AYMAN MOHYELDIN (GUEST HOST): Donald Trump’s desperation to silence voters and their deeply unpopular views of his presidency has hit an alarming and dangerous new low, with a new report about how Trump’s MAGA media allies appear to be laying the groundwork for Trump to take control of this fall’s midterm elections. Media Matters writes this, quote, “Right wing media figures such as Steve Bannon, John Solomon, and Cleta Mitchell appear to be weaving together a narrative about interference by China in U.S. elections to justify a national emergency to curtail voting rights.” Here’s an alarming sample of that. Watch.

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MOHYELDIN: And you heard the name there a few times, Bill Pulte, suggesting that Trump’s newly installed acting DNI is heavily involved in this plan. Media Matters writes this, quote, “The main players here come not only from the fever swamp backwaters of MAGA media, but also from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the White House.” I want to bring in Media Matters for America president Angelo Carusone. And with me here at the table, former attorney for the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, James Sample. He is currently a law professor at Hofstra University.

Angelo, I’ll start with you. What more can you tell us about the details of this plan and how MAGA media is laying the groundwork for it just by having the discourse about it?

ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah. And, look, I mean, we should also keep in mind here that it’s not you know, the people that were outside trying to overturn the 2020 election are now inside the administration actively helping to disrupt and sort of force. So a lot of this is through a lens of not just what they’re saying on the outside, but how it’s working in tandem with these official positions. So people on the outside are now running a task force. As you noted, Bill Pulte, who’s now the DNI, and the storytellers have kind of signaled what he’s there to do, which is to help sort of be part of this sort of three part sequence.

One is to manufacture a predicate, sort of create the evidence. They’re not going to try to find it. They’re going to manufacture something. Then the thing that they seem to be centering around is this idea that China interfered in the 2020 election, and they’re going to sort of uncover, by declassifying a whole bunch of what is supposed intelligence that reinforces and improves that. So that’s the first thing, manufacture the predicate.

The second then would be to use that to declare a national emergency. And then the third part of it is to impose by decree what they haven’t been able to get passed legislatively or what has been sort of pushed back in the course to these with these executive orders. So that is parts of the SAVE Act and to try to, you know, further support and disrupt the election. And then that’s it. And they are echoing it on the outside.

They’re signaling all of what they’re planning to do, and they’re beginning to move the machinery into official parts of government to actually execute it.