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00:00Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump both have their eyes on key battleground
00:09states today. Trump will be heading west to Arizona, while Harris will be in North Carolina
00:15to give rallies as she looks to capitalise on the momentum from Tuesday's debate that
00:20she's widely considered to have dominated. Well, the state of democracy in the US was
00:26a key question during the debate. Donald Trump often speaks in glowing terms when talking about
00:31dictators and has been running what some experts describe as an openly authoritarian campaign.
00:37Monty Francis tells us what some experts on democracy have to say about that.
00:43When Donald Trump spoke to a gathering of Christian supporters in late July,
00:47he said something that even for Trump seems so over the top and left many wondering what exactly
00:53he meant. Christians get out and vote just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more
01:00years. You know what? It'll be fixed. It'll be fine. In four years, you don't have to vote again.
01:05We'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote. Democrats said the comments signalled
01:10his plans to be a dictator, while the Trump campaign claimed he was just talking about
01:14uniting the country. Former Republican Representative Liz Cheney, who chaired the
01:18January 6th committee in Congress, has been warning for months if Trump wins a second term,
01:24he would refuse to leave office after his term expires in four years. Our nation can survive
01:31and recover from policy mistakes. We cannot recover from a president willing to torch the
01:37Constitution. Donald Trump is the first U.S. president to refuse to accept the outcome of an
01:43election, to falsely insist the 2020 race was stolen from him and to encourage his followers
01:49to contest the results, as they did violently on January 6th. Trump also has an affinity for
01:55authoritarian leaders and has said he would be a dictator on just the first day if he's reelected.
02:01Whether Trump wins or loses, experts say there are numerous warning signs that American democracy is
02:07in danger. Because the Republican Party is now an autocratic party that has election denial and
02:13corruption and lying about elections baked into it. So if the election has an outcome that isn't
02:22favorable to Donald Trump, they're telling us that they're not going to accept the results.
02:28What will happen after that, some form of violence, it would be larger than January 6th
02:36because Trump has been radicalizing his followers. But experts say the threat to
02:43democracy is broader than just Trump and point to a recent ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court
02:48as a major obstacle. The justices have effectively shielded a president from criminal prosecution for
02:54official acts, which as one dissenting justice pointed out, could even include executing one's
02:59political opponents. The Supreme Court's decision on immunity is an extraordinarily broad and
03:06sweeping one and really elevates the president to a kind of king figure, which is clearly not
03:14something that the framers would have wanted having just defeated a king. Experts also say
03:21the court has left the door open for a president to abuse his power. Trump, who is the first former
03:27president to be a convicted felon, has also suggested if he's reelected, he would use the
03:31FBI and Justice Department to indict his political enemies. Trump has dismissed all such concern,
03:39claiming it's the Democrats who are the real threat and that he's the one who actually took
03:43a bullet for democracy when someone tried to assassinate him at a campaign rally.
03:50Well, Monty Francis joins me in the studio now. It's good to see you, Monty.
03:53You too.
03:54So you just mentioned in that report that many experts considered Donald Trump a threat
03:58to democracy. How is the Republican Party under Trump preparing to contest the election results
04:05if he loses in November?
04:07Well, this follows a very familiar pattern for Donald Trump, and it begins by
04:11sowing doubt about the fairness and integrity of the election. He did that in 2016, which he ended
04:17up winning. He did it in 2020, and now he's doing it in 2024, and he's really intensified those
04:22efforts. He says things like the election is rigged by a corrupt media. It's a rigged system.
04:27He makes these kinds of accusations on a daily basis on the campaign trail. You might recall
04:33after the last election, Trump's own homeland security officials called the election the most
04:38secure election in American history. His very own Attorney General Bill Barr at the time said there
04:43was no evidence of substantial fraud, and the Trump team lost dozens of lawsuits that were
04:49disputing the results. So sowing doubt is a familiar tactic.
04:53What's different in this election cycle is that the Republican Party is already preparing to
04:59contest the results before the voting has even begun. For one thing, Trump has essentially taken
05:05control of the Republican Party apparatus. His daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, now co-chairs the
05:11Republican National Committee, which has installed a senior council for election integrity to prevent
05:18election cheating. That is a woman by the name of Christina Bobb. She is a lawyer who has been
05:23indicted in Arizona for trying to overturn the election results there in 2020. She actually
05:28faces possible life in prison if she's convicted for her part in that scheme.
05:33One of their tactics has been to file dozens of lawsuits on election rules. They filed at
05:39least 90 lawsuits in many states across the country. The outcomes of these lawsuits could
05:44happen near the election and potentially could affect the results.
05:49And what is the goal of these lawsuits? What is the RNC hoping to accomplish here?
05:54Well, so the lawsuits are mostly aimed at mail-in voting, which is the preferred method of Democrats.
06:00Just to give you an example, the RNC is suing in Nevada. So in Nevada, you can have your ballot
06:07counted four days after the election. Up until four days, there's this grace period. But the RNC
06:12wants to do away with that grace period. So in the midterm elections in 2022, tens of thousands
06:19of ballots were counted during that grace period. So if that lawsuit is successful, it would
06:24essentially disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters. And when you're talking about a race that
06:29is this close, as it appears to be between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, that could really make a
06:35big difference. But filing lawsuits is not the only tactic that the RNC is taking. There's also
06:40an effort to disrupt how the election will be certified in several swing states. Is that right?
06:46Well, that's right. I think the best example of this is what's happening in the state of Georgia.
06:49You'll remember this is a state that Joe Biden won by 11,000 votes in the last election. And
06:55Donald Trump was indicted for trying to overturn the results in that state. There was that infamous
07:00phone call between Donald Trump and the Secretary of State in Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, where he's
07:05asking Raffensperger to, quote, find 11,000 votes for him. Raffensperger refused. Now, he remains
07:12the Secretary of State, but he is no longer head of the election board there. It is a five-member
07:18board. And Republicans in the state have installed three Trump loyalists to that board. In fact, at
07:23a recent rally in Georgia, Trump called them out each by name, calling them, quote, pit bulls who
07:29were fighting for victory. Now, they are election deniers, meaning that they believe the lie that
07:34Donald Trump won in 2020, and they've already voted to change their role in certifying the
07:39results in 2024. Normally, this is a board that has no authority to block the certification. It's
07:45just a ministerial function. But the board has passed these new rules enabling members to conduct
07:50what is called a, quote, reasonable inquiry before certifying the results without defining what
07:56reasonable inquiry means, which, of course, could create a delay. It could sow more doubt about
08:02alleged fraud. And Democrats have sued to challenge this move. And Brad Raffensperger,
08:08who we should remind people is a Republican, has said these rule changes have invited chaos
08:13into the process. Now, we're seeing similar things happening in Arizona and Michigan. So,
08:18this really sets the stage for what could be a long and drawn-out fight over certifying the results,
08:25even if Kamala Harris were to win a decisive victory.
08:30Monty Francis, thank you so much for that piece of analysis there.
08:41Well,