Congress takes up ICE reforms, Trump calls to “nationalize” voting

No other organ brings together science and spirituality quite like the human brain. Our thinking is very different from what we have imagined. Studies about the brain are, at heart, studies about ourselves. So why, even after centuries of research, has the brain still remained such a stubborn and elusive mystery? I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. Listen to On Point for our special series, Brainwaves, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to another Left, Right & Center, everybody. I'm David Green. I'm glad to tell you I'm happy to report. Republicans got the job done. Our majority work together and we got the bills over the line. So we've now funded 11 of the 12 separate appropriations funding bills for the government for the year. And that's a big achievement. All right. That's the voice there of House Speaker Mike Johnson facing reporters this week announcing the passage of roughly $1.2 trillion in federal spending. This averted yet another government shutdown. It capped months of wrangling over a package of 11 spending bills that will now fund the government until the end of September. President Trump signed this into law just a short time after that. But then there is that 12th spending bill, the one they did not take up, and it is the most polarizing of the 12th. It funds the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE and Customs and Border Patrol, but also FEMA, TSA and the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, cybersecurity, among lots of other things. For Democrats, this is a moment for Congress to rise to its role as the founders intended, their chance to check the executive branch on how America enforces its immigration laws and on the constitutional limits on the executive when it comes to applying federal force in states and cities. ICE is completely and totally out of control. immigration enforcement should be just, it should be fair, and it should be humane. That is not what is taking place right now. Dramatic changes are necessary at the Department of Homeland Security. That's House Minority Leader Democrat Hakeem Jeffries making the case for reform at the start of this round of talks over the DHS spending bill. I want to start on the whole question of how exactly this would work? How would Democrats and maybe enough Republicans craft a spending bill that can effectively counter President Trump's instincts to use aggressive sweeps as part of his immigration enforcement, a policy that, as we know, has fed deadly chaos in a city far from any international border. And then we're going to turn to the 2026 midterms and how electoral politics may or may not be influencing lawmakers' decision making here. And then later, we're going to zoom in on those midterms. What can we expect in November as voters cast their ballots? Are free and fair elections in this hyperpolarized political moment now under threat? Mo Alethi is back. He's executive director at Georgetown's Institute of Politics and Public Service. Mo's a former communications director for the Democratic National Committee. And we have Sarah Isger back. She's senior editor at The Dispatch, hosts the Advisory Opinions podcast. Sarah's an ABC News legal analyst. And she has written the forthcoming book, Last Branch Standing. Sarah was DOJ spokesperson in the first Trump administration. Nice to have the Moe Sarah crew back in full force. Hello to both of you. Always fun. Not always. Not always. Sometimes we're, I mean, but yeah, fun to be with the two of you. Sarah, can I start with a basic question for you? I mean, is everything we're seeing in Congress, is an appropriations bill the right tool for trying to check presidential power? I mean, the three of us have talked for months now about Congress rising up, doing its job, exerting power as the legislative branch. Is this what the framers intended? OK, I did have to chuckle that first clip you played from Mike Johnson where he talks about this is a big accomplishment to pass appropriations. I was like, no, it's literally the one thing, the number one job you have to do. Yes and no. actually, like appropriations is an important way to check the president power of the purse, right? So I think it's one of their most effective tools to check the president. Generally, when I'm complaining about Congress not doing its job, though, I'm talking a little more globally about policymaking. So for instance, if you don't like immigration enforcement right now, you can cut funding from the president or any part of the other stuff the president wants to do in order to get him to change his policies on enforcement. But the far more effective thing to do would be to change the law on immigration, because that actually changes the underlying policy is the powers the president has towards enforcement. So the answer is like power of the purse, great tool to check the president. I'd also like to see them use their other powers. Yeah, like like lawmaking, which is an amazing thing, like writing laws. Well, Mo, that that raises a question for you. I mean, I guess, you know, I'm listening to top Democrats who are saying we need to use this moment to bring change. What what does that mean? How do you hear that? And why is it worth holding up things like funding for TSA for things like the Coast Guard? Because we just watched the killing of two U.S. citizens by an agency that has run amok. enforcing an immigration policy that is indiscriminate and clearly has led to an abuse of power. So that's why this is the moment. I don't disagree with Sarah at all. Yes, Congress, as we both have said on this show many times in agreement and sometimes in unison, Do your job. Go out there and do real