The Keith Edwards Show - Trump's Viral Phone Call Is A HUGE Disaster

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

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All right. I didn't want to talk about this because I feel like it's not anything new. And Donald Trump has been pushing election lies for at least, what, six years, maybe longer. He's always been saying it's rigged unless he's winning. But I think we need to look at this with fresh eyes because the way Republicans have been responding to Donald Trump's recent suggestion about overthrowing our democracy is really troubling. So first, let's first listen to what Donald Trump said about what he intends to do with our elections. Sort of nationalize the voting. We have states that are so crooked and they're counting votes. We have states that I won that show I didn't win.

Now, you're going to see something in Georgia where they were able to get with the court order and the ballots. You're going to see some interesting things come out. But, you know, like the 2020 election, I won that election by so much. Everybody does it. they put a woman in jail Colorado, put a woman in jail, a wonderful woman, a 72 years old, had cancer because she was a voting inspector, she was in charge of a voting era, and she saw boxes of votes come in. So she went over to check it, and they put her in jail for voter manipulation, and she's still in jail, and they better let her out fast, and they're suffering a big price,

Colorado. They have this woman in jail who's 71 years old and probably has cancer, she's sick, And they put her in because she challenged somebody who was dumping ballots into a box, okay? And they didn't put them in jail. This was during Biden's term. The word... All right, that woman was charged with trying to overthrow an election and that wasn't as simple as just checking boxes.

She was trying to change the ballots. So there's that. But secondly, the thing I really want to focus on, Trump says this, nationalize the voting. We have states so crooked counting votes that I won the show I didn't win. Now, you're going to see something in Georgia, the ballots. So, of course, we have talked about this last week where Donald Trump actually sent the FBI to Georgia to take the ballots because what he intends to do is change the evidence to fit his narrative.

And I want to say, too, this whole nationalizing the election thing, the New York Times actually did a pretty good job explaining this, saying that it's actually not a thing. Under the Constitution, American elections are governed primarily by state laws leading to a decentralized process in which voting is administered by county and municipal officials and thousands of precincts across the country. Mr. Trump, however, has long been fixated on the false claims that U.S. elections are right with fraud and that Democrats are perpetuating a vast conspiracy to have undocumented immigrants vote and lift the party's turnout. And as I said, last week, FBI agents seized ballots and other voting records from the 2020 election from an election center in Fulting County, where his allies have for years pursued false claims election fraud. The New York Times reported on Monday that Mr. Trump had spoken on the phone to the FBI agents involved in the Fulting County raid, praising and thanking them. The Justice Department, which has been newly politicized under Mr. Trump, is demanding that numerous states, including Minnesota, turn over their full voter rolls as a Trump administration. tries to build a national voter file. And in March, Trump signed an executive order that tried to make significant changes to the

electoral process, including documentary proof of citizenship, and demanding that all mail ballots be received at the time polls closed on election day, but that effort has been rebuffed by courts. And of course, on social media, Trump has pushed for an even more drastic changes in August. He wrote that he wanted to end the use of mail and ballots, potentially the use of voting machines altogether. So there's obviously a lot of there. What Donald Trump wants to do is he wants to make it so that he controls our elections. Thankfully, the founding fathers, either they were smart or they got lucky and found themselves with a system that's kind of hard to rig. But the fact that our voting system is so decentralized, it means it's actually quite hard for any one bad actor to throw an election. Now, I guess you

could say that because we only have a couple of swing states and a couple of precincts, it makes it easier to maybe hurt a presidential election. But at least when it comes to the midterms, it's going to be incredibly hard for Donald Trump to try to change the outcome of those thousands and thousands of municipal counties where people vote. But Mike Johnson was asked about this, and his answer was not very encouraging. Follow up on elections. The president says that he wants Republicans to nationalize elections. Do you agree with him? And do you have confidence in how elections are conducted right now heading into the midterm?

We have thoughtful debate about our election system, every election cycle, and sometimes in between. We know it's in our system the states have been in charge of administering their elections. What you're hearing from the president is his frustration about the lack of some of the blue states, frankly, of enforcing these things and making sure that they are free and fair elections. We need constant improvement on that front. I don't know what the ultimate solution is going to be. I'm not going to get ahead of the negotiations here, but I think that is something that's going to be a continuing theme here.

It's something that will continue to push, and we hope the governors will insist upon that same thing as well. In some of the states, like in California, for example, I mean, they hold the elections open for weeks after Election Day. That's just one thing that bothers so many people. We had three House Republican candidates who were ahead on Election Day in the last election cycle. And every time a new trunch of ballots came in, they just magically whittled away until their leads were lost.

So it's like that type of rhetoric coming from the Speaker of the House is very, very worrying. Aaron Rupar actually said like if there were some sort, like I do personally believe that if Mike Johnson was given the opportunity to try to swing an election or to try to steal an election, he would take it. That's to me what that sounds like. And as Sam Stein says here, that's deeply irresponsible. And John Thune was asked about this and here's what he had to say. John Thune, by the way, is the Senate Majority Leader.

Do you agree with it? And also, do you have any concerns about D&I Gabbard's presence at that Fulton County operation in Jordan? I don't know what she was doing in Fulton County. You'll have to ask her about that. But with respect to nationalizing elections, I think the president has clarified what he meant by that. And that is that he supports the SAVE Act. So with respect to whether or not... That's not what he's not.

I mean, I actually think John Thune is still like a normal, normal Republican. He happens to be one of the few left. And thankfully, he is the majority leader of the Senate. So I think he's straddling a line here where he isn't going to go against the president, but he's also hopefully if it doesn't come to it. But if it were to come to it, I think it's going to be like folks like John Thune are going to be the ones that either save or give up our democracy. forever. Scary, right? Scary. I mean, it, I, I'm just going to show you this. This is what Chuck Schumer had to say. Just a few hours ago, Donald Trump said he wants to nationalize elections

around the country. That's what Trump said. You think he believes in democracy? He said, we want to take over. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. Where's the urgency? Where's the urgency? Do you think Donald Trump believes in democracy? Okay, like, where's the urgency? Does Donald Trump need a copy of the Constitution? What he's saying is outlandishly illegal. Once again, the president's talking no differently

than a dictator wants elections in America to be as legitimate as elections in countries like Venezuela. And make no mistake, one of the tools to nationalize elections is precisely the Save Act. that some Republicans are pushing in the House. I want to be very clear. The Save Act is dead on arrival in the Senate.

I mean, I've said it before. I'm going to say it again. Like, these are not going to be the ones who save us. They are not going to be the ones who are, these are not the leaders we need for this moment. We are going to be the ones that have to save ourselves. Donald Trump is staking out what he wants to do to our country. It is incumbent on all of us to decide

whether or not we're going to let him. I'm not going to let him. Are you? Sounds like Chuck Schumer will tisk him all the way up until Donald Trump takes our democracy, whereas I think it's going to be up to us to actually fight this. I think we have to figure out the most strategic way to do it, but I'm not going to let our democracy go away without a big fight. That's how I feel.

Hope you do too. And I'll see you soon.