Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Drook. Today we're going to talk

about what the future looks like for American democracy. In particular, we're talking to

California Congressman Adam Schiff about what Democrats are doing to protect a democratic

system that they say Republicans want to dismantle. Former President Trump and other Republicans

attempts to overturn the 2020 election are well documented. Trump encouraged local lawmakers

and elections officials not to certify results. He asked the Secretary of State of Georgia to find

enough votes to flip the winner of Georgia. Trump's lawyers brought unfounded cases to the courts

and Trump asked the Department of Justice to intervene. He ultimately pushed for the Vice President

and Congress to reject the nation's electoral votes on January 6th, which ended in his supporters

attacking the Capitol. For years before that, he also told voters that American elections are

fraudulent. Nonetheless, American institutions held. But in his new book, Schiff argues that they

almost didn't and that American democracy is still in trouble. His book is called Midnight

in Washington, how we almost launched our democracy and still could. And he's here with me today

to discuss why he believes that's the case. Congressman Schiff represents California's 28th

congressional district and is the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. It's great to be with you. The subtitle of your book is how we almost lost our democracy

and still could. And I want to focus on that still could part. What specifically are you worried

about in the future? Well, my personal concern right now is what's going on around the country,

where you have the president who continues the former president to push out the big lie about the

election that it was stolen or rigged and using that big lie in state legislatures around the nation.

Republicans are passing laws that would strip independent elections officials of their duties.

They're giving them over to partisans and partisan boards or accolades of Donald Trump. And the whole,

...