The Problem with Jon Stewart (2021) s02e04 Episode Script

[audience cheering, applause]
Hey! Hey, everybody! Boom!
Welcome to show f--
-[audience member] Yeah.
Four, five of seasons. I don't know.
I'm not keeping track.
-[audience laughs]
My name is Jon Stewart
and I'm excited to announce
that the 2022 midterm election
is finally upon us.
Which means the 2024 election
is now officially underway.
I wonder what that will mean
for the 2026 midterms. [inhales deeply]
They're engineering viruses to make them
more deadly and more virulent.
No, no, no.
I promised I wouldn't talk about that.
[audience laughing]
They're going to fucking kill us all.
-[audience laughing]
Not important.
My main point is this:
Midterms, it's not just a referendum
on crime and abortion,
but on something even more central.
The most important midterm election
in American history.
It's not hyperbole to suggest right now,
democracy itself on the ballot as well.
Joe Biden is right.
Democracy is on the ballot in November.
Democracy itself is on the ballot.
You may be confused because you thought
that like Joy Behar on The View,
democracy has a lifetime appointment
in this country.
[audience laughing]
Turns out, ah, not so much.
Apparently, democracy is running again
for its second 246-year term.
By the way, I think in its first year it
defeated Chuck Grassley.
[audience laughing]
True story.
And our two current presidents agree.
-[audience laughing]
Just checking.
Insuring that our last election ever
will be free and fair,
is our highest priority.
At all costs, we must defend
the sacred integrity of our elections.
We have to protect
that sacred right to vote, for God's sake.
[crowd cheering]
Yeah, it is written
-[audience laughing]
that on the first Tuesday
of the eleventh month
in even years of our Lord,
the faithful
shall head to a little school gym
[audience laughing]
whereby battling the mildewy aroma
of puberty sweat,
they shall enter the cloister booth
and thou shall receive a sticker!
He bears the mark!
-[audience laughing]
The mark of the damned!
Yes, we must protect our sacred democracy.
Of course, each party has different ideas
about the best way
to protect the franchise.
For instance, the Democrats.
Here in Virginia,
we've expanded early votes 45 days.
Register online and on Election Day.
Automatic voter registration.
We expanded vote
by mail drop-box locations.
No excuse absentee ballots.
Make Election Day a holiday.
Let people vote
just by thinking about a candidate.
[audience laughing]
-Never end the voting.
Bisexuals get two votes.
-[audience laughing]
Of course, Republicans have
a different approach known as, "Prove it."
We need signature verification.
Require voter ID for absentee ballots.
We need to have
photo identification of voters.
Registration. You have to re-register.
You have to prove you're a citizen.
-You need to show your social security.
All same day registrants and urban voters
must jerk off in a cup.
[audience laughing]
Put it on the sink
and fill it to the line.
[audience laughing]
-If you don't fill it to the line,
that's a felony.
-[audience laughing]
Democrats expand.
Republicans verify to contract.
Both parties gerrymander.
It's two distinct approaches
to American Democracy.
And despite the partisan jockeying,
it's been remarkably
durable and resilient.
But even the best systems
are not foolproof.
Governor Bush's official lead
in Florida is 537 votes
out of nearly six million cast.
A margin of 0.009%.
In 2000 the presidential election
came down to just 537 votes
out of the six million in Florida
and over 100 million nationwide.
I don't care how meticulous
a system you build,
with margins that thin,
it will not be accurate enough
to truly trust who won.
And chaos ensued.
There were armies of bug-eyed gentlemen
-[audience laughing]
deployed to best decipher
the intentions of elderly Jews'
butterfly ballots.
"I-I thought I voted for pastrami."
-[audience laughing]
"Is this not a menu?"
Ultimately, the Supreme Court stepped in
and George W. Bush
was declared the winner.
[scoffs] And of course we all know he
went on to do a really great job.
[audience laughing]
I don't remember.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Oscar-winner, Al Gore.
While I strongly disagree
with the court's decision,
I accept it.
