Here's Where It Gets Interesting - America’s Deadliest Election with Dana Bash

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

How did America’s Deadliest Election change the future of democracy? Sharon McMahon is joined by CNN's Dana Bash to discuss a lesser known chapter of history and how this pivotal moment forever changed the course of history. Credits: Host and Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Supervising Producer: Melanie Buck Parks Audio Producer: Craig Thompson To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's a match made by McCafe. At participating McDonald's restaurants, prices exclude delivery. Hello, friends. Welcome. Delighted to have you with me today. My guest is Dana Bash. You probably recognize her face and her name from CNN. And she has a new book out on a topic that I think you are going to have some mind-blown emojis appear above your head when you hear about. It is a book called America's Deadliest Election. And I can almost promise you, it's not an election you've heard of before. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. I am really excited to be joined by Dana Bash. Thanks for being here

today. It's my honor. Thank you so much for inviting me. You are releasing a book about elections in the middle of a very contentious election season. Is it? I hadn't noticed. I hadn't noticed. Is this any different than any other election in history? noticed? Is this any different than any other election in history? I mean, wow. Just this summer alone. Now that we have like a second, not that we're catching our breath, because now we're really starting the sprint towards Election Day, the traditional after Labor Day sprint. Just thinking about from the time we did the debate, Juneth until summer ended. All of the things that happened. All of the things. Yes. Wow. This is why we do what we do, because we expect the unexpected and we certainly got it this summer. No kidding. How surprised were you in the change in candidate on the Democratic ticket?

Were you like, what? Or did you see it coming a mile away? Let me answer that question by asking you a question. Do you mean starting from when? Like, after the debate? Or? Yeah, let's say after the debate, were you really surprised to see Biden step aside? I would have said absolutely surprised in the day, two days, three days, maybe even a week afterwards, because it took a minute for the leaders in the party to start to, as they like to say in political speak, give him room to make a different decision. Normal people try to kick him out, get him to get out and try not to look like a jerk.

Let's just put it that way. Once that happened, though, once Nancy Pelosi, who, by the way, she came on State of the Union with me the Sunday after the debate. So it was just a few days after the debate. And she wanted to come on to completely defend him. And she did. There was no daylight there. There was no sense that she was anything other than pro-Joe Biden staying on the ticket. And that changed. And that seemed to have changed once they started to see the data and not just how it affected the presidential, but also the down ballot races. So as we got into week two and three after the debate, I thought, well, maybe it's more likely. But every move that President Biden made was to dig his heels in, whether it was

letters that he wrote or, you know, things to say to donors. I mean, every move he made was, I'm not going anywhere until he did. How much of this exit from the race do you credit to Nancy Pelosi? Because there are a lot of people who are like, man, it was that one TV appearance. Because up until that moment, everybody was all about it. Everybody was circling the wagons, coalescing around him. And then all she had to do was drop a suggestion. Do you pin that on her? Yeah, because she has such power in the Democratic Party still. And she is somebody who unabashedly wants to win. But most importantly, in this election, is singularly focused on preventing Donald Trump from getting back in the White House. I mean, she is so blunt about it.

When she went on her book tour, she was even more clear that that was the whole ballgame for her. And yes, I believe that that moment, even though she did many interviews and she sort of danced around her intention in that Morning Joe interview that you're referring to, where she opened the possibility of people making their own decisions, she knows exactly what she was doing. And then after that, the people who came out, I thought it was a tell. The Adam Schiff's of the world, who's extremely close with Nancy Pelosi, and Jamie Raskin, and Zoe Lofgren. Those are three House members who are some of her most trusted lieutenants in the House of Representatives. That was telling. Now, I asked her about it in an interview, and she really pushed back on me saying, well,

that diminishes them. They can do it on their own. But if Nancy Pelosi hadn't said what she said in that interview on Morning Joe, I think we could be in a different place right now. And what an interesting place we have moved to, right? Like this is a level of momentum that I think would have been very difficult for anybody to predict a level of momentum on the part of Harris. It certainly is not the race Donald Trump thought he was running. And you can tell that this has sort of set their strategy back on its heels a bit in terms of how do we compete against this Harris momentum versus how do we hammer Joe Biden for being too old, too tired, too sleepy How do you see, as somebody who's been covering elections for a long time, very experienced elections reporter, how do you see Trump's strategy shifting in real time to sort of counteract this Harris momentum?