immigration reform. Do real immigration enforcement reform as part of that. But let's face it, Republicans have been slower than Democrats to push back on the abuses that we are seeing. And this agency is enforcing a misguided policy. In the absence of changing the policy, then use the power of the purse to change at least the tactics. And that's why you saw Democratic leadership in the House and the Senate send a letter with their 10 specific ideas for reform to at least begin to mitigate this. And some of them, I think a lot of them are very reasonable reforms. It's not going to make everybody happy, even on the left. There is a growing number of people out there who are claiming it's time to sort of abolish ICE. But what we see here are Democrats actually playing a very realistic game, saying, you know, that's not going to happen. So let's force these 10 things that can make a difference. They were, I think, smarter about it this time than during the healthcare debate that led to the last full government shutdown. Why smarter? What difference do you see here? By forcing a separation of DHS so that the rest of the government could operate and just focus on this one agency. Well, I want to get into some of the – I mean I want to get – I really want to get to the politics around all this. But first like a little substance. I mean Mo, you're saying that Democrats want to change some of the tactics if they can't go further in that. Sarah, can I put you in law professor mode for one moment? I mean, one of the things that Democrats are really pushing is the idea that ICE has, in at least a few cases, barged into people's homes trying to track down people they say are in the country illegally and that there's a removal order for them. There are different kinds of warrants. There are administrative warrants that I guess ICE can do a lot of things if they have that. But to go into a private home, my understanding is you need a permission from a federal judge. The Associated Press had some great reporting that inside DHS, there was an internal memo that it's like, it's open to interpretation. You don't really need a federal judge to sign off on going into a person's home. Democrats are saying, like, this is a line in the sand. Like to just to one thing, just make clear that ICE Border Patrol needs a warrant from a judge to go into someone's home. What would it help us understand what's at stake in sort of the legal discussion there? First of all, no matter what I'm about to say, Congress could make it a law that you need a judicial warrant to go into someone's home. Yeah. And that's what both of you are raising. Congress could be doing that. Instead, they're forced to look at tactics instead because no one. And wouldn't that be a meaningful vote, sort of putting pressure on the people who then declined to vote for that, right? If you had that as just a standalone bill, don't try to tack any of your other wish list items. Don't put poison pills on it that are so politically toxic to the other side. Just the requirement that to go into someone's home, you must have a warrant signed by an Article III judge who has life tenure and political protections and all of that. But no, we're not doing that. Okay, so let's do some Fourth Amendment 101, right? The Fourth Amendment says that you shall be secure in your person's papers and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures. And generally, that means that if you believe that someone committed a crime, you can go to an Article 3 judge, a federal judge. We make a neutral magistrate sign that warrant saying, yes, a neutral person thinks there is probable cause to believe that either the person in the home or that the evidence for a crime is within that home. and you may enter the home without their permission. That is for criminal stuff. And if I'm gonna make a very simplistic difference between criminal and civil, anything criminal is where the government, the state may deprive you of life, liberty, or property. So imprisonment, fines, death penalty. Civil, totally different world. Everything else that's not potential deprivation of life, liberty, or property is civil. Immigration enforcement is civil because deportation is not depriving someone of their life or their liberty or their property. And so under the law, the law considers deportation not depriving someone of their. That is a civil process. And so deportation hearings do not happen in front of neutral Article three judges. They happen in front of immigration judges who are housed in the executive branch. And these administrative warrants, they can be signed by those immigration judges. And again, I actually think judges is probably the wrong term to use here because that makes someone think of a neutral, protected person. They are not. They are members of the executive branch. But those administrative warrants don't even have to be signed by immigration judges. They can simply be signed by immigration officials elsewhere. So DHS actually has a case that they could make in court that this internal memo was right. I mean, this probably is going to be litigated at some point, I would assume. It is going to be litigated. We have a preliminary order from a judge actually out in Washington state that says, no, you can't use an administrative warrant to go into someone's home. There's a Supreme Court precedent that's about 50 or 60 years old that leans that direction. I talked to the leading Fourth Amendment expert in the country actually last week about this, Professor Oren Kerr at Stanford University. And he thinks based on current precedent, you probably can't go into someone's home with an administrative warrant. But it is not clear-cut law by any means. And again, Congress could change it. Congress could