What A Day - Trump's Latest Plot To Rig The Midterms

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

President Donald Trump has been trying to get the SAVE America Act passed for months. The bill would require not just ID, but proof of citizenship to vote — effectively disenfranchising Americans who don’t happen to have their passport or birth certificate handy. Which is… millions of Americans. So what does Trump’s determination to get this bill passed mean for November? To find out, we spoke with Marc Elias, founder of Democracy Docket.And in headlines: we finally hear what’s in the memorandum of understanding with Iran, one Georgia Republican spends $100 million to beat his Trump-backed opponent, and the World Cup’s underdogs are looking good.Show Notes: Democracy Docket – https://www.democracydocket.com/ Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

Donald Trump has actually been sabotaging his own legislative agenda and now his own nominees to pass a bill that, as you point out, Republicans in the Senate, it's not just they can't pass it, but they actually don't even have a majority to pass it. Like, there are Republicans who don't want to pass it. I'm Jane Koston, and this is Wadaddey, the show deeply inspired by this heartwarming tale of true love between President Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fata El-Ci. He was in a hotel, and I met him, and we fell in love, deeply in love. Touching. On today's show, we talk about Trump's continued attacks on the right to vote with Democracy Docate founder Mark Elias. Before we get into all that, here's what we're following today, Wednesday, June 17th. And the one president I did not want to be was the late great Herbert Hoover.

I didn't want that. and who knows what would have happened. During a speech of the G7 summit in France today, Trump pondered hypotheticals, like which presidents he would and would not want to be. Look, you know I love a presidential hypothetical trivia time, but maybe not here. And while I wish I could play all of the nonsensical comments Trump made,

Alan said let him give you an update on the U.S. Iran deal that's supposedly set to be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday. Maybe. The deal we reached with Iran on Sunday will be signed shortly tomorrow, maybe the next day. You know, subject deals. My whole life is all about deals. That's all I ever did is make deals. And crazy things happen with deals.

What? But when and if the deal will actually be signed is not the only confusing thing about it. Exactly what the U.S. Iran deal entails has also been up in the air. But after days of secrecy, senior U.S. officials dictated the memorandum of understanding with Iran to journalists today. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to read the draft, which Iran has not released. According to the officials, the draft agreement includes provisions to ensure Lebanon's, quote, territorial integrity after Israel's latest attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanese territory.

In return, the U.S. will move to terminate wide-ranging sanctions against Iran. The official said the U.S. draft of the agreement also secures toll-free. passage of the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days, but it does not preclude fees in the future. Welcome to How Much Money Does It Take for Republicans to Overlook a Trump endorsement? On Tuesday, we found out, at least for one Georgia race, that is. The answer? More than $100 million. That's what Rick Jackson's campaign spent to defeat Trump endorsed Bert Jones in the Republican runoff for Georgia governor. It was another rare example of the president's choice falling short in a primary battle. Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, personally supplied

most of the money his campaign spent to persuade Republican voters to overlook Trump's advice. Trump endorsed Lieutenant Governor Bert Jones last year, praising Jones's quote, courage and wisdom in a true social post. I guess courage and wisdom isn't as sexy as $100 million. Jackson will now face Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, be former mayor of Atlanta in November. The World Cup started last week and the underdogs are looking good. Four matches on Monday ended in ties. Now, that might sound anticlimactic, but it was the most in a single day of men's World Cup play since 1958. And all of them could technically be considered upsets. The 61st, 67th, and 85th ranked teams in FIFA's world rankings were all underdogs in their first matches of the World Cup. And while none of them won on Monday, none of them lost.

The biggest win that wasn't a win saw Cape Verde hold Spain nil-nil in what easily has been the biggest shocker of the tournament to this point. In case you didn't know, Cape Verde is making its World Cup debut. Spain is ranked number two and favored to win the whole thing. And that's the news. Let's talk about voting and how President Trump is willing to risk national security to make it harder for you to do it. Trump has been trying to get his Save America Act passed for months. The bill would require not just ID, but proof of citizenship to vote, effectively disenfranchising Americans who don't happen to have their passport or birth certificate handy,

which is millions of Americans. Trump is so deeply committed to this terrible bill that today he pressured Senate Republicans into delaying the confirmation hearing for his Director of National Intelligence nominee, Jay Clayton. And on True Social, he said he'd refused to. to sign any legislation reauthorizing a major intelligence security law unless that legislation is attached to the Save America Act. So what does Trump's determination to get this bill passed mean for November?

