Bulwark Takes - The Bulwark’s Live Coverage of Trump’s Prime Time Speech

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

Join Sarah Longwell and Sonny Bunch as they cover Trump's July 16, 2026 prime time speech.

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It's Thursday night. It is 854 on the East Coast, and we are awaiting what I think is going to be a mass national gaslighting event. And as is often the case with the bulwark, we thought it's best to do these things together if we have to do them at all. I am joined tonight by Sunny Bunch, who has tapped in for the nightshay. here and to suffer through this with me and you and everyone. So Sonny, what I want to start with to do a little table setting is that right now, basically the information we have about the speech that is about to be given is Trump is going to talk about the 2020 election. There are a lot of rumors circulating about what he's going to say. I have seen both that this is,

we know it's going to be some kind of relitigating of the 2020 election, but is it China? That's one thing I've heard. We've also seen people sort of floating that this will be the night that he announces that Maduro is here to tell us that yes, the 2020 election was interfered with. But I think it's safe to say, I guess we could get surprised, but it's safe to say that tonight he's planning to introduce evidence of some kind that the 2020 election was stolen, specifically in Georgia. Is that your understanding? That's my understanding. There's been a lot of hearsay and conjecture. I think Tommy Tuberville was on TV earlier today saying maybe four or five seats should not

have been seated. Maybe four or five seats have been stolen. I assume by Democrats. I can't imagine we would be having this conversation if the, you know, if the Chinese or Iranians or Venezuelans. The Venezuela theory is my favorite because like that's just that's that's the most left left field theory that I can imagine. I imagine we're also not going to get a lot of talk about Russia in 2016. I mean like all of this. The big question is like what is the scope and the scale here, right? Like I don't think any serious person rejects for instance that in 2016, Russia hacked the DNC email, put it on the WikiLeaks. And then that that ended up influencing the election in a real. way. But nobody, I think, would argue that Russia hacked the machines. No serious person. I'm sure there's somebody out there who would. But nobody would say Russia hacked the machines. The question, the question for this 2020 thing is, what are they going to say? I, you know, if Donald Trump comes out there and says, China hacked the machines and Ossoff and Warnock are not senators, and they don't get to be like, what even happens? What even happens then? I don't, I assume nothing,

because he doesn't have that power. Well, no, I mean, obviously, Warnock and Ossoff will be put into handcuffs and they will be marched off of their Senate seats and Donald Trump will get offered a third term. No, nothing's going to happen. This is, and I think this is as a table setting matter, just to say where we are. There is both the backward looking portion of this, which is, it is very important to Donald Trump and his fraggle, his fragile, puny ego that he casts doubt on the idea that he lost the 2020 election. Time is a flat circle. We have been through this now for years. We are in the middle of a hot war that he started and blundered into. We have high gas prices as a result of it. He's done nothing to lower prices. We obviously have a tariff situation. we have Todd Blanche and what the DOJ is doing.

There's a lot of real things that the president of the United States could be focused on, but it appears that the things that he is focused on have nothing to do with the American people elected him to do in 2024, insane as that was of all of you. And so, like, the backward-looking part is about sort of Trump himself. The forward-looking part, though, and this is the part that makes it important to cover this. Because, look, CBS, NBC, ABC, they're not covering it. And good for them. CNN's not covering it.

The only broadcast channel I think that is covering it live is Fox News. But I think for people, and so I get that. I think it is not there. It is totally justified. And I think we'd probably be criticizing them if they were carrying it live to say, why let everybody sort of let Donald Trump pump these lies into the American ecosystem still. On the other hand, and I think the reason we're going to sit down and watch it and absorb it is it's going to tell us a lot about how he's approaching the 2026 election,

because this is about casting doubt on the results in the future. It is about, I think, laying a predicate potentially for declaring an emergency, a state of emergency going into the election so that Donald Trump can have ice on the streets. I just wouldn't put anything past him. I try very hard to be the non-alarmist bullwork member, while at the same time not being naive to the fact that I think it is pretty clear Trump's going to do whatever he can to try to influence the 2026 election. What do you think? Yeah, Sam Stein, our colleague Sam Stein, talked to Aaron Banco earlier today about what the actual outcome of this could be in terms of like, well, you have.

have these election commissions, what can they do? What can they take the machines? Can they decommission the voting machines? Can they, you know, force paper ballots, you know, whatever. There's a whole series of things that they could do. Assuming, of course, that the courts don't stop them. And this is, and here, again, this is the other thing, right? Like, whatever Trump announces today, if he announces an executive order, it will immediately be appealed and the courts will stop it. And then we'll have six months of fights over that, that will stretch, that will bleed into probably right up to the election, maybe beyond it. I don't know. The, the, but as you say, the real goal here is to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election, which as all of the intelligence agencies have reported, and as

bipartisan Senate, you know, papers have, have, you know, shouted from the rooftops, this has been the goal of every influence operation by the Iranians. by the Chinese, by the enemies of America, is to make the American people feel like their democracy is illegitimate. That is the entirety of their goal. The Russians are sitting there thinking, you think you have good elections, America, you don't. Maybe you should not have them.

