Maddow: Three ways Trump is trying to rig the 2026 midterm elections

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Thanks, Joan Holmes, for joining us this hour.

Really happy to have you here.

In the United States, the work week is Monday to Friday.

The weekend is Saturday and Sunday.

In Israel, Sunday is a workday.

The way they do their work week in Israel, Friday is a short day.

Saturday is off, but Sunday is the start of the work week, generally speaking.

Except for this Sunday, yesterday, it was not the start of the work week.

Did you see the size of the protests there this weekend?

The families of hostages still being held in Gaza called on Israelis all over the country to protest yesterday on Sunday.

Again, that's the start of the work week.

Because it was the start of the work week, they also called on schools and businesses all over the country to close yesterday.

Essentially, a general strike, a nationwide work stoppage.

And people did that all over the country.

Everything was shut down.

People marched all over Israel against their own government, demanding an end to the war in Gaza.

There were protests and marches all over the country yesterday, in some cases angry ones.

In some cases, people set fires and blocked highways.

It all culminated last night, Sunday night, in an absolutely massive protest in Tel Aviv.

Organizers say they had a turnout of nearly 500,000 people in Tel Aviv last night, all demanding that Israel end the war, bring home the hostages and end it.

I mean, just for context, if they got 500,000 people, that size of a crowd in that size of a country,

if you adjusted for population, that would be the equivalent in our country of 17 million Americans all turning out at once to protest in one place.

Right?

That's what a crowd of that size means in a country with that size population.

Here in the United States, since Trump has been back in office, we haven't had 17 million people all in one place.

I don't even think that is sort of possible in physics terms.

But we have already had more than 5 million Americans turn out to protest him all at once on some of the biggest days of protest against him.

As Trump continues to arrogate all government power to himself, as his popularity drops further and further with the American people, as he increasingly uses physical force to try to cow and hurt people in this country and the American public really don't like that.

The pace of protest against Trump appears to be picking up.

here again now too.

USA Today reports today that this summer the number of protests against Trump hit an all-time high higher than anything he saw at any point in his first term, higher than anything since actually the huge outbreaks of thousands of protests we had in the summer of 2020 over the police killing of George Floyd.

A professor at Binghamton University who studies protests and mass mobilization says that what we've seen against Trump thus far may just be the beginning, in part because of Trump's decision to send soldiers into U.S.

cities.

Quote, I would say that using the military for civil control is a real wildcard here.

Quote, in many cases, the move to authoritarian kinds of tactics will actually bring out more protesters.

Yes, I can see how that might work.

And as of right now, Washington, D.C.

is certainly showing that.

Ever since Trump announced his military takeover of Washington, D.C., people in that city have been protesting every single day.

On the first day that Trump announced that show of force in our nation's capital, people marched through the streets that first day chanting, among other things, danger, danger.

There's a fascist in the White House.

They carried signs and a giant banner that said Trump must go now.

Local DC residents also turned out on behalf of a grassroots group called Free D.C.

quote, DC is our home.

Trump can't have it.

That particular rally ended with people chanting, I believe that we will win.

I believe that we will win.

I believe that we will win.

I believe that we will win.

I believe that we will win.

I believe that we will win.

I believe that.

The very next day, protesters unfurled a giant banner along an overpass above 16th Street, which is a central thoroughfare to the White House.

It said, be brave,

demand democracy.

On the other lane there, it says, resist tyranny.

By the middle of last week, bystanders were turning out at all these

militarized checkpoints that Trump has set up around the city.

Crowds chanting, get off our streets and take off your mask.

By the following morning, there were more protesters outside the White House carrying signs like, the criminals are in the White House, not the streets of D.C.

As of Friday afternoon, there was yet more local residents showing up in droves at, among other places, the city's police headquarters after they learned of Trump's effort, a now failed effort to try to name a Trump administration official to be head of the D.C.

police.

A federal judge put a stop to that.

At a National Women's Soccer League game that night, there were over 10,000 fans there watching their home team, the Washington Spirit, during the gate and they chanted free DC, free DC.

Following morning, on Saturday morning, the weather was super, super hot in Washington, but D.C.

still turned out in big numbers, taking over the streets from DuPont Circle to the National Mall,

including passing all the military vehicles and full uniform National Guard troops that have inexplicably been deployed there by the president.

Once again, they held signs that say free DC.

Some people also showed up in costume, despite the heat.

