes down
to what Justice Barrett thinks, and we have no idea
on this doctrine.
Speaker 5 (46:23):
What she thinks.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Well, this issue has popped up over the last hundred years.
Supreme Court has batted it out over and over again.
Why is it cropping back up now?
Speaker 7 (46:33):
It's cropping back up as part of this kind of larger,
larger and I think this goes to your sort of
vote suppression frame. What do you do when you can't
win majorities anymore in America?
Speaker 5 (46:45):
Right?
Speaker 7 (46:45):
What you do is you capture state houses and then
you jerrymander the heck out of your state voting systems
to make sure that tiny minorities stay in charge. And
so I think this is of a piece with a
whole subset of things, whether it's voter suppression bills like
you know, the stuff that Stacy Abrams has been fighting,
(47:08):
or whether it is ridiculous you know, malaportionment that means
that you know the Alabama case that the court heard
earlier this year, Merrill, where you have a third of
Alabama of Alabama is African American, almost a third twenty
seven percent, they're all smashed into one of seven districts,
so they can't elect the candidate of their choice. So
(47:32):
I think there's all sorts of ways that you suppress majorities.
And I put this in the bucket of why do
it small if you can do it huge? Right, if
you can just do whatever you want is a state
legislature and it's unreviewable by any court. And by the way,
just one other parenthetical, there's a maximalist crazy version of
(47:53):
this not at issue in mor V Harper. That would
also say that governors like you talked about checks and balances, uh,
also have no power to do anything.
Speaker 5 (48:02):
They can't veto this. So I think one way.
Speaker 7 (48:04):
To sort of lock in minority rule for time immemorial
is to just make it impossible for majority will to
be represented at the ballot box.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Go big or go home, and while you're at home,
just stay there because there's no reason to go out
to vote, or.
Speaker 5 (48:22):
That you can have an entire orderly election.
Speaker 7 (48:25):
And this is where folks should think about what happened
in Georgia in twenty twenty, where you have a completely orderly,
non chaotic election and then you have the legislature be like, hmm, no.
Speaker 5 (48:36):
We don't like those electors.
Speaker 7 (48:38):
Let's go for this slate of it, which is what
John Eastman and Donald Trump were asking Brad Rafinsberger to do.
So I want to be super clear that issue is
not I think in the four corners of what this
appeal is.
Speaker 5 (48:51):
But I think it's of like you have.
Speaker 7 (48:53):
To draw a straight line between this and the kind
of election denialism we're seeing in twenty twenty where you
had dates and state legislatures being lobbied by Donald Trump,
by Jenny Thomas, by John Eastman to be like and
nevermind what the voters say, let's do it this way.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
Well, let's let's draw that line. So we do have
conspiracy theorists and election deniers in pretty prominent positions. Granted,
quite a few of them did lose in the midterms,
including Kerry Lake and Arizona, who is now contesting her
loss for governor even though the results have already been certified.
Is it crazy to think that whole states that have
(49:29):
election deniers and their legislatures could just choose to throw
out the results in federal elections.
Speaker 7 (49:35):
I don't think it's crazy, and I think, in fact,
one of the things this doctrine is setting up is
the stepping stone toward that right. I mean, the reason
it didn't happen in twenty twenty when Donald Trump called
Georgia and said, you know, give me a fresh ballot
of fake electors is that there was no architecture in
place to.
Speaker 5 (49:55):
Support that right.
Speaker 7 (49:56):
This case would be part of building the architecture that
says state legislatures can.
Speaker 5 (50:02):
Do whatever they want.
Speaker 7 (50:03):
It is unreviewable, nothing can go to a state Supreme court.
And one other point again on this is there's an
easy way to solve this particular North Carolina case, which
is the actual legislature in North Carolina has already said
that the state judiciary can review these questions.
Speaker 5 (50:22):
So this is an easy case.
Speaker 7 (50:24):
It shouldn't even be a question because the legislature has
taken this power away from itself. But I do think
you're exactly right to say this is really a building
block toward a future where state legislature's power are so
utterly unreviewable or even creepily reviewable only by the US
Supreme Court, that you should just stay home.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Well, you say this shouldn't even be a question, and
I guess I'm curious what that says about our country's
political ideology and also the ideology of the justices. There
are a number of conservative legal figures who are coming
out against the Supreme Court even hearing this case. The
fact that they are, what does that say about the
ideology of the justices.
Speaker 7 (51:07):
So this is, without a doubt for me, the most
interesting part. Right, You've got Mike Loutig, the guy who
almost got Chief Justice John Roberts seat at the Court right,
he was on the shortlist. This is a stalwart conservative
legal movement giant. He's also the guy, by the way,
who you may recall Mike Pants was like, dude, can
I do this thing that Donald Trump is asking me
(51:29):
to do and not certify the election. It was Mike Lutigg,
you know, conservative legal giant, who was like, no, Mike,
you can't do that. So he's wildly come out opposed
to this, and in fact, I think he's one of
the people, at least he said on my podcast like
this would signal the demise of orderly elections in checks
and bounces. So he's come out against it. Ben Ginsberg,
(51:52):
famous Republican election lawyers, against it. Every chief justice of
every state Supreme Court is on a brief in this
case saying like this is insane. Stephen Calibracy, co founder
of the Federalist Society, has come out again like there's
very few sane conservative figures who are for this. So
(52:12):
then your operative question is why the hell is the
court flirting with this, Like why are they playing foot
sea with a theory advanced principally by John Eastman, the
guy who was the architect of the January sixth legal coup.
And I think the reason is because there's no breaks
at the US Supreme Court because they have.
Speaker 5 (52:30):
A six justice supermajority.
Speaker 7 (52:33):
Everything in the world they wanted last term, abortion, guns,
you know, kneecapping, the EPA, kneecapping the CDC.
Speaker 5 (52:42):
Everything they wanted, they got.
Speaker 7 (52:43):
Everything they didn't get last year they're getting this year.
So this is just a my friendly allotment at Michigan
calls it the hashtag Yolow Court. You know, they used
to have some solicitude and sensitivity for what the public
could tolerate, and I think now they're like directly in
opposition to what.
Speaker 5 (53:02):
The public can tolerate.
Speaker 7 (53:03):
They're like, oh, eighty percent of Americans hate this, let's
do it.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
Great.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
This is what an uplifting conversation. It's so good to
hear about the people who are pulling the levers here. Okay,
so let's if states choose to do this. If this
is a situation that does come into fruition, what happens
next is that it for democracy? Is there anything people
in these states could do to prevent that?
Speaker 7 (53:29):
Well, I think that you're going to see very much
what you're sort of seeing Postdobs, which is blue states
will rush to bolster blue state supermajorities and will create,
you know, supermajority districts, and will do all the things
that New York tried to do and failed to do
in the midterms. But you'll see red states rushing to
(53:51):
bolster you know, the power of Republican supermajorities in all
the ways that they do that. And so I think,
in a weird way, maybe it's a sort of second
iteration of the red state blue state patchwork we're seeing
around guns, around environmental protection, around abortions. We're just going
to see both sides further, you know, push whatever it
(54:16):
is that they can do to make sure they have
unlosable power.
Speaker 5 (54:22):
And that's pretty scary.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
The important question I think we're all thinking about what
does this mean for me in the short term? Am
I going to go out into the world and just
here stop the steal forever or at least until rogue
red states decide to reinstall President Trump again.