To find out, I spoke with Mark Elias, founder of Democracy Docket. Mark, welcome back to Waddey. Thanks for having me back. So Trump thwarted his own director of National Intelligence Nominees confirmation to pressure Congress into passing his Save America Act, which has run. into a lot of problems in the Senate, mostly because Republicans think it's unpassable. What is in this bill that Trump is so obsessed with? Yeah, I'm glad you framed it the way you did, because, as you say, Donald Trump has

actually been sabotaging his own legislative agenda and now his own nominees to pass a bill that, as you point out, Republicans in the Senate, it's not just they can't pass it, but they actually don't even have a majority to pass it. Like, there are Republicans who don't want to pass it. Now, why is that? What the Save America Act would do is, number one, it would make it much harder for people to register to vote, particularly we've heard a lot about married women who change their last names, and that's because you'd have to prove proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. And what that means, in short, is to register to vote, you'd either have to have an unexpired passport or an original birth certificate. And a lot of people don't have either of those documents. Real IDs wouldn't do the trick. No other document would do the trick.

just one of those two things. And as you know, as well as I do, Donald Trump's not so good on the whole birth certificate proving citizenship, right? Like, after all, like, you're not notoriously terrible at that? Correct, right? So, like, it's all kind of a trap anyway that ultimately the only people who will be able to register a vote are people who have unexpired passports and the people who Donald Trump believes their birth certificate is real. So that's one part of the Save Act. But the Save Act gets worse from there, right? Because it's been larded up with a bunch of other provisions when it moved from being the Save Act to the Save America Act. And this would, for example, cripple voting by mail, right? It would require not just ID to vote in person, but ID to vote by mail. Go ahead and trying

to figure out how the hell you do that, right? So it's a bad voting bill that, you know, like I said, doesn't even have 50 votes in the U.S. Senate, no less a Philibrester-proof majority. And Donald Trump knows that. But he is setting up. a permission structure when this November Republicans lose control of the Senate and the House, he's going to say there was massive voter fraud. He's already saying that about California in the primaries. And he's going to say that part of the reason why there's massive voter fraud is because Democrats blocked the same act.

We'll get back to my conversation with Mark Elias in a moment because that's what I voted for. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack, hydration, and coffee sponsor. IQ Bar Protein bars, IQ Mix, Hydration Mixes, and IQ Joe Mushroom coffees are the delicious, low-sugar, brain and body fuel you need to win your day.

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And it's not just clothing. Quince has really become a destination for elevated essentials across home, kitchen, bedding, and beyond, making it easy to bring a more premium feel into everyday life. I love Quince's Mongolian cashmere Ternel-N-Lack sweaters, and I'm excited to try their relaxed Oxford shirts for work and play. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash wad for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E-D-C-E-D-com. slash Wad for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash Wad. Let's get back to my conversation with Mark Elias. I'm glad you mentioned California because Trump has been claiming that California's primary

election was, quote, rigged. And a U.S. attorney in California says his office has multiple election fraud investigations in progress. Now, one, what do you think it says about Donald Trump that he thinks a Republican finishing third in the L.A. mayoral election is suspicious. And two, what do we know about these investigations? I'm tempted to use air quotes. And yet I won't because I suspect that there are actually people getting doors knocked on by members of the, you know, the federal government. Absolutely. I mean, look, Donald Trump said after the 2016 election, this is the election he won. Before

Or 2020, he said after the 2016 election that he believes he lost California because of fraud. Like literally he said that he would have won California if there had not been illegal votes. He lost by millions of ballots, right? Like I once suggested in the run up to the 2024 election, rather than asking Donald Trump, you know, whether, you know, why he says he won elections that he didn't, that the legacy media should just ask him what state he agrees he did lose. What is the state that he lost? That wasn't a result of fraud because Donald Trump has regularly claimed there was fraud everywhere that he lost. Now, so that is like the baseline going into this. I'd also note that

if you were trying to engage in fraudulent outcomes, why would you count slowly and transparently over time, right? Like, if in fact you were, California was trying to do the thing that Donald Trump says, wouldn't you do it in the dark of night on election night when there's like a lot of other things being attention to? Why would you do it through a methodical, transparent vote count over time? So it's all just made up. It's all nonsense. It's all lies and its efforts to discredit California vote counting because Donald Trump's only chance of holding control of the House is to claim that there was massive vote fraud and therefore people who won election shouldn't be seated. Well, you know, maybe you could do that in Rhode Island and effect one seat. Maybe you could do it in New Jersey

effect, what, two seats. He's going to California because for the same reason, Willie Sutton robbed banks. It's where the seats are, right? He can claim vote fraud in California, and it's dozens of seats. Now, he ought to all of a sudden puts in play. So that's the Trump piece of this.