This guy dressed up like Donald Trump, holding a sign that says, fascism wears diapers now.

The look on the cop's face next to that sign is somehow a perfect set of bookends there.

Day after day after day after day, the president's military takeover of DC has been met with direct action in these really big protests, like the one we saw on Saturday, also in smaller ones as well.

This was an activist in D.C.

yesterday out in front of the National Guard vehicle.

Her sign says, what Trump order won't you obey?

And, you know, I don't know if it's related or not, but I think Americans just really don't like being threatened with their own military.

And maybe that's the reason why two of the other U.S.

cities that had really big protests against Trump this weekend were two other U.S.

cities where Trump has threatened that he's going to send the troops next after D.C.

The city of Chicago, for example, had a really big protest against Trump this weekend after Trump threatened to send the U.S.

military into Chicago after he gets through D.C.

Same goes for the city of Oakland, California, which Trump also threatened.

People in Oakland turned out in big numbers to protest against Trump this weekend.

But there were anti-Trump protests.

There were fight the Trump takeover protests this weekend all over.

Here's Dallas, Texas, and Boston, Massachusetts, and Santa Clarita, California, and Raleigh, North Carolina.

Here's big protests in Tucson, Arizona, and in Tracy, California, and Tyler, Texas, and

Waterford, Connecticut.

Here's San Diego and San Rafael in California.

These were all this weekend.

This was back in Washington, D.C.

today, as Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived at the White House to try to clean up the absolute mess President Trump made in Alaska on Friday when he met with Vladimir Putin and literally applauded for him while he bounced up and down like a child.

Trump gave up his own demand for a ceasefire in Russia's war, just 180 degrees, reversed himself in exchange for nothing from Putin, and then he unilaterally acceded to Putin's demand to have Ukrainian territory given to him?

As if that's Trump's to give away?

It's never a good sign when you come out of a hastily arranged summit like that, and the paper of record in your country describes it this way, quote, even in the annals of Mr.

Trump's erratic presidency, the Anchorage meeting with Mr.

Putin now stands out as a reversal of historic proportions.

Quote, critics compared it to the 1938 conference in Munich, when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain surrendered part of Czechoslovakia to Germany's Adolf Hitler as part of a policy of appeasement.

Former British Prime Minister Boris Boris Johnson, himself once considered the Trump of London, called the Alaska Summit meeting, quote, just about the most vomit-inducing episode in all the tawdry history of international diplomacy.

Yes, not exactly rave reviews, Mr.

President.

So today with protesters outside the White House showing support for Ukraine and criticizing Trump, and you see that guy holding the 1939 sign there, People holding signs referencing the disastrous consequences of Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930s.

Today, President Zelensky arrived from Ukraine, not alone.

Flanked by the Prime Minister of Britain, the President of France, the Prime Minister of Italy, the President of Finland, the NATO Secretary General, the President of the European Commission, and yes, the current Chancellor of Germany, because the world has evolved far enough and fast enough that Germany itself is now on the side of the countries that remember the catastrophe of appeasement, even though they were the ones back then who were appeased.

The European leaders, even the Germans, understand instinctively that trying to appease and please a dictator into please being nice

is,

you know, it's a great way to reduce a continent to ashes.

But it doesn't accomplish much else.

European leaders were there at the White House today to backstop President Zelensky, to try to stop Trump from doing any more harm than he has already done in the past few days.

The German chancellor said, for example, today, that this demand for Ukraine to give up the Donbass region would be like someone demanding that the United States give up Florida.

Maybe Trump can understand that.

We've got much more coming up this hour about the disastrous handling of this mess at the Trump White House and whether additional harm was done today, including when Trump interrupted his meeting with these European leaders to make a call to Vladimir Putin right in the middle of his meeting with everybody else.

Seriously, he did that.

But we will have more on that coming up in just a few minutes.

The people protesting against Trump for him botching the situation with Ukraine and Russia, those people outside the White House today are in crowded company.

If you look at the latest approval ratings, the latest polling, national polling on this issue, the latest latest Pew poll that's just out asked, asked this question, for example, quote, how confident are you that Donald Trump can handle the war between Ukraine and Russia?

Americans say they are not confident in Trump's ability to handle the Ukraine-Russia war.

Americans are not confident in Trump's ability to handle that matter by an 18-point margin.

He is 18 points underwater on his handling of Russia and Ukraine.