Speaker 7 (54:45):
That is what we call a Stephen Bryer four part
hypothetical question. Can we start with There's so many pieces
of that. I mean, I think what it really means
is that, first of all, this is an incredibly abstract case.
Speaker 5 (55:01):
Nobody understands this case. This should be bigger than Bush v. Gore.
Speaker 7 (55:06):
The implications, as I said, are vast, and yet I
think folks are just like flummoxed right on the Stop
the steel folks, I have to say, just looping back
to where you started, Jordan, I'm pretty happy about the
fact that the Stop the Steelers got absolutely schill Act
in the midterms, because it tells me it was not
(55:29):
as salient as they thought.
Speaker 5 (55:31):
It was, and more urgently, and I think the.
Speaker 7 (55:33):
Polling really showed this people kind of like democracy. I mean,
it was one of the issues that people showed up,
you know, in addition to reproductive rights. People were really
anxious that the machinery of crushing democracy had kind of
gotten a toe hold. And so I actually think it's
not to say this isn't a worry. It's a huge
(55:54):
worry because the Supreme Court, as we have both stipulated,
does not care what you and I think. But I
do think that the appetite for crazy, lawless vote suppression,
democracy shattering initiatives is not what I think Donald Trump
and Carrie Lake thought it was. And so I'm like,
(56:17):
I was like eight Bourbons. In this time before the
you know, before the midterms, I think maybe this isn't
terrible because I think, as much as it sucks that
the US Supreme Court is an unchecked christocracy that is
going around doing whatever the hell it wants with life
tenured people, one of whom has a wife who was
(56:37):
involved in January six.
Speaker 5 (56:39):
That's bad, let's agree.
Speaker 7 (56:41):
I think that folks recognized that after Dobbs in a
way they didn't. And I think that the ability to
just sit there and like take it on the chin
because the Supreme Court says so is much. I think
the taste for that is in decline right now. I
think people are sort of angry and so I'm not
as hopeless as you sound.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
Well, I will drink to that. That looks like a
good place to end. Daliolithwick, thank you for coming out
of the podcast.
Speaker 5 (57:11):
It was a pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
Well, that's it. The end of our six episode limited
edition mini series something like that. It's a limited series,
it's a podcast, whatever it is. We did six episodes.
It's what we said we're gonna do, and now we've
wrapped it up and there's a chance we'll come back
because there's always a world in which Americans believe dumb shit,
and we want to talk about all of that. Thanks
(57:33):
for listening. This has been a blast. Listen to Jordan
Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy from The Daily Show on Apple Podcasts,
the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4 (57:44):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The Daily Show wherever you.
Speaker 2 (57:49):
Get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven.
Speaker 4 (57:53):
Ten Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime
on Fair Amount Plus.
Speaker 1 (58:00):
This has been a Comedy Central podcast
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
In the days after the twenty twenty presidential election, CIA
director Gina Haspell flies to Frankfurt, Germany on a secret
mission to secure a computer servers that contain evidence that
the election has been manipulated. These servers, owned by a
bankrupt Spanish company called Scheitel, could prove that the election
was ringed for Joe Biden. Haspel and a team of
(00:26):
Special Forces troops to send on Frankfort to destroy the evidence,
but in the reign, five troops and a CIA official
are killed. Haspell herself is injured, flown to Guantanamo Bay
and given a tribunal for treason. In two thousand and nine,
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez creates a voting system that could
change votes in elections in any country using this advanced technology.
(00:51):
One of the technology companies that uses it is called Smartmanic,
which supplies voting equipment to a single US county In
the twenty twenty election, the scheme between smart Manneic and
Hugo Chavez is a secret and successful effort to rig
the election for Joe Biden, even though Chavez has been
dead for seven years Pescara, Italy. A rogue employee at
(01:12):
the defense and aerospace company Leonardo Spa hacks into military
satellites to change the margin of victory in US States
where Trump has beaten Biden. It's a variable coupe ata
and it would go down as the most extraordinary effort
in history to overturn a presidential election. Oh you know what,
that one actually sounds pretty fun. Italian military satellites, Mama Mia,
(01:34):
these sound great. Oh I'm forgetting one. How can I
not mention the Hungarian vector. There's been so many bizarre
stories going on through the media.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
You can have some pretty far fetched ideas on both sides,
and what we're doing is simply proving or disproving as
many of those as we can.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Speaking of somebody on the outside, this feels like it's
just feeding into territorial thinking.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
We're MythBusters.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Great, Okay, we're doing things we think are foolish, but
people believe it's real. If we validate the something they
think might have happened didn't happen, then we're not throwing
fuel on the fire.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Are you looking into the Hungarian vector?
Speaker 4 (02:16):
I didn't know about that one. Hungary vector.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It's a bullshit thing I just made up that sounds
cool and a little bit spooky. This is Jordan Klepper
Fingers the conspiracy, And yes, those twenty twenty election conspiracy
theories do sound a lot more exciting when we put
public domain, suspenseful music underneath them. You may have heard
a few of those theories, partly because the White House
and Republicans in Congress were publicizing them in the weeks
(02:38):
after the election to convince Americans that the election was stolen,
and it worked to an extent. Sixty one percent of
Republicans still believe the election was stolen, according to a
Mond Month University poll from September of this very year. Today,
we're going to talk to someone who has had the
most legal success against Trump's efforts in court to overturn
the election, and we're also going to talk to a
(03:00):
Supreme Court expert about the cases in front of the
court now that could determine how future elections here are conducted.
But before we get there, I really want to go
back to the Italian military satellites. This is what became
known as Italy Gate, and it's filled with more juicy
content than a piping hotcl zone and the craziest part
of this conspiracy theory is that Trump's chief of Staff
(03:20):
Mark Meadows was emailing details of it to the Attorney General,
Jeffrey Rosen to try to get him to do something
or anything about it. I can't unpack Italy Gate alone.
So let's introduce Eric Levy. He's a digital research analyst
at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and a former investigative
journalist who wrote extensively about the Italy Gate conspiracy theory,
(03:41):
or as I like to call it, lasagna gazi. There's
just there's gonna be a lot of these, Eric, So
I hope you're ready. Thank you for being here. Let's
start at the very beginning of this conspiracy theory, which
comes from an organization called Nations in Action, a group
apparently based in Sarasota, Florida, which published a press release
titled senior IT expert at Global Defense contractor that testifies
(04:06):
an Italian federal court. He had others switch votes throughout
America in the US presidential race. Can you explain some
of this for US?
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Yeah, definitely. So it emerged it's sort of in late
twenty twenty, and it's still a little bit murky about
where it came from. The Washington posted a really good
article on it, but it possibly was. It had sort
of origins an article in Italian media, and then an
XCIA station chief named Bradley Johnson put out a video.
(04:37):
But the ones who really pushed it forward. To answer
your question were Maria's Zach from Nations in Action and
a woman named Michelle Roosevelt Edwards.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Let's start with, let's break down. Talk to me a
little bit about Maria Strollo Zach. You've talked to her, correct.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I talked to I called her number and an identical
voice answered the phone who said it wasn't her.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Uh So, yeah, theoretically, talk to somebody who may have
been herself pretending to be somebody else.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
That's why I'm reporting, Like, that's why I hate phone
calls and I like emails.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, the era of zoom works for you because you
see what that person looks like as opposed to distrusting.
But who is this person? Who is Maria Strolozak?
Speaker 4 (05:20):
So she's a conservative activist and an ex Georgia lobbyist
who I guess was pretty successful and I think she
ran for office a few times herself just on the
local level, just at some point got very involved in
this Italy Gate conspiracy and pushed it very far.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I feel like, if you're in this world, you're talking
about Italian satellites, those things flip and you're probably a character.
