[music]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. If you follow the post-election news closely, you can find two kinds of stories about the Trump campaigns attempt to nullify the results. The first kind, the more common one, the one you've probably run into, says it's a lost cause and focuses on how few Republicans are acknowledging reality and highlighting those who are like Senator Pat Toomey, yesterday.

It's significant that he's from Pennsylvania, one of the states that Trump would have to flip. Toomey said Pennsylvania that Trump, I should say, "Has exhausted all plausible legal options in Pennsylvania," and "President Trump should accept the outcome of the election and facilitate the presidential transition process." Senator Toomey even noted in his written statement, that the judge in the Pennsylvania case that Trump lost over the weekend, the Judge Matthew Brann was "a long-time conservative Republican," Toomey wrote. Brann called the legal claims that Rudy Giuliani argued in his courtroom last week a "Frankenstein's monster".

Then there's Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, who just this summer teamed up with Rudy Giuliani to help Trump prep for his debates against Joe Biden. Christie said this yesterday on ABC This Week.

Chris Christie: I've been a supporter of the President. I voted for him twice, but elections have consequences and we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn't happen.

Brian: That's all one kind of story about where the Trump campaigns attempt to nullify the election stands. If you're a Democrat or just someone who doesn't want the end of democracy in America, you breathe a sigh of relief. But scratch below the surface and there's the other kind of story. Like this from The New York Times on Saturday, Duty or Party? For Republicans, a Test of Whether to Enable Trump. It refers to a man named Norman Shinkle, one of the four members of Michigan's Board of Canvassers, which certifies election results.

They’re scheduled to vote tonight. The two Republican members who might not, he's one of the two Republican members who might vote not to certify the election in Michigan. It could be a 2:2 tie with Norman Shinkle and one other guy holding out for what they call an audit of the votes in Wayne County, which includes Detroit. Also, they're supposed to certify the vote in Pennsylvania today, but despite what Republican Senator Toomey says, CNN says, in Philadelphia, they're going to wait until there is no pending litigation. The Trump campaign says it will appeal Saturday's ruling that called his case a Frankenstein's monster.

Since it's in federal court, by the way, they might be able to appeal it all the way up to the Supreme Court, and who knows these days, what they might do. Georgia certified its vote on Friday after a recount confirmed Biden's win. But Governor Brian Kemp says he did it in part because an audit, which is different from a recount, comes after certification. What does an audit mean in the case of Georgia? Here is Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky on Fox last week calling for an audit specifically of the county that includes Atlanta.

Rand Paul: What I've advocated for is doing a random sampling of about 2,000 people from Fulton County and actually ask them, "Did you vote?" Check on the signature, check each ballot in a way in which you were contesting whether they're valid or not. If out of 2,000 you get two or three, that's not enough to overturn the election, but if you do a random sample of 2,000 and you find 100 bad ballots, you multiply that out, that is plenty to change the election.

Brian: Well, Rand Paul on Fox last week. What is all of this picking on Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit supposed to lead to? Well, on Weekend Edition Sunday, yesterday, Ross Garber, a political investigations and election lawyer at Tulane University’s law school was asked if this is basically over yet.

Ross Garber: No, they're going to probably keep doing this unless and until some senior Republicans, perhaps Mitch McConnell says to the President, "Enough is enough," but the campaign and the President seems to have their eye on January 6th. That's an important date when Congress actually gets the results of the Electoral College. If there are multiple certifications from a particular state, say in Pennsylvania, the governor certifies one slate of electors, say for Biden and theoretically the legislature certifies another slate of electors say for Trump, then Congress has to decide what to do with it. That's, I think, the ultimate focus of the Trump campaign.

Brian: Read The New York Times, or The Washington Post, or The Detroit Free Press, watch CNN closely enough, and you know they are now trying to go around the people and around the courts even, through friendly governors and state legislatures and canvassing board members named Norman Shinkle to a friendly Congress, could be friendly, and re-install Trump. Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? We don't really know.

A New York Times headline on Saturday, as I said, was Duty or Party? For Republicans, a Test of Whether to Enable Trump. One of the thing before we bring in our guests, it's almost exclusively white people who have the power to disqualify hundreds of thousands, or maybe it's millions, I haven't really added it all up, of Black people's votes. About 65% of the Black people in Pennsylvania live in Philadelphia. That's where Trump is focusing suspicion without evidence. They might wait to certify as we report it. Black people's votes are concentrated in Atlanta and Detroit, where the focus of suspicion without evidence is too.

The people who get to decide? Well, those two Michigan State legislative leaders who went to the White House Friday, the one who controls the state senate and the other who controls the state House, both white. The two guys on the Michigan Board of Canvassers, Norman Shinkle and his colleague, who could vote tonight to delay certification of the vote, both white. The Pennsylvania State Senate majority leader and speaker of the state House, both white.

The Governor of Georgia, who Trump is looking to, to nullify the certification in that state, Governor Brian Kemp, is definitely white, just ask Stacy Abrams. Those are the three states in play. Trump needs all three of them, by the way, which is part of what makes this unlikely, but they're all white people, in fact, all white men, who are deciding whether to try to cancel the Electoral College certifications in those three states and hand the election to Congress to decide.