That said, the whole pew poll on what Americans think right now about President Donald Trump is just one thing after another that's that bad or worse.

Are you confident in Trump's ability to handle things with Iran?

Not confident by a 12-point margin.

Are you confident in Trump's ability to make wise decisions when it comes to global energy issues?

Not confident by an 18-point margin.

Are you confident in Trump's ability to work effectively with our allies?

Not confident by an 11-point margin.

Are you confident in Trump's ability to manage our policy toward China, our relationship with Canada, our relationship with Israel?

No, no, and no.

Not confident in any of those things.

Do you approve or disapprove of Trump's tariff policies?

Oh, Americans disapprove of Trump's tariff policies by a 23-point margin.

How confident are you in Donald Trump's ability to make good decisions about foreign policy?

Not confident by a 14-point margin.

How confident are you in Donald Trump's ability to manage the executive branch effectively?

Not confident by a 15-point margin.

All in all, what effect is Donald Trump having on the way the federal government works in Washington?

Americans say,

he is making things worse by a 26-point margin.

Americans say he is making everything in Washington worse, not better.

Would you use the word honest to describe Donald Trump?

No, by a 26-point margin.

Would you say Trump is a good role model?

Americans say no, by a 41 point margin.

This is a nice one.

Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Trump administration is handling information related to the government's investigation of Jeffrey Epstein?

70% disapproval on that one.

70% disapproval.

Tonight, Fox News is reporting that the deputy director of the FBI, a former podcast host named Dan Bongino, is effectively out of his job.

He is the FBI deputy director.

They are adding another person with that same job title to the FBI to be co-FBI deputy director with Dan Bongino.

So you tell me what that means about whether or not Dan Bongino is out of a job.

Bongino, of course, has reportedly objected to the Trump administration's efforts to block the release of records related to Jeffrey Epstein, both before and after it was reported that FBI agents were assigned to redact Trump's name from the files related to Epstein's case.

Bongino, a reported critic of the administration's decision on this matter, somebody who has confronted reportedly, Attorney General Pam Bondi on this issue,

among other things.

MSNBC has not confirmed this reporting tonight from Fox News, but again, the Fox reporting tonight is that Dan Bongino is effectively out.

He has had somebody else given his same job title after he reportedly clashed with the White House and Attorney General Pam Bondi over the administration's efforts to suppress the material about Epstein that it holds in its own files.

Tomorrow is the deadline by which Pam Bandi's Justice Department is supposed to hand over Epstein-related materials to House Republicans on the Oversight Committee.

The Republican chair of that committee says the DOJ will not meet that deadline tomorrow, but they will start handing some stuff over later soon.

Okay, we'll see.

But you know, with 70% of the country disapproving of Trump's handling of the Epstein matter,

perhaps it is mathematically inevitable that the overall popularity of this president continues to plummet.

His support with the American people just continues to drop to, I think,

levels that we could not have foreseen at the start of this second presidential term.

Trump's overall approval rating right now is underwater by a 22-point margin.

By 22 points, Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president.

And this is something we're seeing more and more of.

If you look inside those numbers, the country, it turns out, is not just turning against Trump, it's hardening in its turn against him.

And what I mean by that is, if you look at just the minority of Americans who say they do approve of Trump, the proportion of Americans who say they strongly approve of Trump is 27%,

whereas the proportion of Americans who say they strongly disapprove of him is 47%.

I mean, we haven't seen numbers that low for Trump's approval overall.

We haven't seen numbers that low for people who strongly approve of Trump since right after January 6th.

I mean, nearly half the country now describes themselves as strongly disapproving of Trump as president.

The number of people strongly disapproving of him is 20 points higher than the number of people who say they strongly approve.

The country is really against this president by large and increasing numbers with increasingly strong feelings against him.

And I think the average authoritarian doesn't much like the idea of elections in general, but I think an authoritarian-minded leader with public approval numbers that disastrous, heading south that fast, might particularly dislike the idea of elections right now, like right now in America, this year.

Here's a look at Austin, Texas, this weekend.

Thousands of Texans protested this weekend at the Texas state capitol over what Trump is trying to do to change congressional district maps so Democrats structurally cannot retake control of Congress.

They held signs like Texans against tyrants and why are we drawing maps for Trump instead of for Texas?

Texas Democratic state legislators did come back home to Texas today.