With respect to the U.S. Attorney's Office, look, this has been a shameful display. Like, you have the federal, the Chief Federal Prosecutor in Los Angeles, the U.S. attorney, announcing fraud investigations, which, you know, like federal prosecutors are not supposed to announce anything.

Like they're not supposed to announce publicly that they're investigating things. Number one, it's not good if they're actually investigating things to tip people off. But number two, they're not supposed to put themselves in the middle of a political process. Even worse than that, though, the guy from New York, you know, Jake Clayton, the guy who's now up for OD&I, he went on CNBC and told Joe Kernan that he was worried about the opportunity for fraud in California elections. And when that happened, honestly, I went on TV and some podcasts, and I was like, why the hell is the top federal prosecutor in New York City opining on election vote counting in California? And then, like, he got his job offer. And it heard to me, he hadn't proved

himself to be a made-man election denier. Like, he'd never had the chance to deny the outcome of elections before. So he was taking this chance to get to get this promotion. We're going to see a lot more of this. We're already seeing raids in Ohio. of voter registration groups. We've seen the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center. We tend to pay a lot of attention to the weaponization of government

when it involves people like James Comey or Tish James, but we need to understand that the weaponization of government is also these efforts to intimidate voters and voting organizations to not do their work. Yeah, and it was crazy living in California.

How quickly I started hearing claims that the California primary was rigged. Like Trump said Democrats cheated on June 3rd, one day after the election. What does this mean for the November midterms in California and beyond? As to your point, like, Democrats are probably going to do well in the midterms, and Trump is going to argue all of that is fraudulent. Right.

And they're going to do well in California in the midterms. Like, remember, it was California that passed by popular referendum, the ballot measure that changed the composition of the district so that Democrats are likely to gain five more seats. So it's like not a surprise that he is, he is targeting California. But I think that this is a sign of what's to come. Like this is a leading indicator of what Donald Trump and the Republicans' plans are, which is they're going to make it harder for people to vote. And when that doesn't succeed, they're going to try to cheat.

And so they need to make it harder for you to vote and easier for them to cheat. And this is part of the easier to cheat part of that formula. And we all need to just understand that that's what's happening. And if I can again call out the legacy media here, you know, the New York Times put out an editorial that basically criticized California's vote counting process and how long it took. And, you know, and like, first of all, I don't know why the New York Times is, like, wading into, again, like the arcane question of, like, how quickly elections are tallied.

But they're just doing Donald Trump's bidding. And I pointed out, you know, in democracy docket that the effect of this is not just to give Aiden comfort to Republicans in California, but, you know, Yeah, let's just go back to 2020. Nevada didn't tally its votes for eight days. Pennsylvania, remember when Pennsylvania was called? Pennsylvania wasn't called until the Saturday after the Tuesday. Arizona, Fox News called Arizona, but AP and the rest of them,

Arizona was still vote counting into early the next week. Georgia took several days to vote. Donald Trump's position is stop the count on election night. And there are very few states who are going to be able to do that. But that's what Donald Trump wants. and I worry that it is not just going to be to undermine the results in California, but as you say in other states. Mark, as always, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me, and I hope I'll be able, I'll hope I'll be invited back.

You will be. Don't worry. Good. That was my conversation with Mark Elias, founder of Democracy Docket. Before we go, guys, CrookedCon 2026 is happening. November 5th through 7th in Washington, D.C., it's going to be even bigger than last year. And I'll be there. There will be exciting panels across bigger stages, candidate forums, live shows, interviews, organizing events, and tense but cathartic moments between prominent media figures who have yelled at each other on the internet.

Friends of the Pod subscribers get an exclusive discount for the all-day event on November 7th, in addition to many other perks we can't wait to tell you about. Go to crookedcon.com to get your tickets. We can't wait to see you there. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review. Cheers to the Scottish soccer fans drinking Boston dry and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how the Tartan Army is drinking so much beer at Boston establishments, that last weekend, the Sam Adams chap room, for example, ran out of Sam Adams. Like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and do you know how much beer you need to

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