[chuckles] It's time for me to go.
[audience laughing]
A graceful exit in an election
decided by one state
with a margin of 0.009%
for an electoral college count
of 271 to 266.
Razor thin.
So flash forward with me if you will.
The year is 2020.
Donald J. Trump has lost by seven million
in the popular vote
[audience member 2] Whoo!
-232 to 306 in the electoral vote,
and a combined almost 300,000 votes
in the five most contested swing states.
Ass me kicking, his response.
[crowd clamoring]
And thus, the problem with elections.
Yes, it turns out the ultimate test
of a Democracy is not the vote,
but the acceptance of said vote.
In 2000, our sacred Democracy
withstood a contested margin of error
so small that we may never actually know
who won the election.
In 2020, our Democracy
remains on life support
after a run-of-the-mill electoral
and popular vote beatdown.
And 70% of Republicans
still insist Donald Trump won.
So we've now moved from
"Every vote is sacred"
to "Democracy is in the eye
of the beholder."
Trump got dumped,
so why does he think he won?
Let's check Arizona.
Maricopa County,
it appears that 143,000 illegal votes
were actually injected
into the ballot system. Think of that.
The communists have a baster
and have artificially
inseminated the vote.
[audience laughing]
In Maricopa County. Injecting it.
And reality says
The audit confirms that Joe Biden
did win in Maricopa County.
In fact, the auditors did their hand count
giving Biden, ultimately,
an even larger margin of victory.
[audience cheers, chuckles]
What say you, Michigan?
In one Michigan county, as an example,
that used Dominion systems,
they found that nearly 6,000 votes
had been wrongly switched
from Trump to Biden.
Oh, my God. That's terrible.
Reality, what say you?
A hand count of every ballot cast
for president in Antrim County,
found that the Dominions machines
used there were extremely accurate.
By the way, the ASL interpreter
was telling Donald Trump to fuck off.
[audience laughing]
Georgia. Now this-- Fucking-- [chuckles]
[audience laughing]
-This is Donald Trump.
Two months after he lost the election,
still technically president
of the United States,
on the phone with the republican
Secretary of State in Georgia,
reading aloud an email someone's
QAnon grandmother sent him.
[Trump] So, dead people voted.
And I think, uh,
the number is in-- approx--
close to 5,000 people.
Holy shit! 5,000 dead people voted.
How do you gently explain
to the still-sitting president
of the United States
how fucked up that idea is?
[Secretary of State] Well, Mr. President,
the challenge that you have
is the data you have is wrong.
The actual number were two. Two.
-[audience laughing]
Two people that were dead that voted.
And so, that's wrong. That was two.
[audience laughing]
And both of those votes
were just write-ins for
[imitates zombie] brains.
-[audience laughing]
I so admire the Secretary of the State
of Georgia
for not ending that conversation with,
"You dumb motherfucker."
[audience laughing]
All right. So none of the accusations
of fraud turned out to be accurate.
Anything else you'd like to mention
to the republican Secretary of State
in Georgia who actually voted for you?
[Trump] So, look, all I wanna do is this.
I just wanna find
uh, 11,780 votes
which is one more than we have.
Listen teach,
all I'm saying is if you take the F
and you just put a line on the side of it
[stammers] it's an A.
-[audience laughing]
And then if you put a plus right there,
then--
I'm the valedictorian is what I'm saying.
[audience laughing]
Ultimately, Trump's electoral challenges,
whether in the courts or through audits,
have shown this past presidential election
to be well-run and accurate.
And his own Department
of Homeland Security said as much.
But rather than be humbled
on the sacred altar of Democracy,
Trump and his team
were emboldened to figure out a way
around the one thing
that got in their way.
Voters.
We're going to take over
the election apparatus,
volunteer
to become an election official,
run for county clerk
and overthrow these county clerks,
take over the secretaries of state.
I can't stress enough
how important
the secretary of state offices are.
We control the election system.
What could possibly go wrong
with a vote counter
who's dressed as a magician?
