1: Ari Berman on Trump’s Plans to Steal the Midterms

The Al Franken Podcast

News, Government, Comedy, Politics

4.6 • 8.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2026

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We're joined by our friend and National Voting Rights Correspondent for Mother Jones, Ari Berman! Ari is here to break down the alarming ways the Trump administration is laying the groundwork to cheat and interfere in the 2026 midterms and what is standing in their way.

The seizure of ballots from Fulton County, GA is a remarkable escalation of Trump's war against democracy. What could he, Tulsi Gabbard, and the rest of his goons be up to?

We also do a deep dive on the SAVE America Act and all the ways it would disenfranchise voters. But Ari suggests that it might not have the intended outcome that Trump and the Republicans are hoping for.

Plus, we get analysis of all of the redistricting happening around the country and how some of Trump's demands could backfire.

READ Ari’s work in Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/author/ari-berman/

SUPPORT THE SHOW BY VISITING OUR SPONSORS:

Visit American Giant to get their Classic Full Zip Hoodie and other cold weather staples. Get 20% off of your first order by entering the code FRANKEN at checkout! https://www.american-giant.com

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, everybody, we've got a great one today. You know, for a change, Ari Berman, who covers
0:10.4	elections for Mother Jones magazine, returns to talk about how Trump and the Republicans
0:16.4	plan to steal the midterms. Turns out they've given it a lot of thought.
0:23.9	Fortunately, Trump's not very popular these days.
0:26.9	It seems that Americans are not happy with the way he's handling, well, pretty much
0:33.2	anything.
0:34.6	He's underwater on all the stuff he ran on in 24, the economy, immigration,
0:43.3	and the Epstein files. And now he's taken us to war, which he very specifically said he
0:51.0	wasn't going to do. As I record this, Trump has announced that we're
0:56.5	about to strike Iran, and as you hear this, he has, and is calling for the Iranian people to
1:04.8	take down the Ayatollah and his regime. As you'll recall, we struck Iran last June when Trump claimed that we had obliterated
1:16.8	their nuclear enrichment program.
1:20.2	Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case.
1:23.9	Just this past week, and boy, Steve Whitkoff said in a Fox News interview that Iran is just a week away from having weapons-grade nuclear material.
1:36.3	This all goes back to Trump pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, which the P5 plus one, the U.S., France, Great Britain, the U.K., China, and Russia, and Germany,
1:50.1	entered into back in 2015, Iran agreed to reduce its enrichment of uranium to 3.65% in exchange for sanctions relief. But like an idiot,
2:06.0	Trump pulled out of the agreement in 2018, mainly because Obama's administration had negotiated.
2:15.2	And we have been unable to get Iran to stop pursuing a nuclear weapon since.
2:23.5	Anyway, as I speak, this war has just started, and it seems that we are in a full-scale conflict
2:30.1	with Iran, and that now the objective is regime change.
2:35.6	And with our military bases in the region, that will no doubt mean the Iranians will be targeting our troops.
2:43.5	And as we've seen historically, regime change doesn't always work out well, especially in the Middle East.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Al Franken Podcast, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Al Franken Podcast and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.