Is she a character?
Speaker 4 (05:42):
I'm guessing it's interesting because when I watched the videos, like,
she's clearly like a very intelligent person. That's what's also,
like said, there's a little bit of a you know,
you have this conspiracy theory obviously, which is which is false,
but then you have a person who's like, you know,
she's laying it out with confidence.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Tell us a little bit about Michelle Roosevelt Edwards.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
So she runs another organization called the Institute of Good Governance,
and uh, she sort of worked closely with Maria zach
On on Italy Gate. So the Washington Post had a
big article that at some point in icelandic film crew
went to interview Michelle Roosevelt Edwards. I don't know what
that was for, but in the house, I guess there
(06:22):
was some remember that movie The Game where there's like
there was something weird in like the house, and she
really like in Michael Douglas, it's like, no, like, this
isn't a real house. That the film crew was in
there and they're like, is this your house because it's
something and she's like, yeah, it's my house. Anyway, it
turns out that it wasn't her house. It was some
other woman's mansion and she's just a realtor like in
the area and it's not her house. And the poor
(06:45):
woman her husband died. She didn't even know. She's like,
why is this woman in my house?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Was that woman in the house at the time, She's like, oh,
dear lord, oh dear lord, who interviews in my leving.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Room somewhere else or something? But it was like I
felt I felt bad for her. No, it was like
she was just using this house for like, I don't
know business.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
You're telling me this person who'll put up an entire
false front to show that she's more successful than she is,
she's somehow connected to this whole Trump world. I don't
buy it. I don't buy it. It just doesn't It
doesn't sit well with me.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Yeah, it's tough to beale. That was like a was
that just that killed me?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Okay? And I want I want to dig into sort
of their roles within this but this this initial thought
was sort of revolving around an employee, Arturo Delia.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Correct, Yeah, there's I was thinking about this last night.
This is the hardest thing about Italy Gate, is I mean,
to state the obvious is like explaining it. The short
version is Italian satellites based in Piscara, Italy, UH altered
the votes, giving Joe Biden enough votes from Donald Trump
to win. That's the short version.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Of Italian satellites. They're the bad guys.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Well, there's a lot of players in the CIA, former
President Barack Obama, the hacker that you just referenced, and
a lawyer who put out an Affidavid. There's like those four.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Those are the four. And so the hacker he worked
for something called Leonardo Spa.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Yeah, he worked there. They said he left in twenty seventeen,
which is another problem because he when he was indicted
for a separate I think it was like data theft.
He didn't even work at Leonardo.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
What is Leonardo Spa? I mean it sounds like a
massage parlor and like a cheap one just outside Rome
that like you you splurge because you're on vacation, but
you don't have enough money. So you're sort of like,
what's a cheaper one, like, come to Leonardo Spa. It's
right next to Michelangelo nails.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
That was a very specific Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Not that this is a hypothetical. I've not had that experience.
I imagine if you're pouring in Italy and just had
had a hard time on a long plane because those
seats there's not a lot of space, and you're a
tall person, hypothetically you're gonna be looking for a Leonardo Spa.
This is not that kind of spa exactly.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
No, it's a somewhat more boring military you know, like
a military they make military equipment and satellites stuff like that,
like a Boeing.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Okay, so a'll bow and this is this Arturo Delia
Delia does he actually work for Leonardo Spa.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
My understanding is at some point he did work there,
but he was gone by twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Okay, And is there any information that says that he
had access to these Italian satellites in a way that
could alter it election?
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Zero?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
No?
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Zero?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Okay, okay, okay, but so walk us through this. So
the head of Nations in Action, this group, it's a
person named Maria Strollo Zak, who you've spoken with in
your reporting, what's she like?
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Well? And to be clear, I was telling your producer
that was that was a funny story because when I
called Maria Zach for comment, obviously being a phone, I
can't I don't know for a fact that I can
say that the personal answered sounded exactly like her but
told me very quickly it was not her and actually
said it was her secretary and could she the phrases
(10:07):
could she return? And I I was telling mad I
was like, it's this is a cell phone. But anyway,
I was like, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Sir, of course wit so did you did that person
then pretend to hang up, put on a gruff voice
and then attempt to then answer the phone.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
It was the same voice, but they were just like,
you know, can she return? And I was like, you know,
when you're a reporter, like it's things like that happen.
So yeah, sure, of course, no comment.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Just to be if you're also like a public figure
and somebody calls you and you pretend to be your
own assistant just because you think it gives you status,
that doesn't make you weird. That's just a savvy media
person thing. To do. And if my parents or my
friends think that's a desperate attempt or that I'm not
in a good place, well that's more on them. Can
you verify that?
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Yeah, what jumped out of me? I'll always remember that.
That was how quick it was. It was very I mean,
you know you're comedian, you're an improviser. It was real quick.
There was no plause like like that had happened before.
Maybe that's you know.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
That's I mean, that's an interesting way of looking at
it as opposed to just somebody who's quick on the
on the go. All right, so you had a quick
interaction with this Maria Strollo, Zach. But again to what
what what?
Speaker 4 (11:20):
What?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
What is our understanding of this story? So she is
head of Nations and Action. What is Nations in Action?
Speaker 4 (11:25):
If you go on their web page, there's a lot
of sort of conspiracy theories, and I think they say
that their statement is, you know, good government bringing transparency.
Obviously whether that's true is up.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
To to be determined. And so, but she was able
to get this conspiracy in this idea in front of
important people. Can you walk us through some of that?
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Yeah, So she she used to be a lobbyist in
Georgia's So she's got like close relationships with as I
reported on Congress from Barry Laudermilk.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
One of the one of the top five in all
of Congress. Like, if you were going to, you know,
if you're going to articulate what it feels like to
hear a Southern Republican roll on louder Milk, feels right,
it feels feels obnoxious and white, which is kind of Spotify.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Yeah, he's he's an interesting guy. I think I think
they were, he and his staff. I think we're getting
pretty tired of my emails. After a while they stopped,
they didn't ever respond to me, but then they added
me to their mailing list.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
So that's how you shut somebody up. Just give them
the spam.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
She got it to him, She got it to Devin Nunez,
the staff. I mean she You know what I was
thinking about last night, Like the ordinary person has so
much trouble reaching their elected officials, and yet this person
pushing a complete, uh you know, conspiracy theory that's not true,
is able to reach very high up people.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, she claims she gave documents to louder Milk. Do
we know what was in those documents?
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Yeah, I don't know, did you. I know, you guys
are probably always working. Did you get a chance to
see the affid? Davidt that this is all based.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Around no tell us tell us about it.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
So the whole thing is that she delivered an aphid David. Basically,
what it is is it's a photograph of an actual document,
which right away is a little you know, unusual. It's
not the document, it's it's a lawyer stating that this
hacker that you mentioned in the beginning sat in front
of him and told his story. That's what it is.
(13:26):
No one's been able there is a lawyer that matches
this name, but no one's been able to actually show that,
like really that he that it was that lawyer. So
it's not clear if this thing is even real.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You can't even verify that that conversation took place.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
No, and the document, you know, I can't say I'm
an expert on court documents in Italy, but there's no
numbers on it, like it's just it looks like someone
like wrote it on Microsoft Word.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And she's also Maria Zach was doing an interview about
a Italy gate from the back of a car in Washington,
d C. On January six. What's going on there?