change it. So, Mo, let me come back to you. Like, Democrats could be pushing to change the law, right? could be pushing to change the law and say that immigration agents cannot go into people's homes. Here is a piece of legislation. I propose this. What stops them from doing that as opposed to going the kind of appropriations route? Any memory that they're in Congress? I'm all for it. But the political realities would tell us that you know it is unlikely going to pass And so they use the tool that they got and that is the power of the purse I not saying it ideal but it is probably the most effective to affecting real change right now. I guess, look, I'm always loathe to discuss or debate law with Sarah. She knows the law. I'm not a lawyer. But I guess that just the explanation confuses me a little bit because one... That means you're actually understanding it perfectly because it should confuse you. Anyone listening should be confused. That's great. Because this administration does not talk about immigration enforcement as a civil matter. They very explicitly talk about it as a criminal matter. I mean, every member of this administration goes out there and says if you were here illegally, you are breaking the law. They use tactics that are used to take on criminals. And what were the three, Sarah? Life, liberty, possession of property? Yeah. Right. We have seen in their enforcement of immigration laws, them denying the possession of property than denying liberty by detaining people and now denying life. They are doing all of those things. And so it seems to me, if that's the approach, a warrant probably makes sense. Also, David, just to make this more confusing, imagine that you are here legally. Maybe you're the child who was born here or something, but in your home, there are people who are not here legally. then do they need a warrant? Because it's actually your home. So can they go into your house with an administrative warrant? Or is it only if the illegal alien owns the home? Do illegal aliens have Fourth Amendment rights? They're not citizens. And there's certain parts of the Constitution that specify citizens. The Fourth Amendment says persons, but there are historical arguments that that was actually referring specifically to citizens. This whole thing gets harder, not easier, the further down the road we go. And let me leave you with the last thing that makes it really hard. If you arrest someone and it turns out that the way you arrested them is illegal, do you know what the remedy for that is? Absolutely nothing, David. You don't like not have a trial or they dismiss the charges. And so again, even if a judge were to hold that they entered your home without a judicial warrant, so what? Not a lot you can do about that. You still get deported. Well, are you out there confused? I'm confused in a good way. I want to know more about this. And I think this is some of the important stuff that I wish Congress would be talking about more. But lawmakers do face these political realities that I'm sure are impacting how they do what they're doing right now. And that's what we're going to talk about as we move on in the show. I do want to say that if you have questions, have thoughts about this week's topic or anything we cover, you can join the Left, Right and Center community discussion. We are on Substack. Please join. Sign up for a weekly inbox reminder. We'll give you links to journalism that informs our conversation. And you can talk with fellow listeners about what you heard on the show. Maybe we'll pluck a comment or question and we'll actually talk about it on the show itself. Join at kcrwlrc.substack.com. That is kcrwlrc.substack.com. Moe, Sarah, and I will be right back with more Left, Right, and Center. You ever get a weird spam call or a suspect email that just seems a little too specific. 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Use code KCRW to get 60% off an annual plan at incogni.com slash KCRW. That's incogni.com slash KCRW. Code KCRW. All right, we're back with more left, right and center talking about this moment in our country, this moment in Congress where Democrats in particular are trying to use an appropriations bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security to force changes in how this president conducts immigration policy, the actions of ICE, as we've seen in Minneapolis. Mo, I want to stay on policy for a little bit before we move to some of the politics around this. What else do you feel like Democrats are pushing for here? What are you most kind of passionate about when it comes to the changes that the party is trying to make? I mean, look, they put out a list of sort of 10 reforms. Some of them are super simple. And one of them has already been adopted just because of the political pressure around this. And that's the requirement of body cameras. Right now, DHS is going to require body cameras in Minneapolis, and they say as they get the funding, they will expand that nationwide. The reality is they actually have the funding. DHS is well-funded already. They don't need new funding to institute body cameras. That's simple, and that's got bipartisan support, and I'm glad. Where we're seeing problems, the warrants that we just discussed, Republicans are digging in their heels. banning ICE agents from wearing masks, right? Democrats have said, let's ban the masks. Let's have them wear identifiable uniforms with their IDs, just like any other law enforcement officer is required. Those seem like simple. Having well-defined guidelines on when the use of force is permissible, and then having an independent investigation whenever there is the use of force, just like normal law enforcement, any other form of law enforcement requires. That seems like it ought