Think about that. What do you think about that? And this has always struck me as the most corrosive thing about Donald Trump. This, of course, plays into January 6th and all that. and the riots to try and over the, like the, the end of the peaceful transfer of power and all that stuff, bad enough. But to continue doing it, to continue doing it for years and years and years, to look back now six years later and say, I couldn't possibly have lost this election. I couldn't possibly have cost us these two seats in Georgia with my nonsense after the fact,

demanding, you know, recounts and saying that it wasn't legitimate and blah, blah. Like, I just, that's the thing that drives me craziest about Donald Trump. And as you said, Sarah, a lot of people who either voted for Donald Trump this time around or... Oh, sorry, Sadie. I don't need to put you out, but he's going. An inspirational portrait of a farmer's son who rises from humble beginnings to build a luxury fashion empire. Brunello, the gracious visionary, traces Brunello Cuccinelli's life journey. His commitment to craftsmanship, ethical values, and humanistic philosophy.

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Playing the hits. Ravaging ourselves. and the whole world was laughing at us as a nation, but not anymore. Two years ago, our country was dead. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. America is respected like we have never been respected before. We have more money being invested in the United States than at any time in the history of our country. More Americans are working today than ever.

ever before. This week, it was announced that inflation saw the largest monthly decline in more than six years just happened. It was just given out. The media reported it and we accept that the best in six years. The tax cuts in our great big, beautiful bill are saving hardworking families. Thousands and thousands of dollars like with the provisions, no tax on tips. No tax on overtime and no tax on social security for our great seniors, along with the interest deductional loan used to purchase a car. What if he just doesn't? What if it's just this?

It's made in America and a 100% expensing for our job creating businesses. Our stock markets are at their highest point in many years, but we can actually say of all time, And your 401Ks, pensions, and retirement accounts are setting records every single day, the highest in history. For years, we paid the highest price for prescription drugs anywhere in the world. Now we pay the lowest price under my most favored nation's policy because I was able to get the rest of the world and the pharmaceutical companies to act responsibly. Drug prices are coming down by 70, 80, and 90%. TrumpRX.gov, this will ultimately reduce the cost of health care.

You have to go to Trumprx.gov and take advantage of it. It's like a parody. The cost of health care is coming way down because of what we've done with prescription drugs. And with Trump accounts, every child in America now has access to a tax-free investment account. to save for their future. Billions and billions of dollars are being invested, put in by companies and individuals to take care of our children so that at age 18,

they will have potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in their account, and they'll get off to a great start. Congrats, Trump. You invented savings accounts. Go to Trumpaccounts.gov and sign up your child or any child would like to sign up. I don't understand why the broadcast networks. don't want to run this.

bizarre. To the most secure borders in the history of our country. I've heard this speech verbatim a lot of times. We've admitted to the United States in the past 14 months. That is zero. Nobody thought it was possible. We had the worst border in the history of our country and now we have the best. Crime is plummeting nationwide.

Yeah, we're just shooting people in the streets. At its lowest level since 1900 or more than 100. 125 years ago. We're making a record investment in our armed forces, and we have the strongest and most powerful military by far anywhere in the world. I built it during my first term, and unfortunately, we're forced to use it now. We won in Venezuela, which is now working with us to produce millions and millions of barrels of oil. We are likewise winning. Are we getting Venezuela in oil? I'm pretty sure we're not. but very, very shortly. America is back and doing really well, but we still have a major challenge that must be urgently addressed. Here we go.

Because no country could be great without fair and honest elections. You have to trust your country because if there can be no trust, there can be no greatness. And that's very simple. No trust, no greatness. For many years, I've called for a bold,

swift and decisive action to protect the integrity of America's elections. Did he turn into a robot? Yeah, when they face their vote, that vote will be counted accurately in a system, and that is to make that system secure, one where cheating and interference are not just difficult, but virtually impossible. Chris, unfortunately, the system we have to listen to them like this falls catastrophically. This is amazing. Oh, I liked robot Donald Trump.

Thanks. Intelligence revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes like levels never thought possible to hacking exploitation and foreign interference. Hey, Herbert, is this our feed or his feet? I think it's the Reuters. It's for many years. What I heard. Covered up and hidden from you.

It's the same, unfortunately. People are beautiful, our great American people. Meaning it sounds like this everywhere. That all changes right now. The documents we will release starting tonight have been gathered by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, a great group of people, along with the staff of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. Somebody in the things that it's fine on AP.

top intelligence agency chiefs who have all personally reviewed the findings. We are presenting this evening and fully confirmed their authenticity. You can see these documents for yourself at whitehouse.gov. That's whitehouse.gov. Go check it out. Our purpose in disclosing this information is not to weaken confidence in election, but to earn that confidence by confronting vulnerabilities and correcting them very, very quickly. And that's what we're doing. The documents cover five major areas of concern.

First, they show that over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People's Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China's illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files. That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive... Chris, are you getting us a different feed? Mild preference for the bad feed, just so I can hear what he's saying. Yeah. Exactly what was happening.