Speaker 5 (14:02):
This happened. It's very real.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
The President is right, foreign interference did occur and people
need to be prosecuted in our country. Who actually participated?
Speaker 4 (14:12):
That was the show called America Can We Talk? And
that's a very strange interview, just because, as you said,
it's taking place while our capital is being attacked. But
there's no mention of it till the end. They're like,
I think Maria's acts is something like, well, if they're
able to, you know, get this under control, we can
you know, get this affidavit to more people. It's like,
whoa like? You know, it's very strange.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So there's there's a lot of interesting red flags and
characters within this. But after all these conversations, meetings talking
to Congressman louder Milk, how high did this go? Like
who in government was actually taking this theory seriously?
Speaker 4 (14:53):
That's a great question. Seriously, I mean in terms of
as you said yourself, Meadows, I guess would be the
highest ranking person to get it. But taking it seriously,
you know a lot of work with conspiracy theorists. You
wonder who's an opportunist who's not.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Well, I mean, it's an interesting question, you say, like
taking it seriously. We don't exactly know what people actually thought,
but I would argue that part of the whole game
plan here was just so doubt so the fact that
there were different threads for people to hold on to
to grasp. Clearly, Donald Trump is somebody who was just
(15:27):
flooding the marketplace with any thought out there, so that
it's getting in people's heads. It's like, who had awareness
of it? We're talking Meadows, Meadows knew about this, which
means Trump had awareness of this. How did this thing
get into more mainstream culture?
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Yeah, and Zach too. She says she delivered or she
told Trump about this at mar Al Lago in twenty twenty.
I can't confirm that, but she said that a number
of times. Really, so, I guess to answer your question,
if that's true, then that reached Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Now what all this is happening? Is it fair to
say that we didn't know how much of the voter
fraud conspiracy theory would stick. These stories were so outlandish
that it didn't seem possible that millions of people would
believe them, And yet even today, the majority of Republicans
say they don't think the twenty twenty election was legitimate.
Does that encourage Republican lawmakers to push more conspiracy theories
(16:23):
knowing there probably won't be consequences and then doing so
probably will at least help them in some way.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Consequences are like obviously incredibly important. Like when there are
no consequences, we're given a wide latitude to speak and
that's a good thing. But as you know, some of
these conspiracies are incredibly harmful. So I don't know. In
cases like I don't know, let's say in Alex Jones,
when people are actually held accountable makes a huge difference.
(16:49):
Some of them stop tomorrow and you never hear from
them again.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
What do you think it was about Italy Gate that
made it so sticky and interesting to people?
Speaker 4 (16:58):
So there's a conference call I think it was on
January fourth, twenty twenty one. It's between Maria zach and supporters.
So it's right before the attack on the Capitol. It's
like forty five minutes long, and it's just she lays
out Italy Gate and then it's weird, like all these
random people are popping in, like like I said, like
Marlon Maples pops in and just like it's just she's
(17:20):
the only everyone else is just a first name, so
you don't even know really who they are.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
What's Marl the Maple's doing there?
Speaker 4 (17:25):
I don't know, like a supporter, I guess, very strange.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
And all of this was sort of to just hip
everybody to the Italy gate theory so that they had
it in their back pocket.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
I mean, I don't want to say that. She comes
right in and but there's some hints of to continue
this work, we will need funding, like a private plane
has talked about at one point.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So oh, she's she's she's asking for a private plane.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
I don't know, it might have been one of the
other people, but there's definitely more than one hint therapy
it like we need, you know, money.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
This sounds like a timeshare situation. She gets everybody on
a conference call. Let me tell you about this fascinating
Italy situation. If you give me your attention and enough
money for a private plan, I have something that is
going to take your breadth away. And Pop's Marlon Mapoles
was like, ooh, tell me more. It's like thanks, Marlo.
Marla has been on this for quite some time. Her
and her family our big Italy Gate supporters, and you
(18:24):
two could be an Italy Gate supporter for just a
mere two thousand dollars. We can give you the correct
mindset to keep you happy from this day forward.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
This is the last seven years kind of feel like
a time shared. Like do you ever feel like that,
like you're just trapped?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I yes, I do feel like I've given over a
portion of my life to live in a different reality
every year. And you look at it, You're like, I
think this is a bad investment. I think the timeshare
is giving into all of this bullshit that we're talking about.
It just it sucks away so much time that I
could be using for something else. It's not a time
I'm sure. Maybe that's maybe what we're describing as a
(19:02):
time suck. We've all invested in a time suck that
we will never get back. We can all agree is
a really bad investment.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
It's wild. I mean, this is the conspiracy theory that
like I think I was telling your producer, Like even
other conspiracy theorists are like like, like, that's how far
this one is out there?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Like, yeah, what does this Italy Gate conspiracy rake in
terms of all the conspiracies related to the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
I would say, in terms of the ones that are
like the wildest, this has to be at the top.
I can't think of I know you guys have been
doing this for a while on your podcast. If there's
another one, I can't think of one.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
You got Hugo Chavez so dead. Hugo Chavez is a
fun one. It's definitely takes a stretch of imagination, but
there's intrigue, there's sexiness to this. I'd have to put
it up there as well.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
It's also like the little details that kill me, Like
the data. It wasn't enough that it was the Italian
satellites they routed through Germany. It's like like why, Like
that's what I don't understand, Like, but it's just fascinating.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
There's somebody on the ground or in the air in
Germany that was getting this information or or or working
through the satellites through Germany.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Yeah, they're saying like at some point they never got
into the sort of like how the the stuff was transmitted,
but it was from the satellites and went through I
think some servers in Germany and then I guess back
to the US.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
So they're theoretically, if this were real, not only are
there folks in Italy who are culpable, but there are
folks in Germany as well, which is what always kind
of blows my mind with a lot of these conspiracy theories,
because they they hype the idea behind it involves so
many people that even afterwards, you'd expect. One thing we're
(20:49):
really bad at is keeping secrets, especially if it's a
multinational effort to overturn results in very specific states.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
And then it just disappears into the void, which is
sort of a I think people should consider a major
I don't know if red flag is the right word,
but if you believe so strongly in something you believe
has happened, and then thirty seconds later when it doesn't,
you know, when it's gone, You're just onto the next thing.
It kind of questions like credibility, sure, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I think we lost that a long time ago. Well,
Eric LaVey, thank you for unfolding this conspiracy theory, like
carefully needing a perfect pizza pie.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
We're going to take a short break. When we come back.
We would talk to Pennsylvania Attorney General and Governor elect
Josh Shapiro. We'll be right back. In the days after
the twenty twenty election, Pennsylvania became the focus of Republican
efforts to overturn the results. They ramped up their attacks
on the legitimacy of mail in ballots and claimed that
(21:49):
ballots would arrive after election day and be mixed with
ballots that arrived before election day. Anticipating a possible Supreme
Court showdown, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro began separating those
post election day ballots and became a high profile example
of a Democrat fighting back against the voter fraud conspiracy theater,
and as the Trump team became litigious before and after
(22:12):
election day, Shapiro beat Trump more than forty times in court.