They had left the state to try to stop the legislature from convening

so that Republicans couldn't change the maps the way Trump had told them to.

When the Democrats came back today, Republicans tried to force them to sign consent forms that would allow the assignment of a state police officer to each Democrat.

to follow each and every Democrat in the legislature everywhere that person goes, 24 hours a day, seven days a a week.

They're not assigning law enforcement officers to these Democratic state legislators as bodyguards.

They're assigning them as minders to monitor the location of these Democrats 24 hours a day so as to be prepared to arrest them at any time.

State Representative Nicole Collier of Fort Worth refused to sign this consent form.

And because she would not consent to having a police officer following her around and monitoring her 24 hours a day.

Texas House Democrats say she is now effectively being held on the House floor, on the legislature's floor, indefinitely.

She's been there all day and she is there right now.

She apparently is not being allowed to leave.

She says she will stay as long as necessary, but they're not letting her go without signing this permission slip for a permanent cop to be on her all day long.

Democrats, Texas Democrats say she is being, quote, detained as a political prisoner on the Texas House floor.

Texas Republicans have closed the public galleries in the state legislature so the press and the public can't get in there to see what's happening.

Some of her Democratic colleagues, other state Democratic legislators, have apparently returned to the House floor to sit with her in solidarity.

We are not sure where this is going tonight in Austin, but we're going to keep eyes on it as the night goes on.

And we will be talking later on this hour about how this gambit in Texas and Trump's new threatened executive order saying he's going to try to ban mail-in voting and force states to comply with his election-related orders from the federal government.

We're going to talk tonight about how that all fits into what is really starting to seem like a concerted multi-part effort by Trump

to call into question whether we really are going to have midterm elections next year.

And if we do, whether they will look anything like what we have come to know as elections in this country.

We are seeing him move on at least three fronts right now to call into question the existence or the character of the 2026 elections.

And

consolidating the power of the government all in one person,

using force

both performatively and practically against the population, including secret police and black site prisons, and now military force against the civilian population, allying our country with dictatorships and against democracies, defying or ignoring court orders.

Like, this is the story of Trump's second term in office thus far.

And of course, it's all part of one story.

It's what authoritarian leadership looks like the world over.

It's a story that the American people really palpably don't like, which you can tell both from the protests and from the opinion polls about what Trump is doing and how the public feels about him.

But you know what?

That lack of confidence, that distrust and distaste by the public for what Trump is doing,

it only goes so far if we lose the fundamental ability to replace our leaders by voting them out.

If we lose the ability to vote our leaders out in elections,

public opinion will never matter again.

So we've got more on that ahead tonight.

We've got eyes on this breaking news out of Texas.

We've got more on the Ukraine debacle at the White House today.

Stay with us tonight.

We've got a lot to get to.

Stay with us.

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On his flight to Alaska on Friday, President Trump declared that if he did not secure a ceasefire in his talks with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, he was, quote, not going to be happy.

Trump said that there would be, quote, severe consequences if a ceasefire was not agreed to.

Hours later, Trump got back on Air Force One after the meeting with no ceasefire, but also

no consequences.

Not only no severe consequences, but no consequences consequences for Putin of any kind.

Trump stumbled into that Alaska meeting on a wave of chaos and incompetence.

A week and a half before the Anchorage meeting, Trump's real estate friend,

termed special envoy Steve Witkoff, met with Putin yet again.

For what is this, like the fifth time?

After Witkoff's big happy, happy meeting with Putin, Trump posted that it had been, quote, highly productive and great progress had been made.

Trump then called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders with the good news out of Steve Witkoff's meeting.

Apparently, Witkoff reported back that Putin was willing to withdraw his troops from some of Ukraine.

Wow.

Are you sure, Steve?

Did you definitely get that exactly right?

Did you get it in writing?

Did you get it in English?

According to the German tabloid build, Steve Witkoff, however, he got

that information,

he got it backwards.

He, quote, misinterpreted.

Putin was not offering to withdraw Russia's troops from Ukraine.

He was demanding that Ukraine withdraw their troops from their own country and give it to him.

Witkoff reversed himself in his explanation in a call with European officials the next day.

He finally cleared it up, I think, on yet another call the day after that.

Oops.

Why does Steve Witkoff meet with Putin all the time again?

What are those conversations for?

The chaos continued at the Alaska Summit.

