Welcome to the beat, everyone. I'm Ari Melburgh. And we begin with reporting on two related facts

tonight. Fact number one, Republicans fear that Donald Trump's obviously widely unpopular second term is

dragging them down towards what could be a midterm loss or full-blown route. Fact number two,

President Trump's administration is now blatantly pushing these abuses of power, some of them unconstitutional, to change that trajectory, not by

actually winning more votes, which is what everyone's encouraged to do in a democracy that uses

the rule of law, but no, to change it through pressure, through government

force, through possibly illegal prosecutions of their perceived foes, not by offering a popular

agenda to win more votes. And it is that very clear contrast between where our democracy could be

headed and no one knows what I'll have in the midterms. I'm just telling you what even the Republican Party chair said that they're bracing for a loss.

That's what's happening in our actual lived democracy and the indicators we have, plus Republican

losses in November.

And then these efforts, some of them possibly on the line, possibly just sort of pushing and squeezing and testing,

and some of them, as we've told you, because we'll always keep it real and factual with you,

some of them obviously flatly unconstitutional on the other lane.

We're talking about attacks on U.S. guardrails from elections to free speech, including what we have here tonight.

This is the first time we're seeing through new body cam video.

What was clearly a troubled and chaotic scene

as Donald Trump's FBI agents went to seize ballots in Georgia.

We have the video from reporting by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The FBI approached in a way

that clearly left the local officials concerned

about not only the unusual federal raid for old ballots from a long-resolved race,

...