There we go. This data loss presents an unprecedented elections. Thanks, Chris. The intelligence even shows that China has signed a data exploitation unit specifically to this new project. Compounding the travesty, the second set of documents we are releasing, reveals that members of the deep state, very, very famous group of people, in many cases,

in our intelligence agency, work to actively suppress and downplay information about the extent of China's sinister election meddling, covering it up from both the president and the American people, like nobody thought was possible. U.S. spy agencies began learning about the compromise of voter registration files in 2020 when they discovered that tens of millions of voter data, think of that tens of millions of voters' data in 18 states have been, bought, stolen, or hacked by China.

Yet those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information secret and hidden. They did not disclose to me as president or to anyone else and to the best of our knowledge. They did not inform Congress. In fact, all they kept saying is this is the most secure election in the history of our country, a standard, very pat line that was divvied out to say. The cover-up of this colossal security breach is even more disturbing in light of the additional information showing that China engaged in other election-related activities to undermine my first administration in our 2020 campaign. They did not want, and they just didn't want it. They fought like hell not to have it, Donald Trump,

to win, and for good reason. As the documents we are releasing show, CIA reporting explicitly stated, and I quote, in mid-2018, the Chinese Communist Party's policy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the U.S. president in an effort to reduce the U.S. president's votes and make him resign or prevent his re-election. Isn't that nice? Also, in mid-2018, China was working to influence the results of the U.S. midterm elections and later the results of the 2020 presidential election as so. Separately in mid-2019, the Chinese government's strategy against the United States was focused on undermining domestic confidence in the U.S. president.

They wanted to just make you sound like your president wasn't so hot, when actually your president is not a great... job. I was great. Everything possible. I was great in 2019. Going on, this document says, and this is by the CIA, the strategy included efforts to use Chinese contacts with big U.S. companies to influence U.S. business leaders to turn against the president of the United States of America. The Chinese government sought to identify U.S. journalists who had reported negatively on the U.S. president

and pay them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him as many as they could, and they didn't care what they said. The Chinese government wanted U.S. President to lose the next election, and the reason they wanted me to lose is because they knew I was wise to them, charged them billions and billions of dollars worth of tariffs, and built the strongest military anywhere in the world. we have the strongest military anywhere in the world. These are exact quotes from the CIA reporting.

The name of the person doing the quote is now under review, but it gets even worse, raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China's activities, even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden, Documents show that during this period, dozens of significant CIA and NSA reports about China's election targeting were kept out of the presidential briefing. These were briefings I would get almost every day. Everything was kept out that was of importance. One email among intelligence analysts admitted that they had, quote, deliberately massaged the presidential daily briefing to withhold information, regarding Chinese activities related to the election.

Another official inside the FBI wrote that she was running, quote, a shadow government, unquote, to keep intelligence about China's election meddling from becoming known and to keep it away from the honorable press. Other officials who witnessed such efforts perceived the motivations to be blatantly political. Recently, we found significant numbers of burned

bags in formation, and this is a group of bags that were used to destroy information given by President Barack Hussein Obama to be burned. It was supposed to be burned. These bags were supposed to be at a different level by different people incinerated and checked, but it never happened. Maybe we got lucky. We believe this was not done on purpose, but rather through gross incompetence of the people that was supposed to burn the bag. But the findings are stunning. Today, I'm asking the office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the CIA to investigate how and why such crucial information was hidden to fire those involved in the cover-up and to file criminal charges, if appropriate, against these people.

Yet concealing China's meddling was only the beginning. The third set of documents, we are releasing proves that for many years, Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot counting systems, dishonest, almost all. They're vulnerable and they're easily complicated. and people within our government knew that. Tonight, we're publishing a series of previously classified U.S. intelligence community assessments and other reports proving that our government has long known these machines are extremely exposed to attack.

As one assessment states, we judge that the United States adversaries, including at a minimum Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, as well as non-state groups, groups have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure. That's unquote, but that's some statement, isn't it, made by supposedly great patriots of our country? Supposed. The document goes on to further state that, quote, we assess that centralized election-related data repositories, such as voter registration databases, poll books, and other official election websites, are most vulnerable to exploitation and adversaries

could use this access to these systems to disrupt election processes within the United States of America. Tonight we're releasing all of those findings and spanning from January 2020 to June 2026. This is a cyber threat aimed at the very heart of our democracy. Many people have questioned whether it could actually be possible

to electronically manipulate vote totals or change election results on these terrible machines. Today, we are releasing documents that show the CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot to do a big number in favor of the corrupt Maduro regime in Venezuela, and that's exactly what happened, conspiring to digitally rig their own country's elections in 20, And that's what they did. This reporting included precise details about methods to regime develop, to digitally alter vote totals and ways that could not be detected even with an audit no matter how deep they went. This intelligence underscores why we must take urgent action to ensure that our own system can never, ever be hacked or compromised like it was in the past. The fourth set of documents reveals that even when significant evidence, a fraud has been detected.

It has been buried and covered up. Among the disclosures tonight are FBI files detailing evidence of alleged fraud by a large-scale voter registration operation in Michigan. In 2020, Michigan State Police raided a Democrat, get out the vote organization, corrupt group in Muskega. and were so concerned by what they found. They were just so concerned. They couldn't believe it, actually, that they contacted the FBI in Detroit. The documents state that some canvassers admitted to FBI agents

that they signed voter registration forms and other people's names, submitted fraudulent registration for people who did not exist, and received gift cards tied to their number of applications that they produced, In other words, it was pay, play, and cheat. The FBI agents working on the case believe that crimes were committed, yet the Biden Department of Justice slow walked the investigation and killed it. Tonight, I'm asking the FBI director to ensure that the matter is fully investigated and to work with the Department of Justice to prosecute those responsible for any crimes.