On Saturday, NPR reported that some random person found these documents sitting on a public printer at a hotel in Anchorage.

These are apparently made by U.S.

diplomatic staff.

They include the exact movements of multiple officials, including the president, non-public information, the phone numbers of government employees, lots of plans for the luncheon to be held in honor of His Excellency Vladimir Putin.

To give you a sense of how Russia felt about how well the Alaska summit went for them, the Russian state media outlet RT released this video today, purportedly showing an armored vehicle driven by Russian troops flying two flags, one Russian, one American,

as in Russia is now making war against Ukraine using the power of the United States of America.

Russian state media has been gloating about the Alaska meeting ever since it was announced, particularly about Trump greeting Putin at the airport in Alaska with a literal red carpet.

Today in Washington, D.C., Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a host of European leaders at the White House.

And while Trump in Alaska gave Putin like weird little claps of excitement as Putin walked toward him and he gave him a big handshake and a big personal greeting in Alaska, today at the White House, Trump set a White House staff member, he sent a White House protocol chief outside to greet the European leaders who traveled in support of Zelensky.

Because one of them is Vladimir Putin and the other ones are supposedly our allies.

That's how the Trump administration has been handling this ongoing, disastrous international crisis.

Tonight, Trump has obviously proclaimed this new series of White House meetings to have been a success.

Given what we have seen so far, who knows what to expect over the next couple of days.

Joining us now is Michael McFaul, former U.S.

Ambassador to Russia.

Mr.

Ambassador, it's always great to have you with us.

Thank you for being here tonight.

I've been really interested to hear your thoughts coming out of today's meeting and how you think it went today.

Well, first, we need to start with Alaska.

That was one of the most disastrous moments for American diplomacy that I know of in my lifetime and maybe in the history of our country.

We treated this imperial dictator, this indicted war criminal, like he was one of our best allies.

And there was no reason to do that.

We should never do that.

We have to meet with dictators from time to time in diplomacy.

Most certainly I did, but you don't have to check your values at the door.

And then it was made worse in that there were no results.

that were good for American national interests or the interests of our allies or President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people.

And it was made even worse on top of that.

And Putin convinced Trump of his talking points, including what you just talked about, this idea, this absurd idea that Ukrainians need to leave where they are in Donbas and liberate their own territory, their own country, so that Putin can annex it.

Today was Recovery Day.

here in Washington.

And thank goodness our allies were there.

I think that really set a different tone to have them all there.

They were proposing new ideas, including getting back to this ceasefire idea that Trump so quickly abandoned, talking about children that had been kidnapped.

That's good that that's on the agenda.

But let's be clear, there has been no

real steps towards peace yet.

Putin has not changed his position one iota since February 2022.

Looking at these leaders at the White House today, seeing President Zelensky there with this phalanx of European leaders there to support him, it really felt like they were there to stop President Trump from doing more damage,

from doing more of what Putin wants.

Is there anything positive that could come out of this meeting in terms of what happens next?

I hear you when you're saying that it's good that there are some items that are newly on the agenda, particularly the abduction, the kidnapping of Ukrainian children, for example, or something that Trump's never addressed

before that I know of.

In terms of what happens next, if they're talking about a trilateral meeting, talking about getting Zelensky and Putin together.

What could the U.S.

achieve going forward that would be in advance?

Well, I'd say two short-term things.

One, they talked about security guarantees today,

perhaps even European soldiers being in Ukraine.

It's a NATO-light security guarantee.

I think having Ukraine in NATO would be better.

But that is progress.

Now, the Russians already rejected it today and didn't say they would do that, but that is a necessary condition of any long-term peace deal.

When you hear land for peace, the Ukrainians want to focus on the peace part, not the land part.

But secondly, yes, there is conversations about a meeting with Putin, and President Zelensky has been for that for many, many months.

He's not afraid to sit down with Vladimir Putin.

It's the Russians who have been dragging their feet.

But there was some optimistic reporting that maybe that meeting might happen, either a bilateral meeting or maybe even a trilateral meeting with President Trump.

Former Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul.

Mr.

Ambassador, it's really good to have you here.

It has been really nerve-wracking these last few days watching this sort of ongoing catastrophe.

If today was Recovery Day, as you say,

I'll look forward to having you back to talk about making up some of that lost ground.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Much more news.

You're going to head here tonight.

Stay with us.

