MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough sounded the alarm over Donald Trump’s continued election lies.
The twice-impeached one-term president falsely claimed during a Georgia rally that the Arizona “audit” showed he had won and called on other states to conduct similar partisan probes to justify his lies about fraud — and the “Morning Joe” host explained how Trump was setting the stage to steal the 2024 election.
“Why are they changing election laws in states where Donald Trump won?” Scarborough said. “They’re afraid in 2024 he may not do as well, it may get closer and they may need to steal the election. For those of you, again, when you hear about voting reforms, you hear about a lot of the challenges that this country and this democracy is facing, it’s so important to look at the two phases these Trump-friendly states are doing.”
“The first phase, of course, is putting up roadblocks to prevent [voting], especially for Black voters and other people of color, but even more frightening than that for all Americans is the fact that they’re trying to change the rules on the counting of the votes, changing one state legislature after another in Trump-friendly territory is trying to make it so state legislatures can throw out your vote,” Scarborough added. “If you don’t vote for Donald Trump, if they don’t like what your community does or your precinct does or what your state does, these Republican legislatures that are Trumpists are now passing legislation that takes the power away from election officials and takes the power away from secretaries of state and governors.”
Scarborough warned that Trump and his conspiracy theories posed a direct threat to democracy, and he called on Democratic senators to eliminate the filibuster and pass legislation to save it over Republican objections.
“Democrats have the votes to actually pass legislation that will stop state legislators from stealing the election — from stealing the election — their intent, my good friend Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, their intent is to steal the election,” Scarborough said. “You can see the clear intent written on that legislation. If Mitch McConnell believes there should be an exemption for the filibuster for one of the most important things the Senate does, and that is confirming Supreme Court justices, there can’t be a filibuster for saving American democracy for voting rights laws for civil rights laws?”
“I guess the question in Washington has been for some time now, will the Democratic Party have the courage to count the 50 to stop these schemes for stealing elections and destroying American democracy?” he added. “Will they have the courage to count the 50 and do what Republicans would do in a New York second?”