Well, what you can see is him struggling. He's trying to figure it out. He is trying to find the right tactic in order to go after her, and he doesn't really fully know what to do with her. And that is really clear. His campaign, his aides are desperate for him to go after her on policies, on the Biden-Harris policies, on what she says she wants to do in the first term that she would be in if she's elected. And he goes after her on personal attacks. And then he's very open about it. I mean, he said recently to a rally, my people want me to focus on policy and not personal attacks, but I'm going to do it. And I have every right to do it. And look, I mean, that tactic has worked for him in the past. And what's fascinating to me is the way that she is not taking the bait on that.

She's not engaging at that level. You know, you bring up a really good point, which is that as much as voters like to say, well, I care about their policies. What's the policy? As much as voters say they care about the policies, what they actually care about is how a candidate makes them feel, because you could have both candidates present the same policy and they're the ability to make the voter care about what they're proposing. Yep. Right? Yep. It's the messenger as much as the message and the connection.

And the authenticity is kind of an overused word in politics, but it does matter. And that's really key. The one thing I will say is an open question about this election. When you talk about policy is the reproductive rights question. And we did see that as a driving policy in the 2022 midterms, which is why that red wave never came. House Republicans took over, but just by like, you know, just a wee bit. And the Republicans didn't take the Senate. And so even this week, you see Kamala Harris and people who support her on a reproductive rights tour, particularly in places like Florida, where they're trying to kind of stick it to Trump because he is a Florida voter and will

be voting on the referendum there where he has had some trouble landing on a position on that, or a way to explain his position on that. But that is an open question policy. In addition to the economy, which even though it's a feel vibes thing, since that's one of the words of the 2024 election vibes, I do think the economy really does matter. And I think that for voters, particularly some swing voters in key states, in suburbs, the abortion issue is still going to be a driving one. And that would have been the case, whether it was Joe Biden on the top of the ticket or Kamala Harris. How has this changed over time? You've written a book about America's deadliest election, and I'm anxious to talk about that. But you've also just been personally involved in learning about talking about reporting on elections for a long time.

How has this issue changed over time? Has there ever been a time where Americans cared more about the stone cold facts and they cared more about the clearly articulated policy proposals? Or is this just human nature to care more about, or at least as much about the messenger as the message? It's human nature. I mean, that has been the case. One of the things I learned in doing this book is there was, and we can talk about it in a second, I know, there was this character, Governor Henry Wormuth of Louisiana, who it was all about him and his charisma and how he kind of presented himself to voters. And it allowed him to be a Republican, which is the party of Lincoln back then, for voting rights and for civil rights

for the newly freed slaves as they did his policies, which is why he was able to change and people still followed him. So I think that that has been, that's human nature. And I think that's a really good way to put it, Sharon. I mean, that's human nature. And I think that's a really good way to put it, Sharon. I mean, that's just kind of the way we are as human beings. But this election is something that fascinates me because we have become so stuck in the algorithms that push information towards us, depending on what we look at, that it has created a feedback loop for every individual who is not making a point to seek out facts, as you put it, or objective journalism, objective truth. It is so easy to just look on your phone, look on your social media. And I mean, I'm not on

TikTok, but obviously we know the way TikTok works. And that algorithm is like no other, that if you watch a video about how great Donald Trump is, then TikTok will be pushing like-minded people and ideas to your phone. And at a certain point, that's pretty much all you're going to get. And that's true on Instagram and so forth. And same with if you support Kamala Harris and you're looking at memes of Brat Summer and coconut trees, then you're probably going to get more of that. And unless you stop and say, let me go look at the objective truth and what is the down the middle news telling me, that's how you're going to see the world. And that's how you're going to see these candidates.

