The Daily - A Failed Attempt to Overturn the Election

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

Pressure and litigation appear to have been the pillars of President Trump’s response to his general election loss.His team filed a litany of court cases in battleground states. In some, such as Georgia and Michigan, the president and his allies took an even more bullish approach, attempting to use their influence to bear down on election officials.As preparations for the transfer of power finally get underway, we take a look at how the Trump campaign’s attempts to overturn the election played out.Guest: Jim Rutenberg, a writer-at-large for The New York Times and The Times Magazine, walks us through the Trump campaign’s strategy in key states. We want to hear from you. Fill out our survey about The Daily and other shows at: nytimes.com/thedailysurveyFor more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: The Trump administration’s authorization of the transition process is a strong sign that the president’s last-ditch bid to overturn the results of the election is coming to an end. But he has yet to concede the election.In a chaotic effort to overturn the election results, the president and his campaign lawyers have spent weeks claiming without convincing proof that rampant fraud corrupted vote tallies in many battleground states.These efforts heavily targeted cities with large Black populations.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. After weeks of delay, the Trump administration has authorized a formal transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden. My colleague, Jim Rudenberg, on the unprecedented campaign of lawsuits, lies, and pressure from the president to try to prevent that from ever happening. It's Tuesday, November 24th. Jim, the last time you and I talked was the morning, the Saturday morning, that the New York Times called the

presidential election several weeks ago. Do you remember? Are you sure we spoke? Because I have no recollection of that day. We absolutely spoke. And it feels like four years ago. But at that moment, and actually in that conversation, our collective sense was that in the face of defeat, President Trump would be making the case that he in fact hadn't lost, that he would not concede anytime soon, that he would file a few lawsuits, but that it really wasn't going to amount to all that much. And it would probably feel like a nuisance campaign. And in fact, it's kind of become a pretty big deal. campaign. And in fact, it's kind of become a pretty big deal. Yeah. I've spent most of this year preparing to cover some semblance of something like this if he lost, but I was not prepared. Nothing indicated to me it was going to look like this.

Now to President Trump remaining defiant and not conceding this race. By all indications today, the president wants to keep fighting. We're going to win Pennsylvania, but they're trying to cheat us out of it because they know it's their only path to victory. The president's biggest battlegrounds, the courtrooms in the states that will decide the presidential race. Trump has not lost. Do not concede, Mr. President. Fight hard. And that's this incredibly intense effort that starts with some court cases. In Michigan, Republicans claimed they had evidence the count should be stopped.

And then more court cases. In Nevada, Republican lawyers claimed their observers weren't close enough. In Pennsylvania, Trump's lawyers claimed their observers were being blocked. Then you have this pressure campaign on not just politicians, but election officials at the lowest levels of state government. This wheelbarrow filled with more than a thousand handwritten letters from Trump's supporters was delivered to state legislators today in hopes of stopping the next stage in the election process. As they work to do this very basic thing, which is to count the votes and declare the winner. It will not work, but it is so relentless and tenacious that it's causing a lot of

trouble and it's really pointing up some weaknesses in the system. Okay, so let's walk through this evolving strategy from the president and how it has evolved and how it's actually playing out in some key states. And it feels like the most interesting developments so far have occurred really in three states, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan. And I wonder if we could start in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, sure. Good state. My home state, I will have you know. So Pennsylvania has been where President Trump has followed a strategy of litigation, just filing lawsuit after lawsuit, state court, county court, city court, just at every level, just lawsuit, lawsuit. And the lawsuits are all of it kind of the same basic idea that the President Trump's observers weren't able to see what was going on when they were sort of monitoring the vote counting. This is, by the way, not true.

And then the arguments are about mail ballots, basically, that these have been flawed and open to fraud sort of system of voting that should be just cast aside. And our cruise director for this fantastical voyage is none other than the former New York city mayor, now the president's personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani. Wow, what a beautiful day. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Listeners will remember that he starts this right the weekend after Election Day. He debuts his big premiere.