to be simple. There's going to be other issues where there's going to be pushback from Republicans, like banning these sort of large-scale operations that are not targeted, right? Democrats are saying, target your law enforcement operations. Don't do these widespread sweeps. And before you detain someone, actually have proof that they're not a citizen. That seems like a fairly rational one, considering the number of citizens who have been swept up in these. So those are just a handful of the 10. And they are ones that I think, I know we're about to get into the politics of this, these are ones that would have widespread public support. I mean, polling this week shows that a full two thirds of Americans say ICE is going too far. Although Republican support for the president's immigration policies remain – I mean it's dwindling a tad, but it remains pretty strong. It depends how the question is asked, which Sarah and I are always talking about how you got to take issue polling with a grain of salt. Both of you hate polling even though you're in this business. That's right. Yeah, we know that. But when you ask people do you like Trump's immigration policies when it comes to border enforcement, you get one number. When you ask them about ICE specifically and whether the images that they're seeing on television in the interior are popular, then you see a cratering of support and you even start to see a loss amongst Republican voters. It's about unintended consequences because I'm also in favor of body cam footage whenever possible. I think transparency is actually good for both parties in this case. I think it helps protect the officers from frivolous complaints. I think it helps protect citizens to be able to prove their case. However, have you heard about these new YouTube content creators making tons of money off of young women who are on body cam footage? So basically, they FOIA, they ask for public records of body cam footage for DUIs, and then they limit it down to the women. They try to limit it to women who are between 18 and 35. They get that body cam footage and they post it on YouTube and make tons of money for basically these people to mock docs, go find these women who are sort of drunk and acting poorly on body cam footage. And like, we've done that. And I don't love, like as someone who, again, is in favor of having body cams, boy, that seems gross to me. Yeah, that makes me hate everything about our world. Exactly. By the way, another thing Congress could fix. Yeah. Yep. Well, we know the theme for the day, Congress could fix a lot and they're not, which is a segue to some of the politics around this. Because I am I am curious what you both think about how this issue is affecting lawmakers and their calculations, their messaging, their hopes to win reelection. I mean, there's just a lot happening around this. And Mo, I actually I wanted to start by playing you a clip from Texas 18, which is a pretty safe Democratic congressional district that includes part of the city of Houston, some suburbs. Christian Menifee won a special election there. And he said this when he was declaring victory. And that's how you know that when I go into Congress, I'm going to fight each and every day to impeach Christy Noe. to tear ice up from the roots and to fix this country's broken immigration system. I mean, I just think about everything we've been talking about. You've got lawmakers in office in Washington kind of doing this delicate dance, using appropriations, deciding, as you've both said, not to actually try and write new laws. And then we've got, you know, a candidate who just won saying that he wants to tear ice up from the roots and impeach Kristi Noem. I'll believe it when I see it. Well, I mean, Mo, if you're advising Democrats on navigating this moment, is that the message that you think is most effective right now? I think it is effective. I think it's certainly effective in a Democratic primary, and I think it's certainly effective in lots of places around the country where, again, people overwhelmingly think ice is going too far. Um, and they're seeing the video every day proving it and where, uh, six and 10 Americans say Kristi Noem should be fired. Now, could Congress be legislating it? Of course they could be legislating it. And if Democrats win control of the house, I would expect you do see some legislation being moved on reform. It doesn't count if it's press release legislation, i.e. if the whole point is to have legislation that you know has no chance of getting signed by the president. So it's like your most liberal wish list. But this is my point that you did it. That's my point, right? I mean, look, campaigns are not articulations of policy. There are articulations of principles. There are articulations of what you believe and what you want to do. The policy comes when you get elected and or it should when you get elected. But if Democrats win control of the House, I would expect you see very early on legislation to reform ICE, to do something different on immigration. But if Republicans control the other chamber and they still control the White House, it doesn't go anywhere, which brings us back to the last segment and why they're using the tools that they've got. But I think press release legislation – I mean, Sarah, that's a really good point. It makes me want to ask about this entire moment. Like I don want to be too cynical and you know I normally the least cynical one among the three of us but it like these reforms that we talking about things like warrants things like you know whether to mask, these are big questions, but like, does whether these changes actually get enacted somehow matter to these lawmakers as much as the messaging, the attention, the press releases, the stories