In last month's midterm, Shapiro won the race for governor
of Pennsylvania, defeating one of the country's most prominent voter
fraud conspiracy theorist, Doug Mastriano. And Josh Shapiro is with
us today to talk about the exciting world of voter fraud.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Good to be with you, Jordan, Thanks for having.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Me, of course, and we were debating a current governor
elect soon to be governor, Josh Shapiro. That's most of it, right.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
Yeah, And look, I only require our four children to
use all of the titles when they address me. You
can call me whatever you want, well, not whatever you want,
but you can call me one of those titles.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I was gonna say, Do you also throw in the
beat Trump forty times in court, moniker or There's probably
a lot of people will also have that in their
name as well. The guy's been to court many, many times.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
I don't know about that, but listen, we went to
court forty three times against the former president and his enablers,
and we beat him every time. We protected the right
to vote. We had a free and fair, safe and
secure election here in Pennsylvania back in twenty twenty, again
in twenty twenty one, and most recently in twenty twenty two.
The will of the people was respected each time.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
When you've been at the center of these claims over
voter fraud for over two years now, even though you
did win the race for governor, it appears as if
the state is moving forward. Does it still alarm you
how many voters, obviously many of them Republican, appear to
have bought into these conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It does.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
But Jordan, I don't blame the voters, and hear me
on this. I blame the leaders who've been lying to
them for the better part of the last two and
a half years about voting by mail, about this phony
election fraud of leaders who you trust, who you put
into positions of authority, and then they lie to you
(24:05):
over and over and over again. It's hard to blame
the public. I blame the leaders. And the good news
is we're defeating those leaders who pushed the big live
from the former president to his chief enabler here in Pennsylvania,
who I just beat in the governor's race, And hopefully
now what we can do is continue to speak truth
to the good people of Pennsylvania, to the American people,
(24:26):
and help them understand reality from the fiction that the
former president pushed and get us back to having a
healthier democracy.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Well, I went to one of the rallies your opponent
held right there at the state Capitol and talked to
some of the tens of people who showed up.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
I think about twelve people showed up that day, and after.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
A minimal amount of fanfare, Mastriano appeared, and he was freaking.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Hilarious going after the pillow. Guy, are you serious? Give
me a break? Beat Scotty, beat me up. No sign
of intelligent life anywhere.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Boom. But even with the coveted Trump endorsement, the crowd
was tiny. Was it small because of Masteriano's far right
policies and election denihalism? Nope, this is Facebook.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Suppressing convative speech.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
The reason that aren't people here because Facebook is silencing
these silencing Yes, it was a low turnout. I felt
like it seemed as if you had a good shot
of winning that race. I want to talk a little
bit about Masteriano though, because he may have spread more
election related conspiracy theories than any other candidates. Let's go
(25:36):
through a couple of these. He was claiming the voting
machines glitched in Michigan and switched six thousand Biden votes,
so we're also responsible for one hundred thousand vote dumps
that were all for Biden. In the middle of the night,
sharing a Gateway pundit post of suspected fraud issues that
included a way for people to search for dead people
who voted using something called the Social Security death master
(25:59):
file to catch you he was claiming dominion voting machines
were built intentionally to rig the election for Democrats, and
claiming that Act seventy seven of Pennsylvania law that allows
no excuse voting by mail was illegally passed and was
responsible for Biden's win. Can you walk us through some
of these and tell us how you push back against.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Them, Well, by calling them what they were, complete and
utter bullshit, that's what they were. He was lying to
the good people in Pennsylvania and his conduct to try
to overthrow the last election. Remember, he was part of
the violent mob that stormed up to the Capitol on
January sixth, and he went there that day. And this
is real important, Jordan. He went there that day not
(26:39):
just to hear a speech from the former president or
be part of some peaceful protest. He went there that
day with a singular purpose. That's why they were all there,
and that was to deny people's votes from county. Because remember,
when you vote here in Pennsylvania. It's true in other states,
but let me focus on Pennsylvania. You vote for the
presidential race in Pennsylvania, your vote gets tallied by your
(27:02):
local county Board of Elections gets certified by the governor
and the Secretary of State in Pennsylvania. But then in
order for your vote to finally count, it has to
be read across the desk in the US House of Representatives.
That's what they were there to do on January sixth,
and he was there as part of the violent mob
to stop them from doing. Then he comes back home
(27:23):
to Pennsylvania launches a campaign for governor, and Jordan he
says in his campaign that he was going to use
his power as governor to be able to review all
the voting machines, make corrections as he calls them, and
then he would pick the winner. That's not how our
democracy works. That is not how our republic has survived
(27:46):
over the last two hundred and forty six years. And
so it was important for us to beat him, to
just obviously win the election, but also to protect our democracy,
to protect the will of the people, and to make
it clear to foe that spewing conspiracy theories, being part
of a violent mob pledging to overturn the next election
(28:07):
is not the way things work in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Were in this country, well, I was surprised many of
the people I talked to that day, were also there
at January sixth. It was almost a mini reunion. You
have been aggressive at pushing back and it made headlines
for that. Do you think that your victory is a
sign that voters are energized by candidates who push back
(28:31):
aggressively against election deniers.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
You got to fight back against it, and look, we've
done it in big ways in small I mean, I've
been to the hunt clubs in rural communities in Pennsylvania
and confronted folks directly, and they'll say to me, they
were saying to me, you know, the election twenty twenty
was stolen, So so what evidence do you have of that.
Let's just have a conversation. Well, there was massive voter fraud,
(28:55):
and I say, you know, I'm I'm the attorney general.
It's my job to prosecute election fraud, along with some
district attorneys as well. And we had about a handful
of cases of election fraud in twenty twenty, by the way,
where each of those individuals who were prosecuted, we're trying
to cast one extra single vote for their candidate for president,
(29:17):
by the way, for Donald Trump, now for Joe Biden.
But even if they were trying to do that for
Joe Biden. It wasn't going to affect the outcome of
the election. It was not this widespread voter fraud, and
they were prosecuted for it. And so I confront folks
with truth and try to force them to think about
the reality of what they are saying. In addition to that,
(29:39):
it was critically important for us here in Pennsylvania, in Arizona,
in Michigan in other places to defeat those people who
continue to spread the lies. Now, I said on election
night when I won Jordan that this is the beginning
of our work. Just because we beat these election deniers
doesn't mean that it's rid from our system. We have
(30:01):
to now do the hard work that folks have been
doing for the last two hundred and forty six years
in this nation, right our ancestors and their ancestors, to
perfect our union, to speak truth, to make sure that
the will of the people is respected. So I think
we've done step one defeating those extremists. But now we've
got to do the hard work of perfecting our union,
(30:22):
and that tesk now falls.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
To me as the next governor of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
How complete do you think step one truly is because
I do looking at those the major election deniers, the
races in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Here's swing states where the
people in control of verifying those ballots could have very
well gone to election deniers. Those big places, they were defeated.
(30:47):
But there's still a lot of people who are election
deniers who are in position of power in America, a
lot of very close races where perhaps election deniers were defeated,
but it didn't. When I looked at this, I didn't
exactly see the idea of election denialism expunging from the
American narrative. But perhaps stepping back for a little bit,
is there a fear that Democrats are a little too
(31:10):
confident in the pushback of election denialism after this election, Well, let.
Speaker 6 (31:16):
Me say, I'm not confident that it's over at all.
So don't you know, certainly don't put me in that category.
I'm in the category where we had a good day
on Tuesday, November eighth in defeating those extremists, those election deniers,
but we have so much more work to do now.
I believe that these election deniers are Masterriano in particularly,
(31:37):
just profoundly and pathetically weak people.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And let me explain what I mean by that.
