Trump Accidentally Lets Slip Dark Truth about His Plot to Rig Midterms

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

Politics, News

4.4 • 797 Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On Monday, President Trump unleashed a tortured Truth Social rant that lied relentlessly about vote-by-mail—and announced a forthcoming executive order that would end mail voting entirely. That’s not legal, of course. But nothing, no matter how absurd, can be ruled out these days. Trump’s eruption also revealed a bigger set of intentions: To abuse presidential power in every conceivable way he can to swing the midterm elections against Democrats. This comes as Trump’s scheme to get Texas to gerrymander five extra GOP seats is gaining steam. We talked to David Daley, the great analyst of right-wing election subversion, whose latest book is called “Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections.” He explains how Trump will try to help the GOP cheat its way through the midterms, why it might work, and what Democrats must do in response—in this election cycle and, importantly, beyond. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:16.5	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
0:33.1	On Monday, President Donald Trump unleashed a long tortured rent on truth social, rehashing many of his favorite lies about the supposed fraudulence of voting by mail, but he also made a concrete
0:39.2	announcement. He's going to try to end mail voting entirely by executive order. Can Trump do that?
0:47.5	Well, no, legally speaking, he theoretically can't. But we think it's folly to leave the matter there,
0:55.5	nothing, no matter how absurd-seeming, can be ruled out at this point. And if you look at Trump's eruption carefully,
1:00.8	you can see that he clearly let slip his broader intent to abuse presidential power in every
1:07.6	conceivable way he can to swing the midterm elections against Democrats.
1:13.2	Today we're talking about all this with David Daly, who's one of the best analysts out there of
1:18.1	right-wing dirty tricks and election subversion, having written several very good books on exactly
1:23.3	that topic. He's been arguing that Trump's effort to get Texas to gerrymander five new GOP
1:29.5	house seats is part of a much bigger scheme, one that has roots going back decades. Thanks for coming
1:35.4	on, David. Thanks for having me, Greg. So Trump had this long eruption on truth social in which he
1:41.8	lied relentlessly about vote by mail, and he said he will lead a new
1:45.5	movement to end it. But here's the key part. Quote, we will begin this effort by signing an
1:51.3	executive order to help bring honesty to the 26 midterm elections, close quote. Now, some quick
1:58.2	context here. Trump already tried to vastly curtail vote by mail with another
2:03.3	executive order earlier this year, but it's blocked in the courts. David, this looks like he's
2:08.0	going to revisit the idea with something even more radical and abolishment to vote by mail entirely.
2:13.2	What's your reaction to this? Here we go again, right? This is all of Donald Trump's favorite lines about election fraud, about vote by mail, about how the 2020
2:25.0	election was stolen from him.
2:26.8	And once again, right, all of these lines have no basis in reality.
	...

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