[audience laughing]
What's that you need?
Ba-ba-ba-ba-bum.
11,780 votes!
-[audience laughing]
Abracadabra!
But wait, elections are generally
run by administrators.
They're partisans,
but they're not ideologues
or zealots or crazy people.
And they generally do a thorough
and credible and competent job.
And they're in those positions
for a long time.
So how you gonna get rid of them?
Threats and stalking prompt a mass exodus
of an entire elections office
in the Texas hill country.
People who are telling you they're
repeatedly gonna come hang you.
They'd have a picture of my house
and my address.
It says, "Sleep with one eye open."
One in six elections workers report
being threatened or harassed.
One in three have left their posts
because of safety concerns.
And maybe the most incredible part
of what is more than likely
an existential threat
to what's been built in this country
over the past couple of hundred years
is how not secret the plan is.
If you look at
the way they counted the ballots,
remember, the ballot counter
is far more important,
sadly in our country,
than the candidate.
[mockingly] "Uh, the candidate."
-[audience laughs]
"It's more important than the candida--"
[normal] What a playful read on a quote
often attributed to Stalin.
[mockingly] "One death is a tragedy,
but a million's a statistic."
"With the flavin'."
[audience laughs]
Take a look at this.
You know we love elections here.
Obsessed with elections.
But the truth is
-we're not that interested in
how our government works
-because
reporting on
-governance
is boring.
-[yawns]
We're more interested in
-horse races
and gossip.
-Oh, yes.
So we speculate.
Always asking
how does everything
-affect
the midterm elections?
How might the end of Roe v. Wade
impact the midterms?
Will the economy impact the midterms?
What about gas prices?
What about immigration?
Manafort, Michael Cohen
Well, you know--
-the Mullin investigation.
Could it impact the midterms?
What will voters think
of Senator Marco Rubio
hitting a kid in the face with a football?
What do the polls tell us?
Because, of course
-we don't know.
We just, sort off
-jerk off.
[audience laughs]
-So, to recap
Governance
-We don't care.
Midterm elections?
I get all civically tingly.
-Oh, yeah.
The stakes are rising.
-Oh, my God.
We're building to these big moments.
[Rick] Oh, my God! [screaming]
Excuse me. I gotta get a tissue.
[audience applauding]
[stammers]
That's why people--
That's why people keep tissues
by their desk.
So who are the people on the front lines
of ensuring our election integrity?
Being the guardrail
of not just voter fraud,
but administrative shenanigans?
Joining us today, we have Teresa De Graaf,
a republican clerk
for Port Sheldon Township, Michigan.
Virginia Chau, an independent
and part-time poll supervisor
and trainer in Denver, Colorado.
And Adrian Fontes, former county recorder
for Maricopa County, Arizona,
who is now the democratic nominee for
Arizona's secretary of state.
Welcome, everyone.
-[audience applauding]
Delighted you could join us.
Adrian
Uh, I-I-I wanna start with you.
Maricopa County is the center of this,
at least publicly,
because of how demonstrative
the Arizonans were
outside of the place
where they were counting votes.
And by "demonstrative", I mean "armed".
Well, not just armed,
but we had a moment where Alex Jones
and the Q Shaman themselves
were literally linked arm-in-arm,
yelling my name,
telling me to count all the votes.
And I wish they had been a little quieter,
'cause that's actually what we were doing.
[audience chuckles]
-So it was--
It was really, really an incredible sight
out there.
We had to put a big perimeter fence
and depend greatly on security.
We had to have folks escorting
the workers in the warehouse
back and forth to their vehicles,
um, with rifles.
Because they were armed.
-Because they were afraid
Well, you--
-of their lives. Going to their cars,
after sitting and counting the ballots
in Maricopa County by hand.
Doing a lot of the adjudication
and the other stuff that happens there.
Yeah. Yeah.
-[Stewart] Right.
Now, Teresa, y-you do this
in a very different environment.
You are an election administrator in--
How big is-- is the area
that you administrate?