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People showed up in big numbers in Austin, Texas today, cheering Texas Democrats as they returned to the state amid a huge Texas fight that has huge national implications.

Texas has been at the center of this extraordinary demand by President Trump that Republican-controlled states like Texas should draw new congressional districts in an effort to effectively guarantee Republican control of Congress for years to come.

And it really is not just Texas.

Vice President J.D.

Vance flew to Indiana last week to put pressure on the Republican governor there to also rig the Indiana maps for the Republicans.

Politico reports that the White House has been talking with Republicans in Missouri and New Hampshire and South Carolina and Florida to try to get those states to all rig their congressional maps as well.

So that's one thing he's trying, demanding changes to congressional district maps to essentially make it structurally impossible for Democrats to control Congress again, using Republican-controlled states to do it.

That's one thing he's trying.

Here's a second thing he's trying.

Trump also appears to be trying to sort of establish a pretext

for nullifying or delaying or not paying attention to the results of the midterm elections everywhere next year.

He's doing this by demanding a new census, saying the old census shouldn't count.

Now, the census census and elections might sound like different things, but the census is how we get congressional districts.

And if Trump can effectively nullify the existing census by blaming the counting of immigrants or something,

By doing so, he will lay the ground for claiming that all the existing congressional districts in this country, which all only exist because of that census, he's laying the groundwork for claiming that those congressional districts are all somehow bad and they can't be used.

And therefore, we can't have congressional elections using the congressional districts that we thought we have.

So that's two.

It's another thing that he's trying.

Well now there's a third.

Trump has a new idea for

bollocksing up the midterm elections and it's an idea that he says he got from his

best friend, the guy he once said he wanted to be his best friend.

On Friday, President Trump held a summit in Alaska with Vladimir Putin.

Immediately after that summit, Trump said Putin gave him some advice on how to conduct elections here in our country.

Trump said

Putin says that people shouldn't be allowed to vote by mail.

He says he got that idea from Putin.

And so today, Trump says that he will sign an executive order barring Americans nationwide from voting by mail and potentially banning voting machines as well.

Now, I would caution you, again, as always, to watch what he actually does here and not just what he says he is going to do.

But if Trump is essentially taking tactical advice from the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, about how to hold something that looks like an election but isn't actually an election,

as an answer to the existential question for American democracy, this is a little bit on the nose, right?

Here's how historian and journalist Garrett Graff summed up what's at stake.

He wrote today, quote, this is step one on how we lose free and fair elections.

It's not that Trump will cancel the midterms.

It's just that everyone has to vote in person and urban downtowns will be filled with ICE checkpoints and intimidating National Guard troops to, quote, double check that only citizens vote.

Will we retain

the right to replace our leaders by election?

Joining us now is Garrett Graf, journalist, historian, and author of the brand new book, The Devil Reach Toward the Sky, an oral history of the making and unleashing of the atomic bomb.

Mr.

Graf, thank you so much for being with us tonight.

It's a real pleasure to have you here.

Thanks so much for having me.

Let me ask first of all about the sort of premise that I just laid out there in my introduction.

I feel like I'm seeing three different

lanes, three different tactics by which Trump is trying to call into question the normalcy and to sort of change expectations around the 2026 midterms.

Do you think that's fair?

Do you disagree?

I absolutely agree.

And I think that what you're doing is key to understanding this, which is I think too often we think of sort of Donald Trump being crazy over here, being crazy over here, and being crazy over here, and that they're not related to some sort of larger plan or effort.

Whereas I think what we are seeing is this roadmap for how our country loses free and fair elections, which is I have never been one to believe that Donald Trump's going to cancel the midterms or cancel the 2028 presidential race.

Russia, as we know, has elections.

Saddam Hussein was elected head of Iraq when he was dictator there.

Instead, what I think we are watching is subtle and not-so-subtle efforts by Republicans across the country, including in the White House, to change who gets to vote, how they vote, and subtly shape the electorate for 2026 and 2028 such that Republicans can lock in an illegitimate minority rule.

That, of course, proceeds in parallel with Trump's years-long effort to try to normalize the questioning of otherwise normal election results.

So if you are narrowing, as you say, the number of people who can vote and the means by which people can vote, and you have normalized this idea that election results are inherently suspect and shouldn't be trusted if they don't favor Trump and his causes,

that stew

gets pretty toxic pretty quickly whether or not elections are canceled.

