Hello, and welcome back to the David Fromm Show.

I'm David Frum, a staff writer at the Atlantic.

My guest this week will be Stephen Ritcher, formerly recorder of Maricopa County,

Arizona, the chief election official in the city of Phoenix in the swing state of Arizona,

and we will be discussing election integrity and the threats to election integrity,

the conspiracy theories and lies that are told about elections passed, and that present a threat

to the integrity

of free and fair elections in 26. My book this week is the decline and fall of the Roman Empire,

which I choose because this month, February 26, marks the 250th anniversary of the publication

of the first volume of that book, of that famous book, in February 1776.

There were six volumes altogether, the last published in 1788, but February 1776

begins, announces the arrival of this tremendous achievement of historical research and English

literary triumph. Before turning to either the dialogue or the book, I want to begin with some thoughts about

a very upsetting thing that happened over the past few days, and that is the posting on the

social media account of the President of the United States of a scurrilous, racist,

insulting, and stupid video about the past president of the United States, President

Barack Obama, and his wife, former first lady, Michelle Obama. I'm sure many of you have

seen the video or images of it. You know what I'm talking about. You've heard the many stories

that the Trump White House has told, many contradictory stories about how this came to be.

I'm not interested in decoding which of those

stories is closest to the truth or furthest from a lie. And I'm not interested in adding my voice

one more condemnation to this offensive and stupid act. The whole country has reverberated with

...