And that scares me because not everybody has it in them or has the inclination to get beyond that. Yeah. Most people don't have hours a day to dedicate to this. They just don't. If they have hours a day, it's very likely not how they want to spend their hours a day. They have other things they would prefer to be doing rather than being like, let me fact check this one story that I read this one place. Most people just don't have the time or inclination to do those things. And it's no shade to them, right? Like that's just again, we're busy, we have lives of kids, we have jobs, all the things. We don't have time for this. And it has become a time when people are increasingly distrustful of institutions, institutions like

traditional media outlets. I know you're very familiar with this topic. How are people supposed to make sense of this? If you don't have hours a day to devote to fact checking what candidates say and what the news media says, how are we supposed to, just as the average human, make sense of this? What do Ontario dairy farmers bring to the table? A million little things, but most of all all the passion and care that goes into producing the local, high-quality milk we all love and enjoy every day. With 3,200 dairy farming families across Ontario sharing our love for milk, there's love in every glass. Dairy Farmers of Ontario, from our families to your table,

everybody milk. Visit milk.org to learn more. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind-the-scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs.

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wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. Just be aware, be news and information literate as much as you can. And we need to do a better job of teaching our kids in school that what they're seeing on their social media feeds are not necessarily right. And here's the way that you learn how to get information that you need to be a basic rudimentary member of society and the voting public to have the civil discourse that you need to have in order to participate in what we have as this great democracy. And that sounds like really, as it's coming out of my mouth, I sound like it's so corny and dorky, but that is true. And I think we just need to do a better job of teaching people. I think most people don't even know that there are algorithms that push things to their phone, but there are. And one thing that

is interesting about that is in this book, it goes way back to 1872, is that back then the media pro-Democratic side, from the people who, I mean, I'm just going to be blunt, who were racist and wanted to make sure that Blacks did not get the right to vote or the civil rights or basic rights that they deserved, which is why the Civil War was fought and to end slavery, or those who wanted to keep it the way it was before the Civil War, even though they had lost the Civil War to the North. And the way that that played out in these newspapers was fascinating, which is what makes it a lot easier for us, as you know, looking back 150 years, to get a sense of the dynamic because the newspapers were so incredibly political and slanted and they were pretty open about it. And it was at the advent of the telegraph,

which made it much easier at that point that made information fly by 1872 standards. And so it was hard back then to get objective news. Totally. Yeah. People think it's like, oh, today is the worst it's ever been. It's so partisan. No, no, no, no, no. Literally since this country's beginning that it just used different technology. You subscribe to the I hate George Washington newspaper called something different. But literally, that's what it was.

I wonder how many subscribers that would have. I hate George Washington. Tell me more about what made you want to write a book about America's deadliest election. Out of all of the elections you could write about, there have been a few. You could have written a whole book about the 2000 election. Like there's been a few dramatic elections. Why this one in particular? I was approached by my co-author, David Fisher, who got the idea from Dan Abrams, who has written several books with him. And the truth is, I didn't know. Did you know much about

this? See, I did. I did because I taught a workshop on this election. So when I read it, I'm like, which election are we talking about? And I was like, get out because I taught a workshop on this election. So when I read it, I'm like, which election are we talking about? And I was like, get out because I have actually three years ago. No, three years ago, I taught a whole workshop on this. And so I was very familiar. And so it was exciting to see it in book form. Yes. Wait.

OK. OK. My mind is blown because I love history. David Fisher loves history. blown because I love history. David Fisher loves history. Everybody who I've talked to who are knowledgeable about history, even people like from Louisiana. It's not a well-known story. They don't know about it. And there's so many reasons for that. Mostly it's just the way history is taught and it's taught by the people who won the debate, and they don't want to maybe teach the other side of it. And now we're in a different world, thank goodness. And I'm so happy that David approached me with this and Dan Abrams, because I just can't believe that I've lived on this earth for this long.

It's a crazy story that I have. Yes, in the field that I have and not know, if I would have known about this before the 2020 election, I would have been able to cover it so differently. Because the circumstances were could not be more different. I mean, back then in 1872. And let me just sort of quickly give your listeners a little bit of a thumbnail. The Civil War ends. Reconstruction begins. Former slaves are finally allowed to vote. And in 1870 in Louisiana, they do.

They take advantage of that. And this guy named Henry Wormuth in this particular story, he's a carpetbagger. He comes down from the north. In this particular story, he's a carpetbagger. He comes down from the North. He runs for governor and he wins because he appeals to the black vote. And he does very, very well. And there's some quotes that he used that sounded like Martin Luther King Jr.

