Interesting discussion on the Stephanie Ruhle show this morning that everyone should watch, because it's about why there's no legitimate excuse to avoid dealing with state election security. Just wanted to get that out there, because that's the talking point you get when you of course call your Republican senators at 202-224-3121 to urge action on election security.
"The clip you showed about Mitch McConnell is very unnerving. I just can't believe this is the one thing we can't all agree on," Philippe Reines, former Obama aide, said.
"You can disagree about elements of it. What is most notable to me about McConnell is, he knows he runs the place so what he often does if he doesn't like a piece of legislation, he dismisses it and says here is mine. He is just sitting there saying no and stomping his feet and in no way saying, I got this other one over here. Sign number 800 that his caucus has just given up. You have people like Lindsey Graham and others, pro election security, who have gone completely silent. So the other number to go to the point of whether this even serves Donald Trump."
He points out that the number of Democrats in the House who want to impeach him keeps rising.
"If we ever get to a point where he is impeached, meaning just in the House, you can look at all these little things and say, boy. It was not smart to get into a twitter rant with the chairman of the Oversight committee. It is not smart to call Adam Schiff names when he is the head of the Intelligence committee. These things aren't smart. They might be deliberate, but they're dumb."
"Congressman, Mitch McConnell says he's claiming to be defending himself against left wing pundits. it's actually you. You are the one who called Mitch McConnell out," Ruhle said.
"Yeah, poor Mitch. Poor Mitch. Let me expose the fatal flaw of Mitch McConnell in this and I hope everybody understands this. Mitch McConnell is leading the Republicans to object to the Democrats' bill on election security because he is claiming states rights and saying states have control over election systems so there is no need for a national standard. Where that fundamentally fails is this. Our entire union was to comprised to protect against national security issues.
"When Mitch McConnell is saying this is a state's issue, he is saying this is not a national security moment for the nation when every other counterintelligence agency says it is. One thing Mueller said we can all agree on is there is urgency right now. Let's all criticize Mitch McConnell right now for saying you're failing to inject urgency into a debate over one of the most critical matters we face in 2020, which is the safety and security of our election system. He should be canceling August recess to bring up the Democratic bill on election security."
"Fact check us, Ken. Mitch McConnell says he has actually championed these bills," Ruhle said.
"I don't know where he's getting that because as these guys just said, the Democrats have a bill that would funnel $600 million to the states to help everybody transfer to paper ballots, which a bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence committee by Senator Burr, just said was required, and McConnell has blocked that. Mark Warner has a bill," Delanian said.
"Without an alternative. Mark Warner has a bill that would require campaigns to report to the FBI if a foreigner comes to them with dirt on an opponent. Susan Collins I'm told today will get onboard the bill. That has bipartisan support. McConnell has blocked that. He doesn't have an alternative.
"That's why you have Dana Milbank of the Washington Post writing a column that says, Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset and why Joe Scarborough is calling him Moscow Mitch. (Editor's note: He's now calling him 'Moscow Mitch McTreason.') It obviously got to him but he doesn't have an answer. This issue of states rights, states always want to run their elections but our nation was attacked by a foreign power and the senate intelligence report shows that states are not capable of handling this."