W-We're typically 6,000 people,
and we have about 4,600 voters.
So you have 4,600 voters,
and I would imagine
they all know each other to some extent.
This is a small town.
It is a small town.
So what has it been like for you?
I don't imagine there's the Q Shaman
and Alex Jones showing up,
but are you feeling the pressure
o-o-of this kind of, uh, accusation?
Absolutely,
because what happens is people come in
and they challenge everything that we do.
They're challenging every process.
They don't believe that we're doing the--
following the law.
And so they're challenging
everything we do.
Every procedure.
[inhales deeply]
But you're clearly a devious person
doing this for financial gain.
-[audience laughs]
Absolutely.
-[Stewart] I mean--
I think I speak for the audience
when I say,
"We just sniffed this one out."
-[audience laughs]
But, Teresa,
these-- these are your neighbors.
Is it 2020 that just changed everything?
It is. It is. 2020 changed it.
And as people come in--
Since 2020, I feel like
I could talk people off the cliff.
And when they came in,
I could talk sense into them.
But as time has gone on,
they keep believing the lie.
And they keep believing
that what I'm doing is not accurate.
What I'm doing,
I'm not following the law somehow.
Do they believe you're in on it?
I don't know that they believe
I'm in on it,
but they definitely don't trust me,
I don't think, anymore.
[Stewart] Right.
Virginia, you're-- you're actually--
So you're in Denver.
You're an independent.
And you train poll workers.
Yes, I supervise them at the site,
and I train them.
Have you seen a change since, uh, 2020
and-and is this anything
that anybody has faced previously?
Absolutely.
First and foremost, like,
I'm, like, a normal person.
I don't do this as a full-time thing.
-[Stewart] Mm-hmm.
This is for two weeks, you know,
out of the year.
-[Stewart] Mm-hmm.
And I did it
because it's the American thing to do.
And now--
-You can say community service
to get out of going to jail. It's fine.
-Okay. [chuckles]
But it-- I mean, it's hard getting people
to want to even participate now
Mm-hmm.
-'cause we don't have protections
for poll workers
or for election-- elected officials,
like yourself here.
The normal thing would be,
we train you to get the signature,
check it, give them the thing.
And now-- Do you have to train them,
"Here's what you do if someone tries
to unplug a voting machine"?
"Here's what you do
if they show up armed"?
Is that what we've come to?
The truth is, there's no structure.
There's no training for that.
You don't know what to do
until things happen.
So-- And there's no laws in place
if, like, someone calls your name.
You know,
someone talks about voting fraud.
That's only when we can call someone,
if we have the financial resources,
to get someone down there to be like,
"Okay, let's monitor. Let's have
some police there, or some place better."
One of the interesting shifts here
is an incident we had
during the general election in 2018.
-[Stewart] Mm-hmm.
It was one of our biggest
security incidences that we had.
This is in Maricopa County?
-This is in Maricopa County, Arizona.
General election 2018.
We had a rattlesnake in the parking lot
at Pinnacle Peak precinct.
Oh, sure, I'm from Jersey. I get that.
-That was it.
[audience laughing]
But-- But that's-- That's-- The fact
that you're asking a question about,
"Do you have training about what happens
if somebody armed shows up?"
If somebody's making
actual physical threats.
That's how far we've come
in this very, very short period of time.
And that's why when we say
what's happening is dangerous
for our democracy
and literally the survival
of this republic, that's what we mean.
Are people fleeing
those administrative positions?
[inhales sharply] They aren't necessarily,
but you should see their eyes
when we train them and we say,
"This is what you need to do
in case there's an active shooter."
"This is what you need to do"
-Oh, my God.
if there's-- Someone comes in with,
um, they're actively--
We have open carry in our state,
in Michigan.
So if someone comes in--
-You talking booze or guns?
I'm talking guns. [laughs]
But not booze.
-Not booze.
But--
-[audience laughs]
[laughing]
"Hey, man. Can I bring my AR in here?"
"Sure."
-"And my Budweiser?"