It's actually kind of remarkable. He didn't stay that way. He changed and he became not a friend of the black voter. But at that point, that's what he did. So the Southern Democrats, because remember, everything was reversed. The Democrats were those who believed that the South should stay the way it was, which is the black should remain either remain slaves or not be given equal rights. And it was the Republicans, the party of Lincoln, that did not believe that. So the Democrats said, oh, okay, we see what's happening here. Our society is going to change dramatically if we don't stop Black voters from actually using their right and becoming powerful with the right that they have with the Constitution. So they started to intimidate and make it hard for, you know, come up with these ridiculous questionnaires about how many bubbles are in a bar of soap and things like that in order to get them to vote. And what happened was violence and chaos, because the Republicans and the Black voters who supported

them were like, wait a second, this is not a fair election because the people who were going to vote for me couldn't vote. I mean, look at the voting rolls. It just, it didn't work out. So this is not a free and fair election and the Democrats balked at it. So nobody would concede in this gubernatorial election. And then the same thing happened with the legislature and so on. So what happened as a result was there were two governors who were actually sworn in, a Democrat and a Republican, two legislatures, two slates of judges, and no one would concede. And the Democrats were very openly calling for violence, calling for guns in the streets and chaos and a coup and everything that they could do in order to stop the Republicans from getting power in order to keep Black Americans from being

the members of society with the rights that everybody else has. So nobody knew what was going on with these elections. And this lasted for months. And the thing to remember, and I'm sure you talked about this as well, because of the violence, well, let me back up. There was a massacre in Grant Parish, Colfax Massacre, that's what it's called, when Black voters were absolutely adamant that they were disenfranchised and their votes did not count. And they were standing firm and they were slaughtered by white voters in this parish, 150 Black voters. by white voters in this parish, 150 Black voters. And because of the jury system, the local and state government knew that if they were going to prosecute these white murderers, they weren't going to win. So they put it in federal government. And it went all the way up to the Supreme Court, because what they did was they tried these individuals through these new

civil rights laws, because there was a new constitutional amendment after the Civil War. And the Supreme Court decision was it is not the federal government's role to dictate civil rights. It is the state's role. And then that ushered in Jim Crow laws in the South for 100 years. This one election changed the course of American history. Totally. This one election radically altered life for millions of people for many decades. And we don't even know about it. It's not even in the books.

You're like, I've never heard of this before. It's kind of a more obscure story. How't even know about it. It's not even in the books. You're like, I've never heard of this before. It's kind of a more obscure story. How did you hear about it? How did you know about it? I'm curious. I started researching about how civil rights came to apply to states. And so that process of like, when did we decide that civil rights actually do apply to states and are not just administered by the federal government? This case, by the way, this story actually has impacts on how the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment. Yes, exactly. Yes, that you did not have an individual, you know, state right to just own whatever weapons you wanted. This is very, very far reaching. I just can't overstate how interesting this story is and very ripe for the picking in today's modern era. Once

you learn this story, you will be like, no way. You will see the dominoes fall of like, this makes so much sense about all of these things. Now this all makes sense. What were some of the biggest aha moments for you when you were researching this? Yeah, I mean, that was the big that was the biggie. That's the reason why the southern states. Well, reason a why southern states were able to impose these horrific, horrific laws that not only effectively prevented Black voters from exercising their rights, but societally, you know, the whites-only bathrooms and back of the bus and everything that all stemmed from that decision, right? Then if you fast forward to 1876, Right. a mess in Louisiana and other states, including South Carolina, that when the slate of electors

were sent to Congress, now we are all familiar with that process, and Congress was either supposed to approve or deny, they got multiple slates of electors from Louisiana, for example, and so Congress wouldn't take them. And so what happened was that there was no clear winner in the presidential race and they needed to find a way to pick the president with a mess with the electoral college. And what happened was there was a kind of backroom deal. It was done at a restaurant, actually. And there was a compromise that effectively, to make a very long story short, allowed for one person, one member of Congress, to be a tie-breaking vote and decide the president and decided whether or be Hayes. As part of that deal, the wink and the nod, which was not so much a wink and a nod, it was pretty clear, Hayes, a Republican, agreed that he would withdraw federal troops from the