It's at a joint called Four Seasons Total Landscaping, incorporated on the outskirts of Philadelphia, across from a porn shop and, you know, some tchotchke places. So I'm here on behalf of Trump campaign to describe to you the first part of a situation that is extremely troubling. And at this press conference... As you know from the very beginning,

the mail-in ballots were innately prone to fraud. Mayor Giuliani basically impugns the entire Philadelphia election system and the Democrats who control the city. In Philadelphia, they keep the votes of dead people secret. I'm not attacking the people of Philadelphia. I'm attacking a decrepit Democratic machine, which has a lot of other reasons to be attacked. You are poorly served, ladies and gentlemen of Philadelphia. And then the matter before the court

this afternoon is that of Donald J. Trump for president. He kind of continues on. He takes an increasing leadership role in these lawsuits. Rudolph W. Giuliani, I represent the plaintiffs in this case. You're a member of the Bar of New York? I am, yes, sir. And at least one federal court? Yes, sir. You're good to go. For the first time in decades, Giuliani, who started his career as a very famous prosecutor in New York, reenters a federal courtroom. He's like coming back to swing the old bat. The best description of this situation is it's a widespread nationwide voter fraud. He starts making kind of a similar argument that he made at good old Four Seasons Total Landscaping, Inc., with these kind of wholesale allegations of fraud.

But the principal ones are in Philadelphia and in Allegheny. Both of them, Democrat machines, controlled by Democrats in the case of Philadelphia, well known for voter fraud. But the lawsuit is, in fact, narrower. It's not a big fraud suit. But the lawsuit is, in fact, narrower. It's not a big fraud suit. It's basically about alleged improprieties and irregularities with mail-in ballots, for which there's not much evidence.

And the judge presses Giuliani. Does the amended complaint plead fraud with particularity? Is this a fraud case? Because I was not aware of that. No, Your Honor. And it doesn't plead fraud. And Giuliani has to admit, no, Your Honor, this is not a fraud case because I was not aware of that. No, Your Honor. And it doesn't plead fraud. And Giuliani has to admit, no, Your Honor, this is not a fraud case. Huh. Thank you, counsel, very much. Good night.

So, the judge, pretty mild-mannered in the courtroom, renders an absolutely stinging rebuke this past Saturday in his decision. And that decision reads, plaintiffs, and that would be the president through Mr. Giuliani, asked this court to disenfranchise almost 7 million voters. He goes on, this court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election

in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated. One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption. Instead, this court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations unsupported by evidence. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.

Right. He's basically saying, get out of my courtroom. You have asked me to do something extraordinary, and you have provided no evidence that I should do it. So at this point, their case has completely fallen apart. They just don't have it. And with that stinging ruling, it's basically, definitely in Pennsylvania, this legal strategy is kind of hitting the end of its road. Okay, so let's move on to Georgia, where it feels like we start to see the strategy evolving

from just a legal effort to refute the outcome. Yeah, Georgia's where we see President Trump's kind of number one asset come into play. And that's his influence in the party, which is his power in the party and his power not only to persuade, but to pressure. Georgia's Secretary of State says fellow Republicans are pushing him to exclude legally cast votes and that he and his wife are getting death threats over it. And he brings this pressure to bear upon poor Secretary of State of Georgia, a Republican, Brad Raffsenberger. I understand everything that we do will be put under a microscope. And what's going on here is Georgia's been very close, much closer than Pennsylvania, a few thousand votes.

And this pressure is coming from President Trump, his supporters in the state, very powerful Republican Party there, that he needs to audit before there's any certification and that it should be a hand recount. And what that's going to do if the president is to get his way here is slow this process down because that's the goal. Save off the inevitable certification of Joe Biden's win. And lo and behold, the secretary of state caves on this. With the margin being so close, it will require a full by-hand recount in each county. This will help build confidence. It will be a heavy lift.

And agrees to a hand recount. The Trump campaign is celebrating. The Democrats have their heads in their hands. But lo and behold, this recount takes place pretty quickly. They do find, in fact, a couple major counties have thousands of lost votes. But when those votes are counted by hand again, Trump gains like between one and two thousand extra votes, not enough to overcome the result. So it only solidifies the fact that Joe Biden won the state of Georgia. So the president and his allies in the state

just start beating the heck out of the poor secretary of state. And this afternoon, Senators Perdue and Loeffler, both of them Republicans, issued a joint statement calling for the resignation of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. And it's not just President Trump. He gets buy-in from some powerful figures in his party, notably Senator Lindsey Graham, who's not even of Georgia. Well, when Senator Graham called, I just assumed that he was calling about the two runoffs for the senators.

So I called him back. Who Raffensperger comes out and says publicly that Lindsey Graham called him and pressured him to throw out legally cast votes. I felt that he implied that for us to audit the envelopes and throw out ballots of counties who had the highest frequency error of signatures. And I mentioned that that's not something we can do. The fact that he called you and asked you this, Brad, did you feel it was inappropriate? Yeah, I did. And that's why I didn't call back. The results have held up.