I mean, you get,

I guess the question is

where you see the line being drawn as to whether or not elections still count as free and fair once you're playing in

these sorts of categories.

Absolutely.

And I think you also need to fast forward through some of the developments that we're we're seeing this year.

You know, the hiring of 10,000 new ICE officers represents a sort of super-empowered professional thuggery in cities across the country where federal law enforcement has been a light, if any, presence.

You know, we have armed National Guard troops headed from red states into blue cities right now,

just as they did in Los Angeles earlier this spring.

You don't need to discourage all that many people voting in all that many places across the country to radically reshape national politics.

Journalist and historian Garrett Graff, I really appreciate your thinking on issues like these and your clarity in the way you bring history to bear on this stuff.

Thanks for talking with me about it tonight.

I appreciate it.

Anytime, Rachel.

All right.

When we come back, we are going to hear from the Democratic Texas lawmaker who I mentioned at the top of the show.

This is a dramatic and unfolding situation that's happening right now inside the Texas state capitol.

Her Republican colleagues are not allowing her to leave, physically leave, the floor of the House without agreeing to let a cop escort her 24 hours a day to monitor her location and potentially arrest her.

We just spoke with her as she is camped out right now on the floor of the Texas legislature.

We'll hear from her next.

Stay with us.

Here is the thing.

I mentioned at the top of the show a remarkable situation that is unfolding right now at the Texas state capitol.

As you know, Texas Democrats have been out of the state staying away from Texas, so the legislature couldn't convene, so Texas Republicans couldn't redraw the state's congressional maps, essentially to try to create permanent Republican rule in Congress in Washington.

The Texas Democrats have been fighting it, but they returned to the state today.

And when they got back, Texas Republicans told their Democratic colleagues that each of them would have to sign a form, a consent form that would allow the assignment of a police officer to each Democrat.

One police officer to follow each Democrat everywhere they go 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

And this would not be a bodyguard.

This would be an armed police minder who keeps track of each Democrat's whereabouts and can arrest each of them at any time.

Which seems bananas.

Texas State Representative Nicole Collier of Fort Worth refused to sign that consent form.

And as a consequence, apparently Texas Republicans are not allowing her to leave the House chamber.

Texas House Democrats say she is being held on the House floor indefinitely.

Again, Texas Democrats say Representative Collier is not being allowed to leave.

They say she is being, quote, detained as a political prisoner on the Texas House floor.

Now, again, this story is unfolding.

It's developing as we speak tonight since we've been on the air.

Just moments ago, Rachel Maddow Show producer Andrew Joyce was able to reach Representative Collier by phone inside the Texas state capitol.

Listen.

Today,

a quorum was established in the Texas House

so that they could continue to do

the business of the House.

Once that quorum was restored, the speaker made an announcement and said that any Democrat who had denied quorum would only be allowed to leave the building if they signed a permission slip,

agreeing to be under the custody and control of DPS.

I refuse.

I've just had enough.

I've had enough of this bullying tactics that they use

against those

who are part of the minority party in terms of being the Democrats.

They just continue to bully us and

run over us.

And this is just more of their exercise of power and authority over our

ability to challenge them.

I mean, I've just had enough.

I just said,

why would I agree to this?

Why do I have to continue to be subject to their control?

And so I've had enough, just like the American people have had enough.

of the Trump takeover and the harmful policies that they've passed in Congress.

I'm not going to be part of that process that gives him more reinforcement to harm my community and my people.

This is just one little petty way of showing that they have the upper hand, but they didn't realize that I'm just as stubborn as they are and I'm refusing to back down.

I will not allow you to put my people down

without a fight.

I'm just as stubborn as

they are.

I will not allow this without a fight.

I've had enough.

I've had enough.

Why would I agree to this?

That is State Representative Nicole Collier of Fort Worth, Texas, speaking to us tonight, just moments ago from the Texas state capitol.

She is in the Texas state capitol because she will not sign a permission slip that Texas Republicans are demanding, a consent form allowing for a police officer to be assigned to her 24 hours a day.

Republicans trying to do that to every Democrat in the state so that there is a constant threat of arrest and state monitoring of all of these Democrats.

Again, State Representative Nicole Collier of Fort Worth refusing to do it.

She's inside the state capitol tonight.

And we don't know how long this is going to go on.

We'll keep you posted.

Stay with us.

All right, that's going to do it for me tonight.

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