Finally, to reveal just how vulnerable elections continue to be, we are releasing the results of a stunning investigation by the Department of Homeland Security. According to the DHS review, state voter rolls, and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens,000 who are registered to vote in federal elections. Since Democrats' states refused to state's files. the real number is actually much higher than that. The real number is much higher. Even this limited analysis found more than a quarter of a million foreigners illegally registered to vote, put together these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible.

Hundreds of millions of U.S. voters files are in the hands of foreign governments, Our machines and ballot counting systems are exposed to hacking and manipulation and corruption. China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections. Evidence of fraud has been buried. Hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the... There's not a single real thing in here. And yet we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots flowing.

aimlessly through the mail as one example of the insanity California's recent election for mayor of L.A. and governor was held on June 2nd a long time ago. Oh, California. Sure. It was just completed a few days ago in July 10th. Think of that much more than one month. So many, so many days. Take a month to count the votes. I wonder what they were doing. They should count. Count of counting the votes. That's what they were doing. Third world country. There's no third world country that has election. like we have. In a rare move, NBC and ABC fake news have both said that they would not cover this speech. They knew what it was about because of the fact that they don't like the topic, because they know how corrupt our system is and they don't want to reveal it. They and others in the media are part

of a plot. They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason. They want to keep it going. They want to protect the radical left. They can't have a great country. And that's true. You can't have a great country without free and fair elections. Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses. They use our public multi-billion dollar in value airways for absolutely no money. He's going to resolve the networks. All we want is honesty in our elections and honesty in reporting. They pay nothing for multi-billion dollar assets.

Sure. Great damage has been done to our country. Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen, and the trust of the American people was lost. This cannot be allowed to continue. Every American, whether you're a Republican, Democrat, independent, or otherwise, should be able to agree that we deserve the most secure, honest, and fair election system anywhere in the world. Yeah, we have. Secure elections should be a partisan, really. We should just, we should be together.

Together. Oh, we should be together. Republicans, independents, everybody. Why can't we all just get along? And it should not be a partisan issue. It should cause to unite us, not to divide us. This should be a cause. We should be united, not divided.

In light of the brand new and irrefutable information, I have revealed tonight, my administration is in the process of notifying the states whose election data was compromised by the People's Republic of China. of China and many others. We will be working closely to mitigate any harm, and we're taking swift action to ensure that sensitive voter data is better protected so we can never be bought, we can never be hacked, and we can never watch a stolen election again. Tomorrow, the Secretary of Homeland Security will hold a briefing to outline his department's

recent work confirming cyber vulnerability. in our electronic voting systems. They are bad. We're in the process of informing governors, senators, and members of Congress of potential issues in their states. If you look at voting today, it's in such bad shape in so many states, and we are committing to fix it. And we're also committing to be working with those states

and local jurisdictions to help them fix and patch known technical vulnerabilities before the people. midterm elections. We have very important elections coming up. We want those elections to be honest. I've also ordered DHS to notify every state about non-citizens on their voter rolls and direct them to remove all ineligible voters from the lists immediately. But most importantly, addressing this crisis of election security demands that Congress must pass the Save America Act. How easy is that unless you want to cheat. The only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat

because your policies are so bad and your candidates are so pathetic that you can't get away or can't get elected any other way. This landmark bill requires that all voters must show photo, voter ID. How simple is that? Could I have your photo, please? Photo, voter ID. All voters must provide.

provide proof of citizenship. Are you a citizen of our country, please? And hopefully there will be no corrupt mail-in ballots, which have you watched California in so many other places, mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt. So you would have no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment, or travel. If you're going away on business or vacation,

These reforms are urgently needed to stop the vulnerabilities that I've mentioned. To all Americans, I ask you to pick up your phone tomorrow, call your representatives in the House and Senate, and demand that they pass the Save America Act without delay. Together, we will restore faith and confidence in our country, and we will be bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. Thank you. bless you. God bless our great military. And God bless America. Thank you very much. Okay. Let's cut him off. Go away. Okay. I am tempted to make a bunch of jokes right now because that was so preposterous. But before I laugh about anything, and we can go back through some of it

and talk about some of the more ridiculous allegations, but that was very transparently Donald Trump bringing zero evidence forward, unless somebody else can show me something in that speech that he did something other than just say FBI, CIA, China, Venezuela, a bunch of words. Is there anything in there that amounted to actual evidence? Like, that was actually even, I thought he was going to at least, I don't know, have something that amounted to, like a fake allegation. There was nothing in there. No, no. I am very curious to see what this voter data is supposed to be.

It sounds to me like it's just voter rolls. Like the, maybe China hacked the voter rolls and knows who is registered to vote in states. I feel like that's a thing that we can get anyway. I don't know. I maybe, all right, so maybe they got 220 million secret files and whatever. There's no, there was no accusation even that there was, I don't know what there would be an accusation of trying to, trying to run. The biggest one was paying journalists.