Speaker 6 (31:43):
They know it's bullshit, but yet they say it over
and over again because they're willing to sell out our
democracy and our country for some short term political gain,
for some short term attention, maybe some love from the
former president. That's why they do it. That's the definition
of weak if you're willing to sell out your nation
(32:05):
and our values on behalf of your own short term goals. Well,
now we've denied many of them that short term goal,
and hopefully in defeating them the way we have it
forces that next batch of candidates to go along and say, JESU,
is that really the path I want to take to
be successful? It doesn't make them any stronger. It just
(32:26):
speaks to how again, how kind of spineless so many
of these folks are, and letting them know they're not
going to be rewarded for the lie. And so I
think hopefully this will have an effect on the politics
as we go forward. We also need to work on
ridding our system of these weak folks and getting some
people with backbones back in it. And by the way, Jeordan,
even folks who might disagree with me on some policy
(32:48):
that's okay, But we got to get back to the
point where we have strong, capable people in positions of
public trust who argue about tax policy and healthcare policy
and educational policy and all the things that we should
be arguing about, the healthy fights we're supposed to have.
But we've got to continue the battle against these weak
people in defeating them in their elections and defeating them
(33:10):
in their political aims.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Did you have any Democrats from other states reach out
to you to ask advice on confronting this election denihalism.
Speaker 6 (33:20):
I did a lot of them, folks running for governor
and other offices, and I spoke. Obviously, I'll keep those
conversations in private, but I did speak to them about
the need to take the fight on directly, to not
give an inch on this. You know, when they say
that something was stolen, challenged them on it. Put the
facts out there. Make sure that you're going directly to
the good people in my case of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
With the facts. Do not let any of that nonsense stand.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Okay, Looking forward, well, where we are right now, Trump
is running again, Elon Musk is green lighting misinformation all
over Twitter. We know that voter fraud conspiracies. They're gonna
get worse in twenty twenty four. What are tangible steps
the Democratic Party can take to fight and to push back?
Knowing the world we're in right now, you.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Know, try to meet people where they are. That's why
I'm talking to you today. I mean, you've been out
front on the importance of combating election denialism. You have
exposed a lot of these folks and the lies they
tell by you know, mocking them and showing not the
humor in it, because obviously this is incredibly serious, but
showing people this in a way that they can comprehend
(34:29):
it if they don't read, you know, from page of
the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times. Not to
say that your listeners don't read the New York Times,
but the point.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
At least read the headlines. Good at reading the headlines.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
But like, you know, you got to meet people where
they are.
Speaker 6 (34:44):
You got to communicate to them, You got to show
them the difference between fiction and reality. And then I
have responsibility now as a governor to hold myself up
to that high standard and to continue to speak truth
and continue, you know, to communicate me people where they are,
whether we're talking to them on TikTok on your podcast
anywhere We've got to meet people where they are and
(35:05):
continue to share the truth.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
You say you went to hunt clubs, You went to
places where people had questions about the election. I get
the question all the time, do you ever change people's minds? Boy,
that's a unicorn. I can't say I'm watching people change
their minds about information when you were at those places.
Being confronted with outside facts doesn't always is often met
(35:28):
with resistance and a doubling down of the things they
think they believe. They feel challenged in a way that
I have not found conducive to reaching a new understanding.
Did you actually see that in those moments in those
hunt clubs with people who were confronting you and you're
pushing back?
Speaker 6 (35:45):
Sometimes I did directly, But what I was really going
after was was not to embarrass anyone in front of
their peers, or force someone to have to look at
me in front of their peers and say, you're right,
I'm wrong. What I've thought for the last year, you know,
is incorrect. What I really wanted was when they left there,
(36:06):
to be thinking about it and to process it and
to maybe make a change in their thinking, or their politics,
or the way they might vote. And Jordan, I got
some pretty good evidence that we made a whole lot
of people think because I won this governor's race by
a big margin. We won by about fifteen points, but
I got more votes than anyone in the history of
Pennsylvania running for governor. And the reason I'm telling you
(36:29):
that is not to pat myself on the back, but
because it would be impossible to win with the number
of votes we did in the margin we did with
only Democrats. We got a whole lot of Republicans and
independents cross party lines to support us, a whole lot
of people who clearly rethought their politics after twenty sixteen
and even twenty twenty and said, you know what, we're
going to go with this guy. We're we're going to
(36:50):
go against the election denier. We're going to believe this truth,
and hopefully we're going to all be able to continue
to come together to repair our politics.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Well after such a clear hubble brag such as that,
chill about that. Now, you did a pretty good job.
That's what You're a savvy politician. Even the bragging does
come across somehow as as humble and informative. That's that's
well played.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Well.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Your high profile and your success here has upped some
of the speculation where people have seen you in the
light of somebody who could be a Democratic nominee for president.
Do you want to use the Jordan Klepper Fingers the
Conspiracy podcast as a platform that you confirm loving hearing
that speculation.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
Now, man, Look, I'm just so excited to be governor.
I haven't even been sworn in yet. I got a
lot of work to do. That's all I want to do.
That's all my wife and kids want me to do,
and that's all I am going to do.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Well, well, thank you for talking to me. Governor Elect.
Josh Shapiro will be right back. We're back, and we're
talking election fraud. It's obviously something I hear over and
over on the campaign trail. But unlike some of the
other conspiracy theories we've covered on this podcast, this one
(38:10):
has some serious implications on the future of our democracy.
This about the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a
case called More versus Harper, and it could fundamentally change
how elections are conducted. To break this down with me,
I am Supreme Court expert, author of Lady Justice, Women,
The Law and the Battle to Save America and host
of the Slate podcast Amicus Dhalia Lithwick. Welcome to the podcast. Hi,
(38:34):
Jordan Dahlia. I have to call it the fact, and
you're well aware that you are wearing not one but
two headphones today. Is there a conspiracy in this? Do
you want me to do a secondary podcast on your
hyper attention or are you just a super big Jordan
Klepper finger's a conspiracy fan.
Speaker 7 (38:54):
I mean, I can repurpose the joke I made the
first time you tease me where I said that if
Rudi you can wear two watches, I can wear two headphones.
But I you know, I'm a Belton Suspenders guy.
Speaker 5 (39:06):
I went to law.
Speaker 7 (39:07):
School and we learned to be very, very, very compulsive.
So that's my story.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
I'm sticking to it.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
You're a Belton Suspenders guy. What does that mean? That
means it's is that an overabundance of caution or fear
that your parts could at any moment fall like what
is again? This is what we do on this podcast.
We really get into the nitty gritty, but this is
a move out of fear respect true story.
Speaker 7 (39:33):
I heard the expression at one point very early in
my career covering oral arguments at the court, and I was.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
Like, what the hell does this mean?
Speaker 7 (39:41):
And all these lawyers were like, it just means being careful, idiot.
So I think not to suggest that you're not knowing
this term implies anything, but it was. I learned the
hard way that apparently everyone but me knew that Belton
suspenders is just kind of shorthand for lawyerly over cautiousness maybe,
(40:04):
and also fear that your pencil full. Dow.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I was going to say, it's interesting, isn't like you.
It's it's all about spin. It's either caution or its fear.
But but I see how the attorneys do it. It's
a it's a deductive sound, and I appreciate you taking
that certain suspenders action. To listen to this. I want
to talk about, you know, the potential collapse of democracy.
(40:27):
It's a it's a hobby of mine, and I want
to discuss this more. V Harper, Can we talk about
that case itself and what that might mean for elections?
Speaker 5 (40:39):
Sure it is.
Speaker 7 (40:42):
It's hard to say this crisply, Jordan, but it's both
the most.
Speaker 5 (40:46):
Serious and least serious case of my career.