"Tut, tut, tut!"
-[audience laughing]
"We have rules!"
But, Jon, I literally had a voter that
came in and got an absent voter ballot,
within the last two weeks, that said,
"We haven't voted absent voter before,
but I'm not gonna come to the polls,
because I don't wanna be-- encounter
someone with an AR on their back."
Oh, dear God.
And--
-And do they believe--
I-I'm so curious. Is it that those
that believe the election is fraudulent,
do they not understand
that there are checks and balances
within these local systems,
these county systems,
uh, these city systems,
that adjudicate
the dead people and the signatures?
That's part of this, is it not?
-[Fontes] Well, it is part of it.
Elections are the golden thread that run
through the whole fabric of our society.
You pull that thread out,
the entire thing disintegrates.
And we are on the cusp of that right now.
That's what's scary.
And that's what folks like us
and so many tens of thousands
across the country are fighting against.
-Right.
What's so interesting to me is
[stammers] Teresa and-and Virginia,
I feel like, you know,
we've out put upon you this idea
that you are now the last guardrail.
[Teresa] Mm-hmm.
-You are the-the bulwark
that's going to keep that fabric
from unraveling.
And I guess my question is,
are you getting the support that you need
to be on that wall?
We need you on that wall
a-and what kind of support are you getting
or do you feel abandoned in any way?
Well, I feel like we're getting a lot of
support with the security part of it.
Mm-hmm.
-We've had training
probably multiple times a week
in the last few weeks on security.
But our legislature in Michigan
just passed some drop box laws.
They enacted the law--
A change in the election law.
Right. And we had literally
two-and-a-half weeks
to comply with some of the drop box law
that they made.
And we have to get things certified
and we can't even do it.
So--
-And all based on a suspicion
that in no way has any evidence behind it.
Right.
-Virginia,
are they doing the same thing
in-- in Denver?
I mean, in Colorado,
I know at the Denver polling places,
people come in 'cause they feel like
they have to check in on you.
And there's no really rules in place
that you can't come in and, like, watch.
And for us, right,
it's-- it's really hard,
especially if you're a minority.
'Cause people are targeting you, you know,
as someone that's clearly not white.
You know, people come in and it's like,
"Why are you the supervisor?"
You know, "Are you a citizen?"
But, Adrian, is-isn't that what's really
undermining the credibility here?
Is by allowing these falsehoods
to metastasize,
that's what's really undercutting
election integrity.
And you're in a state where, you know,
the attorney general of-- of Arizona
is continuing these weird investigations.
The legislature wants total control
over the electoral process.
They're bringing it to the Supreme Court
and basically saying
if the Supreme Court okays it,
will of the voters be damned,
they can just
send a different set of electors.
Well, I mean, they forget
that the stool needs three legs.
There's three branches of government
for a reason. And what they're saying is,
"No, just the legislature's
the only stool that we can stand on."
And we all know how that's gonna end.
But as far as the [stammers] you know,
thi-- this is just real.
And I think one of the things that
you talk about, this thing metastasizing--
We're spending so much time
on the "whatabouterism," right?
Well, this side and that side.
There are no two sides to the truth.
Right.
-But at the end of the day,
we're talking about the survival
of the republic.
That's not a joke.
That's not unreal.
It is a heavy, heavy burden that folks
who are on the ground are carrying.
That's why we've been calling
for stricter laws
against folks who will threaten
or harass election administrators
at a local level.
-You need law enforcement in that.
You need the AGs to stand up
and not give credence to these things.
Now we do.
-Right.
Well, thank you guys so much
for being with us
and-- and having the discussion.
And I can't tell you
how much I admire the fact that--
that you guys are out there
doing the real work,
uh, to keep this thing humming along.
So, uh, Teresa, Virginia and Adrian,
no one should have to go through
the threats and harassments
that these three have,
but we appreciate you being here today.
Uh, take a quick look at this.
-[audience applauding]
[narrator] And now,
a word from the most influential
person in the history of America.