China was paying journalists to write nasty stories about Donald Trump. I don't know if Donald Trump knows this, but like the journalists are paid by news outlets to write nasty things about Donald Trump. I, like, it's, it's, the whole thing is insane. And it's, again, there's no accusation here that vote totals were changed. He said the security of these systems is not great, but no, I don't understand. All right. So here's my favorite person to follow on elections is Stephen Ritcher.

He was the Maricopa County supervisor. So he was in Arizona during the 2020 election. He was a Republican. still a Republican. I know Stephen personally, but he's overseen these elections. He tweeted a couple of things that are really important. So one is we use audible, auditable. We can audit. We use auditable paper ballots in this country. So even if he hacked the machines, which of course there is no evidence of, I'm not reading the straight, he says even if tabulation machines are vulnerable, a predicate I don't accept, and even if connected to the

internet, which isn't true, right, when any manipulation would still be revealed in post-election handcounts. I just want to remind people that in 2020, 2020 was the most scrutinized election we've ever had because of Donald Trump. Remember the cyber ninjas? Remember the bamboo fibers, right? They recounted in every single one of these states.

So we know that there was no fraud like he was alleging, but that's not even what he's alleging. He's alleging that there was, and this is the other thing. that is public information. The voter rolls is public information. So like if they hacked it, well, hold on. So so in most states, the public record includes your full name, your date of birth, your address, your political party, and if you participated in past elections. If somebody were to unlawfully download this material, it would still be on, it would be on lawful,

but it wouldn't compromise the election in any way. Right. So there's, There was nothing in there that even is something we have to talk about from in terms of looking backwards. This was all about trying to say, first of all, it was nothing but a nihilistic, depraved attempt to delegitimize American elections in total, but certainly in 2026. Like it is what we thought it was going to be an effort to delegitimize it. but just by saying, he's saying our system is unsafe. He's literally doing what the Iranians and the Chinese want him to do, which is make people, make some people doubt the legitimacy of the United States elections

by just rattling off nonsense. I mean, like, what's the one number, the one actual number that he had in this, right? Which is that I think it was 278,000 foreign citizens were registered to vote in 2020 or 2024, whatever. that is that is i did i did very quick math on this and my math might be wrong but i'm pretty sure that that is uh basically two one thousandths of a percent of the total votes maybe two hundreds of a percent i don't know i can i'm not a math guy i'm movie guy um but it's not it's nothing it's it's like no even if they all voted i mean if all of those illegal voters voted in one state in one direction it would i guess change change some races maybe but i like it's

It's a nothing figure. It's like if this is the best case for it acting. And look, we could debate the same act. This is whatever. Maybe maybe there are good elements to it. Maybe there are bad elements. But like if the whole thing is predicated on two, one thousandths of a percent of voters are possibly, possibly that they didn't say they actually voted just that they're registered to vote. That's insane.

That's an insane thing to talk about. So the other thing in here. Yeah. So first of all, that's a great point. Good math. Maybe. Somebody correct me in the comments, please. Great live mathing.

But here's the thing. So our own Sam Stein, he's going through the documents on the website. I was trying to pull it up while we were listening to see this data dump, you know, that they're doing. And it wasn't up. But then our team's going through it. And so Sam says, the main doc here appears to be the October 2020 memorandum prepared by the National Intelligence Officer for cyber and the director.

it says China took low-level exploratory steps to undermine. That's the quote, Trump in 2020, but it also said the Chinese government didn't do it. So, okay. What are we talking about here? That's a great question, Sarah. What are we talking about? You know what? You know what the lasting thing from this whole speech is going to be is him calling for the broadcast networks, again, to lose their broadcast licenses because they didn't.

run this speech. I mean, it's like the one thing he might have some control over here through his jackass Brendan Carr. Like I, I, they, that, that is, but even that, like, what are they going to do? They're going to take, I, I, I, I'm flabbergasted that I have spent my night watching this and talking about it, because it's, it's, it's such a nothing burger. It is, there's nothing here. The only thing. So, I got to say, as I, as I'm processing this, I guess I'm actually slightly relieved. Um, because obviously there's nothing, there's no real relief about the fact that our president is an insane person who is lying and trying to, uh, to, to, to, to, what? Sarah, I'm sorry, you're only thinking this because in 2019, the Chinese made you think that Donald Trump is very bad.

I know. They tried to make them. Aved wanted you to think that I'm awful and incompetent. And I'm not. I'm the most competent. I, that was, I mean, it's like, it's, it's, it's an SNL skit brought to life. Yeah, right. So this is, this is because Donald Trump is so terrified of Democrats having any oversight over him over

2026 after 2026 that he is desperately, that was like a, I'm going to throw spaghetti at a wall and I'm going to say, it's like just some of the weird things he was saying, burn bags. He kept talking about burn bags. What are the, what are, like, what are burn bags? What are we talking about here? And he was doing this. Venezuela, Sonny and I were texting each other. We're during the Venezuela part because I honestly couldn't tell.