The little discrepancies are nowhere near changing the result. And so Trump is bringing incredible pressure to bear on this lowly public official who, despite being a fellow Republican, stands up for the results and Joe Biden is declared the winner of Georgia. So in Georgia, what we're seeing is this much more hard-edged

and I guess creative form of interference by the president to threaten a public official who holds responsibility for vote counting and certification and basically have them start to fear for their future and therefore do the president's bidding, which in this case might just be throwing out votes. Yeah, it's an open bid for wholesale disenfranchisement. And it's, in fact, it's failed because Georgia certified its vote last week and Rastenberger kind of delivered

a sort of ringing endorsement of democracy in his state. And he said in a statement, the truth is that the people of Georgia and across the country should not have any remaining doubts about who won the presidential election earlier this month.

That was as definitive as you could get. This is it. Right, he's telling them it's over in Georgia. Yep, it's going in the mail right to the electoral college. We'll be right back. Okay, so Jim, finally we have Michigan. Now, in Pennsylvania, an elaborate legal strategy is tried and failed. In Georgia,

pretty elaborate pressure campaign is tried, that fails. So what happens in Michigan? Michigan is like a Trumpian wrench into the gears of democracy, where he delves into the machinery of certifying a presidential vote from a state. And he starts clunking it up. What does that look like, clunking it up? So what it looks like is, first of all, you get to see these gears that as a voter you never see. And suddenly we start hearing last week that pressure is mounting on something that I'd never heard of in 20 years of covering politics. There's a canvassing board in Wayne County. Every county has a canvassing board that runs through this process. And this Wayne County canvassing board is a four-member board, two Republicans, two Democrats, very low-level party members, is coming under immense pressure from the Trump world to refuse to certify the vote.

These two board members who are Republicans are being told, you must, because of these tiny discrepancies, not certify this vote. And if they don't, this will be a big problem. Yeah, why? Why would that matter so much? Because then Michigan's ability to certify its vote and send its delegates to the electoral college is hindered. This is a major county, but even any county would cause this problem. And we learned a thing about these two Republicans on the Wayne County Canvassing Board. In fact, they are ardent Trump supporters and they are fully buying into this idea that fraud is rampant. And in fact, one of

these two, William Hartman, his Facebook page was filled with conspiracies about fraud in this election, things that are just abjectly false. It's in their hands, the future of democracy in Michigan. And sure enough, when it comes time to certify. Well, Craig, it was a dramatic night in Michigan. Here's what happened. Citing these tiny little discrepancies in a few precincts in Wayne County and in Detroit. Two Republican county officials in Michigan's largest county, which includes Detroit, refused to certify the election results in that county. They say we can't certify these two Republicans. So now that board is going to be deadlocked.

Well, that move outraged the Democrats on the board and speaker after speaker on the board's public Zoom meeting. The short of it is there's a great outcry. You have extracted a black city out of a county and said the only ones that are at fault at an issue is the city of Detroit, where 80 percent of the people who reside here are African-American. Detroit voters are not going to go along with this. There are hundreds of people in this meeting and these two Republicans reverse course and they vote to certify. And that would be that. Lo and behold, who calls them but the president of the United States? Calls the two members of the Wayne County Canvassing Board. Yeah.

And 24 hours later, they release a statement that they're trying to take back their vote. We don't want to certify. We're taking it back after they've spoken to the president. Now, it turns out, legally, they can't do that. So that's over. So now, next step in the process, the president turns his attention to the state canvassing board. And suddenly, that four-member body that, again, I'd never heard of in the last 20 years, they are under immense pressure. Immense pressure.

And we start seeing some interesting things about those two Republican members. And that is that one of them, Norm Schenkel, he is such an ardent Trump supporter that last month he sang the national anthem at a Trump rally in Lansing. Wow. So now it's all about this state canvassing board. And Norm Schenkel tells us over the weekend, this is happening kind of late in the week into the weekend, that he is under such pressure, his phone is ringing off the hook in ways it has never rang off the hook. And he says, now, wait a minute, I don't know what I'm going to do here. Now, this is an interesting

quandary because these boards do not, as a matter of course, weigh whether or not to certify votes. Right. Their job is to be a rubber stamp. They're a rubber stamp. Literally, they used rubber stamps in Wayne County. This is a formality. And suddenly, Norm Schenkel's saying, well, we might have to do an investigation or an audit here. Today, I'm faced with an important decision whether or not to certify the results of the November 3rd general election. So then we come or an audit here. Today I'm faced with an important decision whether or not to certify the results of the November 3rd general election. So then we come into Monday