Hi, I'm Susan Sarandon.
-[audience laughing]
As you may have heard,
I single-handedly am responsible
for Donald Trump winning
the 2016 presidential election,
the fall of Roe v. Wade
and the return of polio.
Probably.
As the midterms approach,
I wanted to inform the millions
of Americans who hang on my every word,
who look to me for guidance
in all that you do,
[otherworldly voice] I release you.
[sighs]
You no longer have to do what I say.
I acknowledge, at times,
I have led this great nation astray.
I told Hillary not to go to Wisconsin.
[otherworldly voice] I release you.
It's true. I said,
"I love Timothée Chalamet,
but don't put the boy in every movie."
[otherworldly voice] I release you.
Honestly, it is just too much.
I've got cats, I've got kids,
I've got allergies, I've got another job.
Just-- [grunts]
I release you from my power.
[exhales deeply] So you are now free
to make your own decisions.
You do the work. You follow the money.
Just leave me the fuck alone.
Susan! Susan. Susan, thank God.
-Jon! Hello.
Almond butter or peanut butter?
'Cause I was gonna make a sandwich.
You can eat whatever you want, Jon.
[chuckles]
No. No, you-- you-- you tell me.
It's--
-No, no, no. It's your jars, you choose.
They're both basically the same.
[chuckles] Just choose one, Jon.
Alm--
-No, no, no.
I'm not telling you which one to do--
-Can you just tweet it?
[stammers]
-[roars]
[otherworldly voice] I release you.
-[Stewart coughs]
[sighs]
And I release you.
-[Stewart breathes heavily]
Don't fuck this up.
[audience laughing, applauding]
What the heck?
-[audience cheering]
So, we were talking about
Maricopa County in Arizona,
so, uh, we went and spoke to
Arizona Attorney General, Mark Brnovich,
who has been on the front lines of
investigating this voter fraud.
Uh, protecting state legislatures?
[stammers]
Or I-I'm really not sure what he's doing,
but enjoy.
Welcome.
-Thank you, sir.
We are talking about election integrity
-Yes.
and you have gone through greats lengths
to ensure election integrity in Arizona.
What I have done is--
I-- As the attorney general,
I always tell folks
the job of our office
is to enforce the law as it is.
And if people don't like the law,
then you can change your representatives.
And we, historically in this country,
we settle our differences
through exercising our First Amendment
rights to speak and our right to vote.
And so it's very--
it's a very sacred obligation
Yes.
-and we need to protect.
But at the same time, Jon
-Yes.
people need to have confidence
in the results.
And so, what we have seen
-Yes.
over the last few election cycles
is every time whoever wins,
Democratic or Republican
there is-- there is sour grapes
and we now are in this cycle where every
single election gets nastier and nastier
and whoever loses is claiming fraud
more and more and more.
I don't think there's any real comparison
between Trump's efforts
to overturn this election
and anything I've ever seen before
in the history of the United States.
Certainly in modern times.
-Yes, I think we all agree to that.
We all know, and I will tell you this,
I do think- I do think--
Look. I understand--
And I'm a Republican, and I know
you and I may disagree on issues,
um, but I do think it's important
how we talk about issues that matter.
And I do think people have to
have confidence in the process.
And I thought it was important, Jon.
-Yeah.
[stammers] We spent, as an office--
Legislature funds us,
they created this election integrity unit.
Yes.
-So we had run the stuff to ground.
And we went through it,
and there was reports--
All these people--
Allegations of dead people voting,
they said the former president
was talking about it.
And we looked into it.
Uh, right now we have about,
I think almost 20 criminal cases
related to the 2020 election.
Out of 4 million votes?
-Yeah-- No, I-- I'm talking in facts, Jon.
But the reality is, is there are
millions of people, not only in Arizona,
but people throughout this country,
that think the election is stolen.
There's people that believe in angels,
but that doesn't mean you launch an
investigation that angels changed ballots.
But-- but--
-Like-- Bit of a tautology.
When you have a former president
spreading rumors
Yeah.