that get written about them as being, you know, standing up against President Trump, or if you're a Republicans standing up for President Trump and being tough on people in the country illegally who have criminal records. After everything we've talked about, I don't trust Congress to actually be interested in meaningful reforms here. Oftentimes, it's not just that one is more important than the other. It's that they're actually at odds with each other. Solving the problem makes it harder to run on the problem and blame the other side. And so a lot of the times in the past several decades, I think I've seen parties actually not want to solve the problem. Let me give you an example, David, an extreme example, I will grant you, where I'm really tired of people saying, yeah, but Republicans won't pass that or Democrats won't pass that or whatever. That just means you're not making the right offer, man. There's something out there, $10 billion for border security in exchange for requiring a judicial warrant to go into someone's home, right? That's an extreme example. But you're telling me that you don't think Republicans will sign that deal? They'll have to, because again, the political downside of not taking that deal would be too great with their constituents. Come to the table and start actually offering things you know the other side cares about. But we haven't seen that, David. We've actually seen them try to get the other side to walk away. All right, you're listening to Left, Right, and Center from KCRW. We're talking about the discussion in Congress and some of the the political pressures on different members when it comes to this moment and immigration. Mo, you were going to jump in. We have seen that. We saw it before the 2024 election. You've seen what? Remind us what you're talking about. Sarah's point that you're just not making a good enough deal. Before the 2024 election, Republicans and Democrats sat down and came up with something on immigration. It wasn't everything that either side wanted, but it gave each of them something the other wanted, and they couldn't get it through. because of the politics, because the then presidential candidate Trump said, I don't want this because of Sarah's second point, right? Because the politics benefit me if we don't pass this. And a number of Republicans in Congress rallied behind that approach. But the other pressure that works is electoral pressure, right? And look, you look at, there was a state Senate seat in Texas that had a special election this last week. It was a Republican district for decades. I think Trump won that district by high double digits, by like 17, 17 points, yeah. 18 points. And the Democrat won the special election by an almost equal margin. It was a 30-point swing in this one Texas district. And we have seen this over and over around the country. You've got Republicans who are paying attention now and saying, if we don't change something, this could be our fate at scale in November. That is a huge motivator for them. And so I'm not saying suddenly you're going to see Republicans all over the place adopt every one of the Democrats' demands. But I do think that the kind of pressure Democrats are putting on them, the strong public opposition to what they are seeing on their screens in terms of immigration enforcement that's manifesting in polls, and the constant battering that Republicans have been taking in elections since 2024 could create an environment where some change takes place. And if it doesn't before the midterms, gives Democrats, should they win control of the House, a reason to keep pushing forward. Well, Sarah, I kind of want to cue you up by listening to one Republican who really is operating in the climate that I think Mo is talking about, dealing with how to handle this, how far to move. This is Florida GOP Congressman Carlos Jimenez. He was on Fox News business. he was asked about the idea of Congress pushing back on Trump's immigration enforcement. Here he is. Unfortunately, you know, we've been warning the administration about the enforcement that's been going on. We thought that there should have been a course correction a long time ago. And now I guess it's going to be forced on us by the Democrats. So much to unpack there. We thought there should have been a course correction a long time ago. Now it's being forced on us by Democrats. That's not the strongest message that you always want to hear. It's like, oops, yeah, maybe we should have done this a while ago. And like now Democrats are really pushing us and maybe we're going to have to cave. I don't know. I just feel like that voice speaks to the position that a lot of Republicans are in right now. I want to break down the politics of this a little bit, especially those special elections. Those that the one especially that Mo is talking about. This is the Fort Worth Taylor-Remitt winning that state race. That is bad news for Republicans, obviously, but I'd slice it a little more thinly because it's not that I think we're going to see a 30 point swing in a bunch of districts. what a special election that's like not near anything else is about turnout. And what it's really telling me is that Democratic enthusiasm and Democratic turnout is going to be quite high in the midterms if this level of enthusiasm holds, obviously, for the next nine months. So that's really meaningful, I think, for Democrats and should be for Republicans. And of course, there's the second part that we've been saying for years now. When Donald Trump isn't on the ballot, Republicans have not shown any ability to capture the magic of Donald Trump. No candidate has been able to do it. No message has been able to do it. And so you see that at play in this Texas special. I also want to talk about