It’s not hard to see where this is going. We saw Donald Trump sending FBI agents to seize ballots in Georgia as a likely trial balloon. We heard his speech last week lying about China’s involvement to explain his loss in 2020. We lived through the Jan. 6 insurrection when he refused to accept the election’s outcome in an effort to stay in power. We hear him lie and whine constantly about rigged elections and repeat his big lie that the 2020 election was stolen. And he has worked energetically to strip away the election architecture and people who monitor our systems.
Do we have any reason to doubt that he and his henchmen will try their damnedest to subvert the people’s will in November? And how much chaos can they create not just before Nov. 3 but in the weeks that follow?
I reached out to security expert Miles Taylor for this new episode of Six Questions with Steven Beschloss to help explain where we are, how this will likely play out before and after Nov. 3, and how both massive turnout and prepared state officials can counteract the danger of a regime that opposes our democratic system and the will of the people.
Miles was a chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during Trump’s first term that included a focus on election security. His whistle-blowing opposition in a New York Times op-ed in 2018 and subsequent bestselling books warning Americans about the dangers led to Trump threatening him with espionage and treason last year. Rather than being intimidated, Miles launched Defiance.org to help defend democracy against the regime’s abuses of power. And while he is realistic about what lies ahead, he is also hopeful.
“I think it is as close to a guarantee as we've ever had in recent American political history that Donald Trump will contest the results if the MAGA side loses,” he told me. “Now his ability to muck up the public perception of who won and who lost is going to be dependent on how big that turnout is, how big those vote totals are. And I am hopeful that we're going to see that remarkable turnout. There is no one who's doing a better job at getting out the vote for the political opposition in this country than the president of the United States.”
Miles had much more to say in response to these six questions:
Will there be interference in the November midterms and will it effect the outcome?
What worries you the most about how he’s manipulated the election systems, disbanded groups responsible for monitoring elections, threatened to involve federal forces and worked constantly to sow doubt and undermine trust in the election process?
How secure are the election systems and why is it meaningful that the Constitution mandates the states rather than the federal government to control the election process?
Are Trump’s attacks on our elections an aberration and will we return to something more normal once he’s gone—or have they been permanently ruptured?
What is your advice for everyday citizens? What can they do to help?
How hopeful are you that there will be an overwhelming Democratic victory?
If you’ve been uncertain about America’s election security and how prepared we are to thwart the danger of an enemy within, this conversation will provide necessary information and insights. And it’s worth sticking around for the lightning round at the end when Miles offers a seriously unexpected answer for what historical figure he admires the most.
You can watch the live episodes every Wednesday night at 7PM ET. Tune in next week when I talk to activist and Moms Demand Action Shannon Watts when we dig in to the continuing tragedy of gun violence—in six questions.
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