-to his supporters.
For instance, Trump can say
"74,000 mail-in ballots received
that were never mailed.
Magically-appearing ballots.
168,000 fraudulent ballots
printed on illegal paper.
36,000 ballots
illegally cast by non-citizens."
Now, the truth is, none of that was real.
When it first came out, the Cyber Ninjas
said Joe Biden won Arizona.
Then they got a lot of pushback
and they started hedging and hawing
and then next thing you know,
people are like,
"Well, Brnovich needs to
do something about it."
And then it was, like, a hot mess--
But you've responded
by doing things about it.
What I've done is--
-You've said you're still investigating--
We've run a lot of this stuff to ground.
[stammers]
-And when you get it to ground,
will you come out and say,
"Donald J. Trump is wrong.
The election in Arizona was fair,
not stolen and not fraudulent?"
[stammers]
I've always been a straight shooter
and once--
No, once all the facts and evidence are--
[laughing]
-Jon! Jon, come on, man.
I'm telling ya, I--
You have found no evidence
that the election in Arizona
was fraudulent
or stolen from Donald Trump.
Donald Trump lost Arizona, period.
I've said that from the very beginning.
There have been isolated incidents
thus far that we've identified
Yes.
-and we are prosecuting.
We still have some active investigations
going on, but people can
draw their own conclusions.
-But on the main, there is--
No, no, people cannot
draw their own conclusions.
Th-there is--
-That's the point of the law.
Yeah, it is.
-The law is that you have facts
Right. Right.
-and you have fiction.
The fact is, the election in Arizona
was well-run, not fraudulent,
and not stolen from Donald Trump,
according to even your investigations.
I-- I have never said that it was--
Why is it so hard to just say yes to that?
I just-- I guess because I've spent my
entire-- most of my career as a prosecutor
and we still have some ongoing cases.
Let me put it this way--
-So, in your mind, you still feel like,
after all this, you're gonna discover
-No.
a concerted effort to steal the election
from Donald Trump,
and-- and that it was fraudulent.
Is that what you're saying?
No, that's not what I'm saying.
-So, why can't you say
the election in 2020
was not stolen or fraudulent?
I will tell you this. As I said--
This is blowing my mind.
-Is it really?
You can't say your conclusion
before you go through the entire process.
And that's what I said.
You and I are disagreeing
Right.
-because you think that somehow,
that makes me a weenie or that I'm--
-[laughs]
I'm entertaining conspiracy theories.
-Yeah.
If I thought there was widespread fraud
-Yes.
would I have certified the election or
read part of that certification process?
You seem like you're playing
a little bit of a double game.
I don't know if it's a double game.
-So, well--
When it's convenient,
you go to the partisan side and you say,
for instance,
as you did on Steve Bannon's show,
"We all know what happened."
-Yeah.
And you intimated that
"we all know what happened
and I'm here to tell you,
I'm not gonna let it happen again."
So what is it exactly
that happened in Maricopa County
that you're not gonna let happen again,
that was fraudulent?
Wha-- What I said in relationship to
the Steve Bannon show,
there was a lot of folks
complaining about everything going on
and we pointed out that
there was up to 200,000 ballots
that didn't have
a proper chain of custody.
And that's why, if you listen to
the whole Steve Bannon thing,
he said, "That's evidence of fraud,"
and I said, "No, it's--
People can draw their own conclusions."
What you don't want
is someone to be able to say, "Aha"
-But there are--
"These ballots didn't have
the chain of custody.
Therefore, it's fraud."
-There are checks and balances
within the Maricopa system
-Mm-hmm.
that any gaps in chain of custody
are also cross-checked
through signatures and verification,
and you know that.
It's all bullshit,
and you know it's all bullshit.
I think that elections in this country
are, in the main, run incredibly well.
I think that's fact.
But the real threat to democracy
in this country
is you have election officials
who've been threatened and harassed,
who are quitting in large number, right?
And what the legislature has done
has made giving someone an absentee ballot
that didn't ask for it a felony.