He's saying, we hacked Venezuela's election. Venezuela hacked our election or Venezuela hacked their own election. I think what he was saying was that the CIA had evidence that the Maduro regime hacked their own election to give Maduro a big number of votes. If I'm parsing it in my head, that's what he said. No shit. Maduro stole elections. I was like, oh, you know why? Because they have a system that's vulnerable to that shit.

Not America, Venezuela. I don't. Okay. And then he's trotting out California. All right, guys, let's talk about California for one second. First of all, this was a primary election. And they're saying that the Republican candidate for the mayor of Los Angeles. because he didn't win.

Because Spencer Pratt didn't win. Specifically, not random, you know, generic Republican. Reality TV show villains, Spencer Pratt did not win the primary election. And therefore, California's elections are rigged. Because if California was doing legitimate elections, obviously Republicans would be winning them. Like, what are we? And you know what? fine. California should count faster. They should. It's ridiculous how long it takes California to

count their ballots. But when he was like, what do you think they're doing then? And I'm like, counting their ballots too slowly. Like, that's what they're doing. The idea that there's, that, that, that obviously that means fraud, it defies the most basic common sense. But Sonny, here's the more serious point that I would like to make. We've spent, uh, the last couple of weeks talking about, you know, Graham Platner and who has now dropped out. The Democrats made him drop out. And he was a person of poor character. Republicans have been all over this being like, see, see, like this is, look, look how bad Democrats are. So first of all, he dropped out of this. Republicans right now, your president is going in front of the world.

and saying that America has bad elections. He is a guy who tried to overturn a previous election, who lied about that election. It was disproven in court. It was disproven by the recounting multiple times in every swing state of paper ballots. He is now trying to say our elections aren't secure going into 2026 to try to undermine them right now.

It is so obvious what he was doing. And if Republicans aren't going to stand up and say something about this, that was a in a normal world, in any sane world, in the country that we're supposed to know, Donald Trump would right now be, Republicans would be talking about the 25th Amendment, they would be talking about impeachment, they would say this is, the irresponsibility of trotting out like weird CIA things about things that China didn't accomplish as to try to lay a predicate for our elections being not secure, this is the most irresponsible thing a president could do. Totally. And we all know that nothing will happen and they'll say, oh, I didn't watch the

speech. I'm curious how many we didn't watch the speeches we get from sitting members of Congress, sitting senators tomorrow on the Republican side. But like they're going to, they're actively going to go out there and try and back them up. I was like I was saying right before this started, Tommy Tuberville's out there saying there's four or five. who shouldn't be, you know, United States senators right now probably. None of that was in this speech, by the way. I don't know what, I don't know what he was. Bernie Moreno was out there today saying this is the most important speech. It's going to change how everybody looks at elections. How? Why? Why on earth? Insane. I, I, the, the, the, the, uh, the Republican response to this. I really hope you don't get your

hopes up, Sarah, because it's going to be pretty disappointing. It's going to be disappointing. and they're not going to say anything. And it's a real indictment of the party. And frankly, everybody who continues to support the party. And like I, it's, it's just, it's, it's bad. It's bad. It's bad. So Will Summer, one of our false flag author, Will Summer.

He is in our Slack. I've been, our team is kind of going through the documents. He said, going through the files now, going through the files now, a big part of So, right, this was actually one of the things, and this was very difficult to follow, but he was saying that the FBI did a cover up, right? That's one of the allegations in here. The FBI did a cover up of the report that China was stealing the election by getting forged driver's licenses through TikTok.

Okay, that was the allegation. Will said, I wrote about this last year. The idea is insane. TikTok doesn't have users mailing addresses so you can't get their ballots. Two, the same source also believed China. built secret underground military bases in the United States to spread COVID. So naturally, the FBI thought he was insane and didn't take him seriously. Like, the president of the United States just went out and made a speech and was quoting some lunatic that they dismissed because he was saying crazy things.

I don't know if you know this, Sarah, but the underground COVID bases are actually how COVID got started. So I, you know, you're denying it. And that's a real problem. I know. It's like, I remember that story. by Will. And I remember thinking like, wait, TikTok driver's license. What? What is it? What are they talking about? Because this was a whole thing. This was a whole thing on right wing Twitter for like two days. They were like the driver's licenses. They're they're forging the, they're forging the ballot requests. And like it, no, it's no. Not how it works.

Did he put the tic ticot in the burn bags, sunny? I still don't know what the burn bags are. You know what? The funniest part of this was like it's, it's, I think it's like the most credit Donald Trump has ever given. in Barack Obama because he was like, we don't think Barack Obama did whatever he was supposed to do with the burn bags out of maliciousness. It was just incompetence. It was, you know, he was, he wasn't trying, but I don't know what was supposed to be in the burn bags. What was in the burn bags? What did we, what did we, what did we, what did we, okay, so we didn't, we didn't, we didn't burn the ticot ballots that we were supposed to burn in the burn bags. Yeah. Okay. Okay, it is, it is, like many things with Trump, it is traversing the spectrum of lunacy and dangerous,

like hilarious lunacy that nobody should take seriously and also something very dangerous because, and actually, when I was, what I was thinking about before as I'm trying to process and I'm saying, like, maybe I feel relief is that I genuinely thought he was going to try to set a predicate. Like, we might hear him say, I'm going to declare a national emergency going into the election because of how, you know, they're trying to do X, Y, or Z. And here's the proof from Fulton County because we took all the ballots. But that's not what he did. He has nothing.