the piece of legislation that Moe was talking about, because on the one hand, it proves Moe's point, right? They did come to the table. Both sides were getting something that they wanted, and it didn't pass. This was the compromise, the big compromise immigration bill that President Trump sort of blew up, even though there was a negotiated by a conservative Republican, all the things, right? It looks like exactly what I'm talking about. But it also proves my point, which is at the end of the day, Donald Trump was willing to walk away from it because he thought it would be a better campaign issue than a solution. And at that point, Democrats had to make a decision. Like at some point, voting no becomes so toxic because of your own statements on those issues that you can't walk away. Democrats also then made the decision, understandably so, let me just tell you, that they weren't willing to move further to the Republican side to make it a deal you can't say no to because they didn't think that it would be so politically helpful for Trump to swing the election. So they were also making a political calculation, that they weren't willing to get immigration off the table for the election based on what it would cost them. At the end of the day, both sides are looking at the cost-benefit analysis. And I guess, I mean, this is sort of a theme, David, for when we talk about politics. I think it's really unhelpful to think of this as good guys and bad guys, and much more predictive if you think about it in sort of economic terms about cost-benefit analysis and statistics, because, boy, it seems like game theory to me, man. Yeah, I generally would agree with you. I feel like this moment might be a little bit different. This might be one of the few times when I think looking at it through the prism of good guys versus bad guys actually resonates with the American people, right? Because when they see- Good guys versus bad guys always resonates. No, but it's the politics of it are more resonant than maybe in the past. Because nine times out of 10, I'm with you, the cost benefit analysis, the sort of that economic, applying economic principles to political decisions, I would agree with you nine times out of 10. But the right doesn't think they're the bad guys. Everyone thinks they're the good guys. Again, aside from some serial killers, most people in their own lives think they're the good guys. But I guess my point is the coalition that elected Republicans that some people were prematurely saying was showed a realignment voter, Latino voters, young voters, they're looking at what they're seeing on screens right now. And they're saying there is a clear good and a clear bad right now. All right. We're going to take one more break and come back. And we've sort of been dancing around the midterm elections as context for everything. Let's really dig in and talk about the midterms and some of the comments that we've heard from President Trump recently about our nation's election system. We'll be back in a moment with more Left, Right and Center. All right, we're back with more Left, Right and Center. I'm David Green with Sarah Isger on the right and Mo Alethe on the left. You know, one constant for President Trump since he entered politics in 2015 and over really the entire sweep of his presidency has been his obsession with election tampering, rigged elections, as he always likes to put it. It's a regular theme in his speeches, his social media posts, the constant barrage of allegations from the president and his faithful seems to be taking a toll now on one very key element in the American electoral process. And that's the people who actually run our voting process from leaders in state government to volunteer poll workers, worry over some type of election interference. This fall is dominating the political conversation on both the left and the right. And that's already led to real world consequences here. A study by the nonpartisan elections think tank issue one found that and I'm quoting here in the years since the 2020 election, roughly 50 percent of top local election officials across 11 Western states have left their jobs. It goes on to point out that state and local officials have reported a surge in harassment and personal threats against them. Then a few days ago, in an appearance on conservative podcaster Dan Bongino's show, the president said this. The Republicans should say we want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. The Republicans should, quote, take over the voting. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. He then repeated this idea to reporters in the Oval Office. Mo, it seems these days we're constantly asking for hearing from legal scholars to confirm that the president, the federal government, political parties are constitutionally prevented from doing what the president just proposed. So what is going on here in your mind? They're right. I mean, again, I am not the legal scholar amongst us, but it seems pretty clear to me in the Constitution who should be running local elections. It doesn't mean that there isn't It's so nice that Democrats now say that What a change of pace It's like they found federalism When Donald Trump got elected president We have this whole piece in Slate by Rick Hassan A famous election law guy Who wrote a book on why the left Should nationalize elections And then he wrote this piece in Slate that was like Yeah, but I never considered that Donald Trump Or someone like Donald Trump could be elected president And so I take it back Because basically when it's a president I don't like That's when I do want states to have power And I'm like, yeah, that's what we were saying all along. But thanks. But it is clear who should be running. That doesn't mean