I can't tell you, our office received
hundreds, thousands of calls and emails.
I've gotten death threats.
In fact, um,
th-there's someone that just got indicted
for threatening me over the 2020 election.
So, I know what it's like
to be threatened.
I know what it's like to have people
literally threatening to kill you.
So have election officials and-- and
vote recorders and all kinds of people.
Why hasn't there been the same
hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on
criminalizing those threats to democracy
as felonies,
when all you've done is
give credence to the conspiracy theories?
I know there's been some stories
about how much time and money
we've spent on these investigations.
Look, I'm not the legislature.
When you have, um, a legislature that says
we're gonna fund an
election interrogating unit.
You have an obligation
to investigate these complaints
That's right.
-So that's the hand I've been dealt.
Right. So you're saying you just
have to do what the legislature's doing,
and if the legislature is screwy,
that puts you in a tough position.
Is that what you're saying?
-I think we can agree on that.
So it's-- it's dangerous to just allow
-[stammers]
ideological legislatures
to kind of run roughshod. Correct?
There's supposed to be
a separation of powers, yes.
So, why did you join
with 12 other attorneys general
on a brief to the Supreme Court,
to allow legislatures
to override election laws in states?
I
Maybe we'll once again
disagree with the premise
Okay.
-I'm a big believer in federalism
and, you know, Article 1, Section 10 of
the Constitution
Okay.
-No, the time, place and manner, Jon,
I know you think it's--
-Sure.
[stammers] I mean, it's-- it's--
These are ser--
It's just all conveniently lining up.
Do you understand my point?
I do.
-This all conveniently lines up
when you have a group that's not looking
to shore up the security of elections,
but to change the results to their favor,
is a bigger threat.
But all I've seen
is work in that direction
and no work in the direction of
protecting the safety of election workers,
vehemently convincing election deniers
that the evidence so far
does, uh, not support them--
No one,
whether they're an election official
Mm-hmm.
-whether they're a police officer,
no one that's doing their job in a public
service should ever feel threatened.
And we should do everything we can--
But you're not.
-I am, though.
[stammers] That's not true, Jon.
They're quitting.
-[stammers] Jon.
Look, we are doing everything we can,
You're not.
-Yeah, we are. No, you're wrong.
You're doing everything you can?
Look-- But-- We're speaking frankly.
-Yeah.
70% of Republicans in Arizona think
the election was stolen and fraudulent.
Right. But you understand
-I feel like I have a--
that's fucking crazy.
-I--
Jon, I feel like that's why I have an--
-Say it's fucking crazy.
I have an obligation--
-Just tell me that.
The point, though, is I feel like when I--
when we-- we continue
to run all that stuff to ground
Yeah.
-and demonstrate that it is--
When it's not true, we come out
very forcefully and say this is wrong,
it's not true--
-Let's say this then.
When-- when you're ready
to release the report,
when will that be? Do you know?
Sooner rather than later, I'd hope.
-Great.
Will you go out and--
and vehemently debunk all those issues?
I-- I--
-As vehemently as-- as needed.
Absolutely.
Thanks.
-Thanks for coming on.
Second to you.
-Much appreciated.
All right, nice one.
[audience applauding]
-Well, there you have it.
That's fine.
What? What could go wrong?
You know what
[groans]
Elections aren't really that important
anyway. Who gives a shit?
[audience chuckling]
For more resources, please check out
these websites that you can go to
or check out our website.
Let us know if it has any typos.
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[audience chuckling]
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We also have a podcast,
uh, that I do my own stunts for.
And now, proof that even God
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Here it is, your moment of Cruz.
Many of those volunteers, many of
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Just a few days ago,
two young kids, ages 4 and 6,
handed me two envelopes full of change.
[crowd] Aw.
All of their earnings
from their lemonade stand.
[crowd] Aw.
They wanted the campaign to have it.
That's what built this campaign,
that's what fueled this movement.
[audience applauding]
-["The Star-Spangled Banner" playing]