South, federal troops who were helping to keep the peace and to protect the rights as much as they could of Black voters. And that was it. The federal troops pulled out, Reconstruction effectively ended, and that was really the final straw for any notion of equality for Black Americans in the South for 100 years until we saw in the 50s and 60s, the modern civil rights movement finally try to right that wrong. Talk a little bit more about your research and writing process, because I have a history book coming out. It's called The Small and the Mighty, 12 I have a history book coming out. Oh, wow. It's called The Small and the Mighty, 12 Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History. So I'm very interested in this concept of like, the people that you don't know, the stories that you

don't know that radically alter history in your book. Thank you completely aligns with this concept of like, there's a story you don't know that changed the world, right? And the story that you're talking about in your book, totally did in massive ways. So my point is that I know a little bit about what it's like to research and write a history book. And I'm curious, everybody has their own process. Everybody has their own preferences, superstitions, etc. Talk a little bit more about what it was like to research this book and write it. You're writing that book on your own, right? Okay. I wrote this book with David Fisher, who is a very experienced. Yes, he is very experienced. Yes. And so I followed his lead. That's the truth. Because I've never done anything like this

before. I mean, I have my day job and I focus on researching on current events and the history behind it when it is appropriate. And so what I learned from him, and I shame on me for not knowing this, and I'm sure you do, is that all of the newspapers from back then, they're all online on newspapers.com. It's all available. So the internet stinks for so many reasons, but this and the pro column. Agreed. Agreed. And the very, very big pro column. So to be able to really read the reporting, and you can see my air quotes for your listeners. I'm telling you I'm doing air quotes from the time is so illuminating because I did the air quote on reporting because it's point of view,

because these newspapers were so partisan. And that's so much of how we got the information. And you can see in the book, a lot of the quoting is from various newspapers of the day. And we say, you know, the Times-Picayune, which now no one would actually think about it because it's still a newspaper that is very well read and respected. Back then, they were kind of the mouthpiece for the Southern Democrats. They're not people who would be respected in today's society. I'll just leave it that way. It was not objective reporting of here's what this

side says. And here's what this side is also saying. A lot of newspapers, if people who are listening to this are not aware, a lot of newspapers had a strong orientation and all of their reporting was filtered through that lens of we're going to say the good things about the Southern segregationists. We're going to say the good things about the sort of Northern reformers, whatever it is, there was a strong editorial skew in most newspapers. Yeah, which allows us 150 years hence, to really get a sense of where the dividing lines were. I totally agree. It's very illuminating to be like, I can just look up what they were saying in 1872. It's so fascinating. So you're collaborating with a very experienced writer, and he's written some huge bestselling books. And so he definitely knows how to craft a bestseller. He's a very compelling writer. He knows how to take the reader through

the narrative so that it does not feel like this sort of slog, textbook slog, like sometimes history books can feel. So in that sense, it's very, you know, you move through the story very quickly. Talk a little bit more, if you will, about how you collaborated with him, because I think people are always interested in the behind the scenes of how the sausage gets made. How does a book like this get made? You know, I let him take the lead because I'm in an election year. And it's been a little busy, as we discussed at the beginning. And so that's number one. And number two, because he's so experienced, and I have not written a book, never mind a book like this before. So he kind of helped guide on, first and foremost, the research and then the craft. And we did a lot of conversations about the parallels, for example, between not just the times, but the people.

changed with the wind when the wind moved to a place where he wanted to stay in power. So he was a shapeshifter that way. A guy who somehow, despite the fact that most people knew he was very corrupt and a power hungry guy and was in it for himself more than anything else, guy and was in it for himself more than anything else, people still loved him. They loved to love him. And he was very open about it. He was quoted basically saying that in the newspapers back then. And so we did a lot of discussion about the parallels and how to frame it, not with like actually saying it, we didn't bring in modern times into the book. But it was written in a way that makes it very clear where we're going with it. And that was something that we discussed a lot. Do you feel like more history books are in your future? Or do you feel-

I would love to. Yeah? You enjoyed the process? your future? Or do you feel love? Yeah, you enjoyed the process? I would love to. Again, I think while I still have a day job, having a collaborator who was really good at this is probably the way the way for me to go. You know, it's interesting, because I, as I said, I've never written a book before. And I have been thinking a lot about if I were to write a book, up until I got this opportunity, what would it be? You know, talk about my experiences. Sure. I mean, that kind of thing. Yeah. Memoir.

