Hello, Josh Marshall podcast listeners. I am John Light. I'm one of the editors at TPM with Josh and Kate.

They'll be back from their break later this week, but we wanted to bring you something different today.

This is a conversation that two of our colleagues, Hunter Walker and Josh Kovensky, had with Representative Joe Morelli.

Morelli is a Democrat from New York in Congress.

He's also the ranking member, which means the top Democrat, on the House Administration

Committee, which has oversight over federal elections and also the way in which new members

get seated after the midterms in January.

So a lot of people have been wondering, ourselves included, if Democrats have a plan, what it is, to deal with the fact that Donald Trump will almost certainly do something to meddle with the midterms, or at least, you know, going on his statements and his administration's actions, that seems to be in your certainty.

Morelli has an election task force that

has been wargaming out dozens and dozens and dozens of scenarios for how Democrats might respond

to these threats. And he tells our colleagues, Hunter, and Josh about it. So here's that conversation.

Hunter Walker, Josh Kavanski speaking with Representative Joe Morelli.

And yes, we're doing tabletop exercises.

We have red team exercise.

And we'll continue to think about what crazy scenario.

And believe me, we've sought us some crazy scenarios.

But with Donald Trump, you know, the norms are out.

Constitution's no longer in vogue.

State laws, federal laws, they're no longer in vogue.

Morality's not in vogue.

And it's just trying to think of what kind of creative means could he use to employ

to stop people where he thinks they're a threat

...