and there's great anticipation about this vote. This is kind of this incredible moment where the state of Michigan may not be able to certify its election result. An election result, by the way, mind you, that is some 150,000 votes in Joe Biden's favor. So this is extraordinary. Norm Schenkel shows up and raises his concerns. He doesn't feel confident about this. He doesn't know. It's become too clear to us in Michigan and across the country that Michigan

has a problem conducting elections. And he's told. You're not a body to investigate fraud. You do not have a choice. This is a rubber stamp body. Your job is to certify. The statute doesn't give you the authority to mandate documents or compel testimony. And then there's this kind of surprising moment where the other Republican on the board,

his name's Aaron Van Langeveld. We have a clear legal duty to certify the results of the election as shown by the returns that were given to us. He raises his hand to say, you know, that is our job. We cannot and should not go beyond that. Our job is to simply certify. And ultimately, he sides with the two Democrats to vote for certification. Melissa, will you please take a roll call vote? Chair Bradshaw. Yes.

Vice Chair Van Langeveld. Yes. And Norm Schenkel. Mr. Schenkel. Gets to keep his good standing in Trump world intact by abstaining. The motion does move. And ultimately, this canvassing board votes to certify the result, therefore declare Biden's victory,

and hand him all of Michigan's, I believe, 16 electors from the Electoral College. That is exactly the case. Jim, I just want to pause and marvel, if that's the right word, at what you have just described. Because the lawsuits, what we saw in Pennsylvania, that was one thing, right? Every candidate for every office is entitled to use the legal avenues available to them to challenge the results of an election. But the bullying of officials, like the Secretary of State in Georgia, feels very different. It feels deeply unethical. And asking officials in Michigan to basically void the results of a free and fair election, to take actions that could lead to the overturning of the will of tens of thousands,

hundreds of thousands, millions of voters, that just feels not merely shocking, right, but undemocratic, and for many people, deeply immoral. Yeah, Michael, we've never seen anything like this. And there's an extra, frankly, disturbing twist to this. And that is that the communities he's targeting are cities with large Black populations, in Detroit's case, majority Black population in a country whose great shame has been the disenfranchisement of Black voters. And Trump went to a place we'd still never seen as a country, which is throw out the entire city's votes. Right. And not just Detroit, but also, as you said before, when it came to Rudy Giuliani, Philadelphia. You know, we're not even talking about Atlanta or Milwaukee. And so

much of this effort, this campaign, whatever you want to call it, is to malign Black majority cities, Black voters, with this ridiculous, unsubstantiated accusation that somehow these cities are too corrupt for their votes to count. Right. And yet, in all of the attempts that you have just described, none of them have worked, which I guess shows that the system does contain a fair number of checks and balances. Because, as you said, this is without question an unprecedented assault on the system. But the system, in the three cases that we just went through, did not succumb. I guess I'll do a glass half full answer on that. I guess I'll do a glass half full answer on that is, yes, the checks and balances worked,

but they only worked because people like the Secretary of State of Georgia, people like the lone Republican who was willing to vote for certification in Michigan, believed in that system enough that they followed the law and didn't go along with President Trump on this. But it took those people standing up. That's been the lesson here, is the system is run by human beings with their own partisan passions. Jim, thank you very much.

We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Shortly after we spoke with Jim, the head of the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, issued a statement formally designating Joe Biden as president-elect and providing the funds and resources necessary to begin the transition process. In a letter to Biden, Murphy said she had made the decision on Monday afternoon following the string of legal defeats for Trump and the certification of Biden's victory in states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan. In a tweet, Trump said that he accepted Murphy's decision, but did not concede and promised to continue his fight. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

The Times reports that President-elect Biden is close to naming several key figures to his cabinet, including Janet Yellen, the former head of the Federal Reserve Bank, as Treasury Secretary. Yellen would be the first woman to ever run the department. Biden is also expected to name Alejandro Mayorkas, a former Obama administration official, to lead the Department of Homeland Security, the first Latino to hold that post, and Avril Haines, another Obama official, as the Director of National Intelligence, making her the first woman in that role. Finally, the president-elect will create a new post, International Climate Envoy,

to be filled by John Kerry, the former Secretary of State. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Pabaro. See you tomorrow.