Trump Has a New “Big Lie” for the Midterms
Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts
Slate Audio
4.6 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
According to Marc Elias, Dahlia Lithwick’s guest on Amicus, “This week will be looked back on as a pivot point in terms of how the midterms play out.” Elias is a nationally recognized authority on voting rights, redistricting and campaign finance law. He is Chair of Elias Law Group and founder of Democracy Docket.
In the past few weeks, Donald Trump’s election denialism has kicked into high gear, just as his poll numbers hit new lows. Elias tells us the FBI/DNI raid to seize ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, and Steve Bannon’s new threats to surround polling places with ICE officers in November, show an administration that is prototyping new mechanisms for election subversion and voter suppression. But the public has power in this scenario, especially if they start paying attention to elections and voting rights now, rather than the day before November 3rd, 2026.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Amicus Slate's podcast about the courts, the law, and the Supreme Court. I'm Dahlia Lithuig. |
| 0:13.8 | Democracy is in a foot race with itself. |
| 0:21.4 | And for those of us betting on democracy, the past few weeks have seen some heartening developments. |
| 0:26.8 | Donald Trump, sinking like a stone in the polls, the people of Minnesota taking to the streets to model civic courage. |
| 0:34.1 | Judges, putting the brakes on one vile Trump initiative after another, a flipped house seat in Ruby Red, Texas. |
| 0:41.9 | The collective exhale is almost audible, daring to dream that we can take the house in the midterms and start to staunch the bleeding. |
| 0:50.9 | In response, an unequal and opposite reaction. |
| 0:54.8 | Anti-democratic forces are replying, what midterms? |
| 1:00.7 | We're going to have ICE surround the polls come November. |
| 1:04.9 | We're not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. |
| 1:08.1 | The Republicans order to nationalize the voting. |
| 1:30.1 | It looks on its face to be fraudulent. Can I prove that? No. Well, you're going to know what the ballot is safe, because they're right now inspecting the ballot. I'm not involved in it, but they are inspecting and checking the ballot. Why is Tulsi Gabbard there? I don't know. Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by the president of the United States to oversee the sanctity and the security of our American elections. |
| 1:33.5 | They say, why is she doing it, right, Pam? |
| 1:36.1 | Why is she doing it? |
| 1:37.7 | Because Pam wanted her to do it. |
| 1:39.3 | You start to see the seizing of Alice in Georgia, And you start to see the rhetoric that we've been |
| 1:44.6 | talking about, Steve Bannon, the things that he's saying. And this is just the progression |
| 1:49.9 | that he goes through. And I think everyone needs to be really worried. |
| 1:59.3 | Donald Trump is mumbling now about federalizing elections. |
| 2:03.2 | When Trump shared a vile racist truth social post depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes on Thursday night, |
| 2:11.1 | it was embedded in a video claiming the 2020 election had been stolen based on debunked, false allegations, disproven in court |
| 2:19.1 | every single time about voting machines in swing states. Trump's Justice Department performed a raid |
... |
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