And it was basically like, so please pass the SAVE Act, which Republicans have said they're not going to pass, not because there's not some elements of the SAVE Act that might work, but because there's a whole bunch of stuff in the SAVE Act that is bananas. Like, they're just not going to pass it. It's a completely irresponsible bill. He doesn't have enough Republican votes to pass it, which is, and how bad does the bill have to be that these Republicans are going to confirm Todd Blanche. These Republicans confirmed Cash Patel.

The fact that they are not going to pass his SAVE Act is an indication of just how fat shit crazy it's got to be. And so he doesn't have. So that that's all that was was like a pitch for this legislation that he can't get passed. Yes. And again, it's, it is, I'm with you in the sense that I, I thought that there was going to be some, like, deeply insane. Like, we are, we are turning off the electronic ballots. Everything will just be, it's just going to be, you got to drop a pebble in a bowl, and whoever has the most pebbles and the most bowls wins.

That's what we're going to do. And I, he didn't do that. He didn't do that. He did nothing. He said nothing. I mean, there's genuinely nothing here. I was writing down the bullet points of all this stuff. And, like, again, there's insane things, like the paying journalists to write the mean stories and, you know, his whole thing about China in 2019.

The Michigan, like, there's some story about a Michigan voter fraud that, like, sounds bad. If it's bad, I have the FBI investigated. But that's not, you know, that is not systemic national voter fraud that is going to, you know, change the course of the election. I, you know, I, whatever. Wait, also. There's nothing here. Wait, also. He won the 2024 election.

When, when Joe Biden, you would think, and Kamala Harris would have been trying to stop him with all of their dirty tricks. And they couldn't. What? They forgot to steal that one. That's right. So, because all of his stuff is from, it was talking about 2018 and 2019. And then, I mean, other than alleging the cover up by Joe Biden, which again, is this weird thing that like Will was talking about.

Donald Trump won in 2024. So the elections were secure enough for Donald Trump to win in 2024. That is that is all after, five, six years after. I'm sorry, did the Chinese not figure it out between 2018, 2019 with all that voter data, all that public information they got? It's preposterous. I, you know, it's funny. I'm going to do a movie thing here for one second.

You know, in movie land, there are a lot of right-wing Chud types on Twitter saying that the studios have bought positive reviews for The Odyssey, right? Because nobody could possibly like this movie because of, you know, trans actor and, you know, the Black Ellen of Troy, blah, blah, couldn't possibly be liked. Reviews were paid for. There's no, that is obviously insane. And that's basically the question I have is, well, why don't they just pay all of the reviewers to review all of the movies well? Like lots of movies still get bad reviews. do they just forget to bribe those critics? I don't understand.

And that's what this is. Like, they didn't steal the 2024 election just because they forgot. They didn't want to do it. They were like, well, we're going to play fair for this one and see how it goes. Maybe we just don't like Kamala Harris. I don't know. Like, it's just, it's total. There's no logical train of thought here to explain any of this.

It's just grievance after grievance. And again, as you've been saying this whole time, it goes back to 2019, 2020, him, him looking weak throughout the, the entire COVID debacle, him losing the election and not being able to handle people rejecting him. He's done this in every election, in Iowa, right? What did he say? Oh, well, rigged primary in 2015. For Ted Cruz. Yeah, right. Rigged, rig for Ted Cruz. I didn't lose. I got, it was stolen from me. And he has done this every time. He's done this every time. It's like his one core belief is that he cannot possibly lose an election. election anywhere at any time. So if he has lost, it's been stolen. And that's, that's crazy.

I also thought it was interesting. It really was gaslighting from start to finish, but not just on the election stuff. He does that thing at the beginning where he's just like, I mean, guys, if I took you back 10 years and I showed you that seven minutes wind up that Trump does before every speech where he just starts shouting transgender for everyone. We're so hot. Everybody thinks we're the best. And he like skips over the fact that we're in a war that he started. Like he's talking about the Dow, which yeah, is untethered to reality. That is basically has everything to do with AI, which is propping up the entire economy. He hired the person who puts out the jobs numbers. Like, um, there's just, there is no world in which anybody who supports Donald Trump and

what he is doing day in and day out with the level of corruption, uh, with the way, this, this is the thing that that supersedes all the other things. It's not about policy. It's, it's, it's, it's not even about character. It's about somebody, I mean, it is about character. He has terrible character. But my, my point is is that, this is about like first order things. He is trying to tear down the country that we live in, delegitimize the greatest democracy the world has ever known because his feelings got hurt because he lost an election and because he is fearful of the oversight that might come if Democrats take the House in 2026. Can I ask a question? You talk to voters all the time. You're constantly

dealing with these folks, these great American folks. Have you noticed any decline in comfort with the safety of the elections? Is this a thing that comes up at all in the focus groups? Do people say, like, I worry about the integrity of our elections and China hacking, the machines, et cetera? Democrats worry about the integrity of the elections. Now, I will say you do get illegals voting from Republicans quite a bit. Like that is in the bloodstream of Republicans is the idea that there are illegals voting. And this is something that, you know, Mike Lee or every Republican sort of pushes that talking point.