that there isn't a federal role when it comes to elections. But this president has gutted the federal role, as it has been, by cutting funding for cybersecurity in elections, by cutting information sharing and threat sharing partnerships between states and localities, cybersecurity coordination, DHS election security staff, training support. All that stuff that he cut right And so you look at what going on here and what you see is a president who has continuously both through words and through administrative action undermined trust in the electoral system and stirred up a tremendous amount of chaos. That chaos has led to threats and intimidation by angry supporters of his, of election workers, both Democratic and Republican election workers around the country. That's proven to be way too much pressure for a lot of these good-minded civic servants. So they leave losing institutional memory and technical expertise at the state and local level. You lose that expertise. At the same time that the federal government is decreasing support, It creates conditions for administrative errors. Now, if there's even the smallest administrative error anywhere in the country, suddenly there are going to be claims that the states are too crooked to run elections, which he's saying. Right. And therefore, the federal government should run the execution. Right. A Republican Party. He didn't even say the federal government. I mean, he's saying Republicans should run, which is, you know, different. Exactly. I mean, every example he's pointing out are places that he lost six years ago. Even though every – I shouldn't say every, but an overwhelming majority of the examples, there are very few cases of election fraud. But the overwhelming majority of them were people who ended up being Trump supporters or Republicans, including a Colorado election official who was convicted on multiple counts of fraud that Donald Trump then pardoned or tried to pardon, couldn't pardon because she was convicted under state law and he has no power to do that. I mean, it is it is not just looking at, you know, the number of fraud cases and how there have been dramatically few compared to what we ever hear from the president. But it's also like making sure that there is trust in the system. And, you know, we need, you know, we need. I can't believe it. Like, what if there were a bipartisan commission of people that the country really trusts to dig into this issue and come up with, you know, actual reforms away from the hyperpolarized conversation? And Sarah, you reminded us that there is, there was a commission, the Jimmy Carter James Baker Commission, a Democrat, a Republican coming out of 2000 and 2004. I mean, you've been kind of pushing us all week saying that they had some changes in mind 20 years ago that, I mean, what, might be applicable today? When other girls had posters of Justin Timberlake in their room, I had a poster of the Carter Baker Commission. Can we see it? Is this something we could share on social media and on our sub stack? Like, I think that's – and you need to be posing next to it. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, that'd be great. Okay, so, right, we have the Bush v. Gore election in 2000 and all of the shenanigans in Florida. Both sides are pretty upset about that. And so Carter and Baker come together to agree on 87 recommendations to make our elections both more open and more secure. That was in 2005, David. What happened, as we all know, is that each side took the recommendations that they thought would be politically beneficial to their team and then made the recommendations that they thought would be politically less helpful to their team absolutely evil, racist or fraud, or like you pick your buzzwords for your team. But what are some of the changes here in Carter Baker that you think could actually make a difference today? I'm so glad you asked that, David. Making voter registration a thing you do one time in your life when you turn 18 so that like when you move or when you change states, you're not having to re-register causing those types of problems. Ending ballot harvesting, which is the pejorative term, but this idea that someone else can pick up your ballot for you, your absentee ballot and turn it in for you. But those are just some of the examples of things that I actually think should be pretty easy for both sides to agree on. Voter ID is one of the examples, making, you know, mail voting for military members easier. I mean, there's 87 of these. And again, it's Carter and Baker. So like they cut about 50-50 in terms of which suggestions they thought would help each team. And of course, despite Mo's poo-pooing of the realignment theory, what I love about it now is that as the lower turnout voters move over into the Republican column and higher turnout voters move into the Democratic column, generally speaking, a lot of what each party thinks is helping their team now and what they've told their party is like a moral imperative, they're going to have to start switching their messaging because it's going to start hurting their team and this like high-minded morality that they talked about will turn out to be nothing more than partisan gainsmanship, which again goes to Rick Hassan's point. Now that Donald Trump's president, he takes back his whole book that he wrote on nationalizing elections because now it doesn't help Democrats. But I want to finish with this, Mo. Now that Trump is president, as Sarah points out, that's where I struggle with this because it's like in a different time and place engaging on questions of how to reform our electoral process. I mean, Mo, like these things that come up in Carter Baker, I mean, let's talk about things that would feel like a really good thing to do. It