Yeah. But I was more thinking along the lines of what I cover. Yeah. And more of a reporting book with regard to current times and current events. And I never really thought I had it in me to do what you do, which is go back in time. Not that I didn't want to, but just the bandwidth. Yeah. But I find it fascinating. And I feel so lucky that I got to learn all of this. And like, I think I said to you, boy, do I wish I knew about this history before 2020. And at least I

have it in my head and now sort of flowing through my veins as we approach the 2024 election. What do you hope that the reader takes away from this? What do you of course, it's a fascinating story. Of course, learning the history is in and of itself worth learning. But what is your hope? When you think about the reader closing the last page or listening to the last few moments of the audiobook, what do you hope that they sort of tuck in their pocket and take with them? That's such a good question. That we cannot take for granted the institutions that allow us to be a free and fair democracy. And whether it is corrupting an election

because you're racist, which is what happened back then, and you don't want to give up the power that you had pre-Civil War and trying to find ways to do it, and they decided the electoral process was the way to do it. Or in modern times, you look at an election and you say, well, I want to win, so I'm going to make the decision that I'm going to call

it fraudulent, even though no courts have said, I see widespread evidence of fraud. That is dangerous. Very, very different genesis or reason for the danger. Very different, but still dangerous because if and when Americans do not have confidence in the electoral system and that institution, you talked about institutions, then everything crumbles around it. And back then, there was reason not to have confidence in the institution. And now, again, there's no evidence that we have seen that supports the doubt being sown and told to people who really believe that the system is corrupted. Because if they go and vote, and they don't believe that the system works, then it is going to continue to divide us, it is going to continue to make it so that

every person who's in charge, even though they say they want to be the leader for all Americans, is going to have a lot of trouble actually governing that way if half of the country or even a third of the country simply does not believe that they are the legitimate leader. Having researched this book, having seen up close and personal how corrupt the elections were during the 1870s in this specific time and place in Louisiana and then also federally, having really researched that. Do you have confidence that in comparison, America has I mean, there are laws that are controversial that were passed after the 2020 election in some red states that, you know, Larry David sat an eye on. But compared to the lack of guardrails back then, compared to the open intimidation and execution of people who just wanted to vote because that was their right. Yeah, I mean, there's no comparison. I always find studying history like this, even though it's difficult, you know, like the Colfax Massacre is difficult to learn about. I always find it helpful because anytime I wake up in the morning and I'm like, oh, no, we are going to hell in a handbasket. Everything is crumbling

to pieces. Stories like this are very illuminating. You're like, actually, pump the brakes yeah hold up maybe not so much yes maybe not so much we have come a long way and stories like this indicate yes we still have room to improve we still have miles to go but we have come a long way we have come a long way i mean if you even go back to okay you start here these elections in 1872 up to 1876, where the Electoral College was a total mess. Who knows who really won that election? Probably nobody because these states had election systems that were so messed up. Fast forward to, this isn't so much about electoral politics, but just about society, to the Great Depression, to World War I, to World War II, the 1960s, the violence that this country lived through from the assassination of JFK to RFK to Martin Luther King, I mean, and on and on and on, and the unrest about the Vietnam War. I mean,

the people living in those times thought it has never been this bad. And it was bad. So it's so true what you said to have the perspective of history, the context of what came before us to learn from, but also to maybe make us feel better, like you said. It's just important, like you said, important context to better be able to do our jobs, like in your case, to cover elections, but to better be able to understand where we've come from so we can understand where we're going. And not repeat it. And not repeat it.

It's such an important story to learn about. I'm so glad somebody has. And not repeat it. And not repeat it. It's such an important story to learn about. I'm so glad somebody has written a book about it. America's deadliest election, the cautionary tale of the most violent election in American history. I can almost promise you most people have not heard this story. And I'm so blown away that you have. I'm so impressed. Well, I didn't write a book about it, Dana. So you get the scoop on it. But it's truly mind-blowing. And the far-reaching implications cannot be overstated. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. It was great to talk to you. I look forward to your book.

Thank you. Nice to chat with you. Thank you for being here today. And we will talk again soon. You can find America's Deadliest Election wherever you get your books. If you want to support a local bookshop, head to yours or go to bookshop.org. Thanks for joining me. Thank you so much for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting. If you enjoyed today's episode, would you consider sharing or subscribing to this show? That helps podcasters out so much. I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck-Parks, and our audio producer is Craig Thompson. We'll see you soon.