I just want to state that it is illegal for anyone who is not an American citizen to vote. It is already illegal. You do hear, I mean, I think there is sort of widespread support for voter ID. That is like there is widespread. So that comes up in Republican focus groups quite a bit. But you don't hear people being like, boy, we desperately need the Save Act. I think that you would, if they're not talking about it preemptively. I think that if Democrats take the House, you would hear a lot of groups, Trump voter groups,

suggesting that Democrats did something to cheat because they would be listening to Trump. Here's the thing that I'll say about that speech, though. For those of us who are sick in the head and felt the needs. to watch that. Not just sick in the head, but really care about our democracy and wanted to see what he was going to telegraph in terms of what he was going to do. Average Americans were not watching that. They didn't preempt any, I'm glad.

Now that I've seen what he did, I'm very glad the networks didn't carry that because I don't think that anybody's going to walk away from that saying, I mean, there will be like right-wing insane Twitter that will pick it up because they have a million bots to do it. and Elon will parrot it. So it will do that. But that speech isn't going to like change things at all. No. No.

There's, because there's nothing in it. Again, there's no, there is no smoking gun clip that somebody could pull out and say, see, Donald Trump said they hacked the machines and they changed the vote totals and this is why we have to,

like there is just nothing. There's nothing there. I, like, again, I, I'm flabbergasted. He went out. there and did that. And, you know, again, our colleague, Sam Stein was talking to an election

reporter. And she said that her, her reporting showed that his people didn't want him to give this speech tonight. They didn't, they did not want him out there talking about this. They knew that there was nothing there and that it was just going to make passage of anything harder. And I can't imagine that this does, what does this get him? What does this get him aside from a massaging his own ego out there so he can go out there and say, they were mean to me in 2019? And, they were wrong, I was great. I like literally, that was, that was, you notice that was the most excited he got in the whole speech that, that bit where he was, he was like, no, they said I was bad.

I'm not bad. I'm great. I'm great. And that is, that it's amazing. So we do have a couple, um, there, I do have a couple. So Sam said one of the documents that Trump has disclosed tonight has a section noting that China targeted the Biden campaign. And does not currently intend to covertly interfere to try and sway the.

outcome of the election. And then Will's got the paying journalist part, which is the U.S. government wanted U.S. president to lose the next election. Like, this is all just gibberish. The doc, this is from Catherine Rampel. This doc says Russia tried to undermine Biden. China preferred someone other than Trump, but quote unquote, Beijing did not intend to try to affect the election.

He's also just like lying about the China stuff. Yeah, I, the, the Chinese, the report, there has been, there have been reports about Chinese influences in the election. And they repeatedly say that Beijing has no preference either way. Like they, they, they, the, the, the, the short term, uh, problems that Trump was causing for them with tariffs and the such would be outweighed by long term problems that Biden would be able to, you know, create a massive, you know, for, international coalition to oppose Chinese behaviors, which. Donald Trump, not great at creating massive international coalitions to oppose anything. So, you know, like, they're just, they had no, they had no horse in the race. They had no, they had no boxer in the fight. Like I, I, and this is what all the reports say. This is what the reports he's, he's highlighting say.

I don't understand. Okay, guys, we're coming up on the 60 minute mark. I think we've established a number of things tonight. one, there was nothing remotely noteworthy in that speech besides the fact that Donald Trump is a deranged person who is trying to undermine America's confidence in our own elections. We should be incredibly vigilant as we look for what actions he might take to actively interfere with the elections because this part is a narrative trick. It's a psychological trick to sort of lay the predicate for the idea that our election. are unsafe in some way. I assume that there will be attempts,

I hope there will be robust efforts by people who are legitimately in the world of elections to try to push back on those things and assure the American public that our elections are in fact safe. I do think somebody texted me, and I think this is right, that there's also the part where they are very worried about

Republican turnout, the fact that Republicans are not very happy with how things are going in the country. And so they're worried about depressed turnout for Republicans. And so they're trying to do a like too big, too big to rig situation, right? Where they're trying to say like, look, Democrats are going to rig it if you don't turn out. But didn't this backfire on them in Georgia? Like remember, I mean, this is this whole bank shot idea. We got we got to, they're going to rig it. So you got to come out and vote. It doesn't make any sense. They've already tried this and it didn't work. Well, they didn't really try it.

He just went out and said it was rigged. And people were like, well, I'm not going to go out and vote in the runoff then. I don't care about that. You know, I, that, they've done this before and it failed. I just, don't they learn? Don't they learn, Sarah? Are our children learning? Our children might be learning.

Our president is not. All right, guys. You know what? The only way through it is together. So thanks for hanging out with us to watch this tonight. we will keep an eye on every attempt by Donald Trump to interfere with the elections or undermine them or whatever the hell it is we just watched. But I hope you guys have a great night. I'm going to go take a gummy and pass out.

Just kidding. Just kidding. I'm just drinking water over here. Bubbly water. That's all I do. What a way to end? I just, so Clint's a drink. I don't know about you guys.

I'm going to go out of a nice, that much scotch. All right. Love you guys. Have a good night. Thanks, Sonny. Thank you. Thank you. All right. See you.