Speaker 7 (40:50):
It's serious because the implications are vast, which we're going
to talk about. It's also rooted in so much nothing
that it's almost painful. Like when they call it the
independent state legislature doctrine or the independent state legislature theory.
Almost everybody puts doctrine in theory in air quotes because
(41:10):
there's no there there. It's not something that is rooted
in constitutional history. It's not something that's rooted in tradition.
It's something that was almost entirely plucked from a chunk
of a Renquist opinion in bushfe. Gore that only got
three votes. It's not a majority opinion where he was
(41:32):
kind of spitballing.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
You may recall bushv.
Speaker 7 (41:34):
Gore also not a serious decision.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
So this is like a Reest fever dream that we're
in the midst of right now.
Speaker 7 (41:40):
It's a Renquist fever dream where he's sort of spitballing.
Speaker 5 (41:44):
Hey, maybe state.
Speaker 7 (41:46):
Legislatures have you know, kind of plenary unreviewable power and
state courts can't come in in bigfoot on them.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
It gets two votes, that should be the end of the.
Speaker 7 (41:56):
Story, but instead it's being lifted up as this important
piece of doctrine and.
Speaker 5 (42:02):
Not to get too in the weeds.
Speaker 7 (42:03):
But the reason it's serious is because if the claim
in this case, and this case comes from a North
Carolina gerrymander, the North Carolina Supreme Court says, oh, hell no,
do your maps again. And the North Carolina Republican Legislature
takes this to the Supreme Court and says, we're here
(42:25):
proffering this completely asinine, rootless theory that when a legislature
does election stuff, no court can review it.
Speaker 5 (42:35):
End of story is.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
That it we are in a nutshell. If you're to
explain it to our audience, read our host. Pretend there's
somebody who read the headline of a Vox article but
maybe didn't get all the way through because they're busy.
Is that basically it. It's something that's looking at the
power of state legislatures over federal elections and questioning whether
or not they have ultimate power. Is that ballpark?
Speaker 7 (42:58):
There's but there's one clarification. There's one section of this
that has to do with the Elector's Clause in the Constitution.
That's the federal elections. There's one that is the elections
clause that has to do with state elections. So this
particular case actually doesn't implicate some of the stuff we
talked about Brad Raffinsberger and you know, state electors and
(43:21):
sending over fake state electors. This is not scooping up
that this is about state processes. But it does mean
that if a red state, and let's remember thirty of
the fifty states have read state legislatures, if they decide
they want to make up new rules about ballot initiatives,
they want to do new vote suppression, they want to
(43:45):
close polling plate, whatever they want to do. They are
saying nobody can take this to a state supreme court,
not even a federal court, a state supreme court and
complain because basically nobody is the boss of me. So
this particular one is about the state house state election.
Speaker 5 (44:02):
Procedures are handled. But one tiny wrinkle there, Jordan, that's
worth saying.
Speaker 7 (44:06):
One consequence of that is that if they win on
that claim, you're going to have on the same ballot
they used to have state and federal elections complete chaos
because one set of them can't be reviewed and one
presumably can. So one of the things that this is
going to inject into the system is totally different lanes
for state and federal office.
Speaker 5 (44:26):
Okay, so you're looking perplexed. I'm worried that I've.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
I mean, it sounds it sounds like there may be
should be a checker of balance in there that these
state legislatures shouldn't be able to be the final say.
Where do the justices stand on this? Like, what is
the actual likelihood that state legislators will gain control of
federal election procedures?
Speaker 5 (44:47):
I mean, here's the tricky part.
Speaker 7 (44:49):
We already have four justices on the current Supreme Court
who've evinced real enthusiasm for this theory. So we have
Justice as Alito, Gorsach, and Thomas that are kind of
like pedal to the medal, this is cool, And in
some of the pre twenty twenty election cases we saw
them sort of effusing about how cool this was. And
(45:10):
then we have a fourth Justice, Kavanaugh, who's done some
like chin stroking e like, oh, this is kind of
I think this is pretty compelling, but isn't necessarily all in.
Let's remember it takes four votes to grant a case,
so that might be it. We don't know where Amy
Coney Barrett sits on this. We do know that Chief
(45:31):
Justice John Roberts doesn't think this is necessarily a fantastic idea.
We also know he's irrelevant, so there might be five
votes already going in.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
So it's probably coming down to Amy Cony Barrett is
going to decide this case. That's that's your best guess
right now.
Speaker 7 (45:48):
My guess is that John Roberts thinks this is too extreme,
and he's written lots of prior cases, famously an Arizona
case where he has said time and time again, we're
not taking state just judges powers away over state legislatures.
So I think he's pretty much going to adhere to
(46:09):
some version of that.
Speaker 5 (46:10):
This is wackad do right. Have we made that point enough?
Speaker 7 (46:13):
This is insane, and John Roberts is many things insane,
he is not, so yes, I think it comes down
to what Justice Barrett thinks, and we have no idea
on this doctrine.
Speaker 5 (46:23):
What she thinks.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Well, this issue has popped up over the last hundred years.
Supreme Court has batted it out over and over again.
Why is it cropping back up now?
Speaker 7 (46:33):
It's cropping back up as part of this kind of larger,
larger and I think this goes to your sort of
vote suppression frame. What do you do when you can't
win majorities anymore in America?
Speaker 5 (46:45):
Right?
Speaker 7 (46:45):
What you do is you capture state houses and then
you jerrymander the heck out of your state voting systems
to make sure that tiny minorities stay in charge. And
so I think this is of a piece with a
whole subset of things, whether it's voter suppression bills like
you know, the stuff that Stacy Abrams has been fighting,
(47:08):
or whether it is ridiculous you know, malaportionment that means
that you know the Alabama case that the court heard
earlier this year, Merrill, where you have a third of
Alabama of Alabama is African American, almost a third twenty
seven percent, they're all smashed into one of seven districts,
so they can't elect the candidate of their choice. So
(47:32):
I think there's all sorts of ways that you suppress majorities.
And I put this in the bucket of why do
it small if you can do it huge? Right, if
you can just do whatever you want is a state
legislature and it's unreviewable by any court. And by the way,
just one other parenthetical, there's a maximalist crazy version of
(47:53):
this not at issue in mor V Harper. That would
also say that governors like you talked about checks and balances, uh,
also have no power to do anything.
Speaker 5 (48:02):
They can't veto this. So I think one way.
Speaker 7 (48:04):
To sort of lock in minority rule for time immemorial
is to just make it impossible for majority will to
be represented at the ballot box.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Go big or go home, and while you're at home,
just stay there because there's no reason to go out
to vote, or.
Speaker 5 (48:22):
That you can have an entire orderly election.
Speaker 7 (48:25):
And this is where folks should think about what happened
in Georgia in twenty twenty, where you have a completely orderly,
non chaotic election and then you have the legislature be like, hmm, no.
Speaker 5 (48:36):
We don't like those electors.
Speaker 7 (48:38):
Let's go for this slate of it, which is what
John Eastman and Donald Trump were asking Brad Rafinsberger to do.
So I want to be super clear that issue is
not I think in the four corners of what this
appeal is.
Speaker 5 (48:51):
But I think it's of like you have.
Speaker 7 (48:53):
To draw a straight line between this and the kind
of election denialism we're seeing in twenty twenty where you
had dates and state legislatures being lobbied by Donald Trump,
by Jenny Thomas, by John Eastman to be like and
nevermind what the voters say, let's do it this way.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
Well, let's let's draw that line. So we do have
conspiracy theorists and election deniers in pretty prominent positions. Granted,
quite a few of them did lose in the midterms,
including Kerry Lake and Arizona, who is now contesting her
loss for governor even though the results have already been certified.