feels scary because somehow in this climate, starting to talk about, oh, our election system needs to be reformed gives President Trump something that he can just manipulate. And I don't know what to do with that. I mean, how long have we been arguing over election laws and election rules? I mean, long before Donald Trump, we were – the parties were jousting over this. But never before have we seen a president openly encouraging a wholesale federal takeover of the election process. To the flip side of Sarah's point earlier, right, when Sarah was saying, I think it's cute that Democrats are now discovering federalism. I mean, Republicans have forever been arguing that this should be at the state level, and now you see at least a Republican president. He's getting pushback from members of his own party in Congress, right, saying no, it should not be federal. Thank goodness. Yes. It's like that and guns. All of a sudden they're Republicans again. Huh. It's antithetical to everything that they've stood for. Look, I think there's two buckets here if we're going to talk about restoring trust in elections. One is the stuff that the federal government actually does, which is all the stuff that Donald Trump has stopped doing. That's important, right? Bringing back that cyber security, bringing back the threat sharing, DHS's role in election protection, all of those the states desperately need. And so if the federal government wants to be helpful, do that again. But then there are the sort of evergreen back and forth over the things that each side says is more important or would help restore trust in elections. We should continue to have those conversations. I think the commission had some good ideas, and we don't agree on all of them, but there's a lot that we do agree on, and you see some states have adopted a lot of those things to good effect. Um, let's, we can get back to that conversation, but it ain't going to happen if the president continues threatening to federalize. Um, and it just creates more chaos, all designed to raise concerns about the 2026 and 2028 elections before the fact so that he can take whatever actions he would like to take after the fact. All right. We're going to leave it there. We've got a lot of notes out there. I just want to Carter and Baker 2005 building confidence in U.S. elections report. All right. And we are waiting for the picture of you with their photo on your wall. You can find the poster on eBay. Yeah. Sarah's already sold it on eBay. I hope you made a lot of money. All right. We're going to leave it there and move to our left, right and center rants and raves. Sarah, you want to jump in? I lived for four years in Chicago and three years in Boston. Plus, obviously, I've lived in D.C. for a while now. I've never heard of Snowcrete, and I've certainly never experienced whatever it is we're doing here where it looks like snow, but in fact is not at all snow. It doesn't act like snow. You can't make a snowman. You can't make snowballs. You can't go sledding. It's incredibly dangerous to try. And in the meantime, we have not had a full day of school for two weeks now. And I just want to talk to all my parents out there. I don't know, alcohol? Like, I don't have a lot of great suggestions at this point. I'm open to suggestions. I'm just saying, like, how much I loved my kids two weeks ago is not the same amount that I love them now after two weeks without a full day of school. It is astonishing that schools are still out. I can't even, I don't know what these cities are doing wrong. And I'm sorry that you have to put up with that. And I encourage alcohol. And we can't even go outside and have fun. Like normally snow days, you're like, oh, on the one hand, that's a little inconvenient. On the other hand, like an amazing memory sledding with my child. No, we're just trapped inside, staring at each other and learning to become resentful. Mo? Not a rant or a rave, more of a just heartfelt thoughts and prayers to Savannah Guthrie. Savannah and I both grew up in Tucson, Arizona, which is typically a sleepy, idyllic town in southern Arizona. Unfortunately, just the heartbreaking story of the abduction of her mother, I can't imagine what their family is going through. And so I'm just adding my thoughts and prayers along with millions of other people to the family right now, as well as everyone who is a victim of these types of crimes that maybe don't get the same attention but are going through the same heartbreak. Yeah, it's a heartbreaking story. I want to finish by just honoring a lot of incredible journalists at The Washington Post who lost their jobs in a mass layoff this past week. Everyone in our industry should realize there are a lot of incredibly talented people, and I know some of them personally, who cover politics, are in audio, are based abroad. Some foreign correspondents finding out that they lost their jobs while in the field. People cover sports in that perfect way, telling narrative stories and helping us understand the world of sports. It's I just I hope you all are, you know, we're all thinking of you and we all in this field want to support you in any way as you look for your next chapter, because a lot of talented people out there who are in a difficult place right now. OK, Sarah Mo, it's always great when we are together. Thank you both a ton. Left, Right and Center is produced by Robin Estrin. Our executive producer is Arnie Seipel. The show is recorded and mixed by Nick Lamponi. Todd M. Simon composed our theme music. Left, Right, and Center is a co-production of KCRW and Fearless Media. We're distributed by PRX. I'm David Green. I really appreciate you joining us and hope you'll tune in next week. We'll have more Left, Right, and Center. www.kcrw.com From PRX.