AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
In 2020, President Trump lost the popular vote by more than 7 million. He has continued to claim that this election was rigged despite a lack of evidence. And now, amid increasing voter discontent with him and his party heading into the midterms, Trump is sounding an alarm about the security of the nation's elections.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Tonight, I'm announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure.
RASCOE: That's from his primetime address Thursday, and it's where we begin our politics chat this week with NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning, Ayesha.
RASCOE: So the president said his goal was not to weaken confidence in U.S. elections, but did the documents he released prove his claims that Americans have been, quote, "blatantly lied to" about the security of their election infrastructure?
LIASSON: No. They don't. The documents show what has already been reported that, for instance, China did try to - or consider efforts to - influence the 2020 election, but it - that it didn't interfere in the election or change any votes or hack into voting machines. U.S. intelligence documents show Iran and China both wanted Trump to lose, but Russia also tried to influence the elections in an effort to defeat Joe Biden and to undermine public confidence in elections. But again, the documents say that no votes were changed. Trump also made a claim that China had obtained voter information, but public versions of voter files are widely available online.
RASCOE: What about noncitizens voting? On Friday, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin repeated Trump's claims that about a quarter million people were registered illegally to vote in federal elections in four states. But noncitizens voting is pretty rare, right?
LIASSON: It's very rare. Reviews over the years have turned up only a handful of cases. But the Trump administration wants all states to participate in a federal database to verify citizenship, and Mullin really pressed this on Friday. He promised to make security enhancements mandatory, to withhold money to get state officials to comply. And he also added this warning.
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MARKWAYNE MULLIN: If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections, and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time.
LIASSON: And it's not just Mullin, the director of Homeland Security. It's also Trump's pick for director of National Intelligence, Jay Clayton, who refused under repeated questioning at his confirmation hearing last week to say who won the 2020 elections.
RASCOE: But overseeing elections - that's not the federal government's job, right?
LIASSON: No. The Constitution says the federal government cannot control the administration of elections. That's a job for state governments. But President Trump has said he thinks the federal government should, quote, "take over elections." He has been succeeding in diminishing voter confidence in the - in elections for a very long time. He's been claiming rigged elections or voter fraud ever since he started running for higher office. Even back in the Iowa Caucuses in 2016, when he came in second, he claimed the winner, Senator Ted Cruz, had committed fraud. He said Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa. He illegally stole it. He's never said anything, however, about the 2024 elections being rigged because he won those elections.
But Democrats are worried that Trump is laying the groundwork or establishing a pretext to either take over elections, make it harder to vote, contest the results of a race that doesn't go the way he wants. And even Republicans are worried that Trump's false claims could depress Republican turnout. In other words, why come out and vote if the elections are rigged?
RASCOE: Mara, one of the things Trump has been pushing for a while is the passage of the SAVE Act. Have his claims about election security, like, moved the needle on this at all?
LIASSON: No. We haven't seen any evidence of that. This is an election overhaul bill, the SAVE Act, that would, among other things, require voters to show photo ID and proof of citizenship to register. That part of the bill actually is very popular, but it would also curtail mail-in voting, which does not have the support of a majority of Americans because mail-in voting is popular, including in many red states.
And Republican leaders in the Senate have told Trump they don't have the votes to pass this. They're not willing to get rid of the filibuster. But Trump is still pressuring them. He said - posted last month that unless Republicans pass the SAVE Act, they will, quote, "never win another election." And two weeks ago at Mount Rushmore, he went even further.
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TRUMP: But if we terminate the filibuster, as we should do, and immediately vote for the SAVE America Act, then we will not lose...
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TRUMP: ...An election for a hundred years.
RASCOE: You mentioned voters' doubts have increased about election security, even without evidence to support the claims made by the president and his party. But where do you think voters are on this issue?
LIASSON: It's just not a top voting issue for voters in the midterms. Polls show that other issues are much more important to voters. They care about the price of gas and food and housing. And there are Republicans who say they wish Trump, since his approval rating is under 40%, could do some things to make himself and his party more popular by talking about issues voters care about more than election administration.
RASCOE: That's senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Thank you, Mara.
LIASSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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