Is it crazy to think that whole states that have
(49:29):
election deniers and their legislatures could just choose to throw
out the results in federal elections.
Speaker 7 (49:35):
I don't think it's crazy, and I think, in fact,
one of the things this doctrine is setting up is
the stepping stone toward that right. I mean, the reason
it didn't happen in twenty twenty when Donald Trump called
Georgia and said, you know, give me a fresh ballot
of fake electors is that there was no architecture in
place to.
Speaker 5 (49:55):
Support that right.
Speaker 7 (49:56):
This case would be part of building the architecture that
says state legislatures can.
Speaker 5 (50:02):
Do whatever they want.
Speaker 7 (50:03):
It is unreviewable, nothing can go to a state Supreme court.
And one other point again on this is there's an
easy way to solve this particular North Carolina case, which
is the actual legislature in North Carolina has already said
that the state judiciary can review these questions.
Speaker 5 (50:22):
So this is an easy case.
Speaker 7 (50:24):
It shouldn't even be a question because the legislature has
taken this power away from itself. But I do think
you're exactly right to say this is really a building
block toward a future where state legislature's power are so
utterly unreviewable or even creepily reviewable only by the US
Supreme Court, that you should just stay home.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Well, you say this shouldn't even be a question, and
I guess I'm curious what that says about our country's
political ideology and also the ideology of the justices. There
are a number of conservative legal figures who are coming
out against the Supreme Court even hearing this case. The
fact that they are, what does that say about the
ideology of the justices.
Speaker 7 (51:07):
So this is, without a doubt for me, the most
interesting part. Right, You've got Mike Loutig, the guy who
almost got Chief Justice John Roberts seat at the Court right,
he was on the shortlist. This is a stalwart conservative
legal movement giant. He's also the guy, by the way,
who you may recall Mike Pants was like, dude, can
I do this thing that Donald Trump is asking me
(51:29):
to do and not certify the election. It was Mike Lutigg,
you know, conservative legal giant, who was like, no, Mike,
you can't do that. So he's wildly come out opposed
to this, and in fact, I think he's one of
the people, at least he said on my podcast like
this would signal the demise of orderly elections in checks
and bounces. So he's come out against it. Ben Ginsberg,
(51:52):
famous Republican election lawyers, against it. Every chief justice of
every state Supreme Court is on a brief in this
case saying like this is insane. Stephen Calibracy, co founder
of the Federalist Society, has come out again like there's
very few sane conservative figures who are for this. So
(52:12):
then your operative question is why the hell is the
court flirting with this, Like why are they playing foot
sea with a theory advanced principally by John Eastman, the
guy who was the architect of the January sixth legal coup.
And I think the reason is because there's no breaks
at the US Supreme Court because they have.
Speaker 5 (52:30):
A six justice supermajority.
Speaker 7 (52:33):
Everything in the world they wanted last term, abortion, guns,
you know, kneecapping, the EPA, kneecapping the CDC.
Speaker 5 (52:42):
Everything they wanted, they got.
Speaker 7 (52:43):
Everything they didn't get last year they're getting this year.
So this is just a my friendly allotment at Michigan
calls it the hashtag Yolow Court. You know, they used
to have some solicitude and sensitivity for what the public
could tolerate, and I think now they're like directly in
opposition to what.
Speaker 5 (53:02):
The public can tolerate.
Speaker 7 (53:03):
They're like, oh, eighty percent of Americans hate this, let's
do it.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
Great.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
This is what an uplifting conversation. It's so good to
hear about the people who are pulling the levers here. Okay,
so let's if states choose to do this. If this
is a situation that does come into fruition, what happens
next is that it for democracy? Is there anything people
in these states could do to prevent that?
Speaker 7 (53:29):
Well, I think that you're going to see very much
what you're sort of seeing Postdobs, which is blue states
will rush to bolster blue state supermajorities and will create,
you know, supermajority districts, and will do all the things
that New York tried to do and failed to do
in the midterms. But you'll see red states rushing to
(53:51):
bolster you know, the power of Republican supermajorities in all
the ways that they do that. And so I think,
in a weird way, maybe it's a sort of second
iteration of the red state blue state patchwork we're seeing
around guns, around environmental protection, around abortions. We're just going
to see both sides further, you know, push whatever it
(54:16):
is that they can do to make sure they have
unlosable power.
Speaker 5 (54:22):
And that's pretty scary.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
The important question I think we're all thinking about what
does this mean for me in the short term? Am
I going to go out into the world and just
here stop the steal forever or at least until rogue
red states decide to reinstall President Trump again.
Speaker 7 (54:45):
That is what we call a Stephen Bryer four part
hypothetical question. Can we start with There's so many pieces
of that. I mean, I think what it really means
is that, first of all, this is an incredibly abstract case.
Speaker 5 (55:01):
Nobody understands this case. This should be bigger than Bush v. Gore.
Speaker 7 (55:06):
The implications, as I said, are vast, and yet I
think folks are just like flummoxed right on the Stop
the steel folks, I have to say, just looping back
to where you started, Jordan, I'm pretty happy about the
fact that the Stop the Steelers got absolutely schill Act
in the midterms, because it tells me it was not
(55:29):
as salient as they thought.
Speaker 5 (55:31):
It was, and more urgently, and I think the.
Speaker 7 (55:33):
Polling really showed this people kind of like democracy. I mean,
it was one of the issues that people showed up,
you know, in addition to reproductive rights. People were really
anxious that the machinery of crushing democracy had kind of
gotten a toe hold. And so I actually think it's
not to say this isn't a worry. It's a huge
(55:54):
worry because the Supreme Court, as we have both stipulated,
does not care what you and I think. But I
do think that the appetite for crazy, lawless vote suppression,
democracy shattering initiatives is not what I think Donald Trump
and Carrie Lake thought it was. And so I'm like,
(56:17):
I was like eight Bourbons. In this time before the
you know, before the midterms, I think maybe this isn't
terrible because I think, as much as it sucks that
the US Supreme Court is an unchecked christocracy that is
going around doing whatever the hell it wants with life
tenured people, one of whom has a wife who was
(56:37):
involved in January six.
Speaker 5 (56:39):
That's bad, let's agree.
Speaker 7 (56:41):
I think that folks recognized that after Dobbs in a
way they didn't. And I think that the ability to
just sit there and like take it on the chin
because the Supreme Court says so is much. I think
the taste for that is in decline right now. I
think people are sort of angry and so I'm not
as hopeless as you sound.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
Well, I will drink to that. That looks like a
good place to end. Daliolithwick, thank you for coming out
of the podcast.
Speaker 5 (57:11):
It was a pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
Well, that's it. The end of our six episode limited
edition mini series something like that. It's a limited series,
it's a podcast, whatever it is. We did six episodes.
It's what we said we're gonna do, and now we've
wrapped it up and there's a chance we'll come back
because there's always a world in which Americans believe dumb shit,
and we want to talk about all of that. Thanks
(57:33):
for listening. This has been a blast. Listen to Jordan
Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy from The Daily Show on Apple Podcasts,
the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4 (57:44):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The Daily Show wherever you.
Speaker 2 (57:49):
Get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven.
Speaker 4 (57:53):
Ten Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime
on Fair Amount Plus.
Speaker 1 (58:00):
This has been a Comedy Central podcast
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