Maybe not since the debate over slavery and 100 years later, the debate over the early civil rights laws has the full citizenship of Black people been hanging in the balance, depending as much on the actions of a whites-only group of power brokers. Now we could say Trump is just looking to disqualify Democrats, and the cities is where the Democrats are really concentrated and those voters happened to be largely Black. He's fishing where the fish are true enough. Nonetheless, the targets of his attempt to throw out huge concentrations of legally cast votes are overwhelmingly Black Americans.

This chapter becomes the latest in the very long book of disenfranchising Black Americans through white power brokers. With us now, Washington Post national reporter, Vanessa Williams. Her latest articles include one as the votes were being counted, Black voters could save Biden’s campaign once again, and just the other day, In Georgia, get-out-the-vote operations that helped Biden win haven’t stopped. Vanessa, it's great to have you. Welcome to WNYC.

Vanessa: Good morning, and thanks for having me.

Brian: Now, campaigning continues in Georgia because of the two Senate runoffs there. You write that many view Trump's false accusations of voter fraud as racist attempts to invalidate African American votes. How do you hear that resonating in the get-out-the-vote efforts in the Senate races?

Vanessa: Well, some of the people who are on the ground, the grassroots organizers, who are responsible for rallying voters to come back to the polls in Georgia, are saying that people are angry. They see what's happening in Pennsylvania with the target on Philadelphia, in Michigan with the focus on Detroit, and even in Georgia with the focus on, as you pointed out, where most of the Black votes coming out of Fulton County, Atlanta, and they go-- They're trying to stop us, they're trying to steal our votes, they're trying to disenfranchise us and we're not going to have it.

It is seen by some as a potential rallying cry for Black voters to come out in this January runoff in Georgia for the two Senate seats. That was already going to be a high-stakes. A lot of attention there and a lot of effort to mobilize the basis on each side, but there are some who are hoping that this becomes a rallying cry to get like I said, Black voters are out to get those two seats for Democrats. Also, a lot of people find it interesting because the Trump campaign and the Republican Party were bragging after the vote about Trump having increased a little bit his support among Black people and Latino people according to the exit polls.

On the one hand, they're saying, "Hey, look at us, we're making inroads," and in the other hand saying, "Don't count those people's votes." It really is mixed message, hypocrisy, people are just really furious and frustrated and feeling like this is how the party has treated Black voters for a very long time with disdain and contempt.

Brian: I thought he was the best president for Black people since Lincoln, that's what I heard anyway. Black listeners, how is the Trump campaign's ongoing attacks on the vote counts in Atlanta, Detroit, and Philadelphia are making you feel today? Black listeners, (646)-435-7280. Does this have the ring of all of American history ringing in your ears again? Does this latest chapter in the book of targeting Black people for disenfranchisement make you want to say something publicly about racism or any aspect of what's going on while the focus tends to land on what these white power brokers in the three crucial States are saying, or what Chris Christie and Pat Toomey are saying, et cetera?

What do you want to say? (646)-435-7280. Any of our Black listeners who voted for Donald Trump, we know you've called in, in the past. Is this okay with you? What's going on in Atlanta and Detroit and Philadelphia from the Trump campaign? Call in with your comments or ask a question of our guests, Washington Post national correspondent, Vanessa Williams. Maybe you're following the Georgia runoffs, which relates to articles about? (646)-435-7280 or you can tweet a question or a comment @BrianLehrer.

Vanessa, as the Trump fraud allegations intersect with the Senate runoffs, you write that some Georgia voters maybe specifically put off, and you just said this on the air as well, by the support for the baseless charges by the two Republican senators fighting for their seats. Here I want to focus not on what the Trump people per se are doing, but on these Republican senators who were in the runoffs, David Perdue and Kelly Loffler. Are they on this particular Trump train? Have you reported on that fact? Do they see this vote nullification effort, disenfranchisement effort as part of their path to victory of the runoffs?

Vanessa: Well, I haven't directly reported on their efforts, but it appears that they are trying to have it both ways that they have come out publicly and supported the Trump campaign's efforts to stall or recount or question the validity of the vote. As you and your listeners know, they attacked the Republican secretary of state who said, "It looks like everything is on the up and up here. No massive fraud." They went off on him like, "How can you say that?" which some people found surprising and some of the political scientists in this state, as well as some of the Republican strategists, think this is not a good idea to have the party fighting among itself as it prepares to go to this runoff when you need unity.

Supposedly privately, some of my colleagues have reported, they're saying they think it's over. They just are concerned about crossing the President. One political scientist I talked to in particular, wonders to what extent this is going to not so much drive Republicans to possibly slip and vote for the Democratic candidates, but it might cause some of them to stay home, just say, "This is so ridiculous," and they don't want to be associated with these people and stay home.

On the other hand, they also might say, "Well, maybe they're not the ideal candidates, but we don't want to lose the Senate too." They'll hold their noses and vote for them. It's just really hard to say exactly what's going to happen because runoffs are unpredictable. Historically, the Republicans have done better in runoffs in Georgia because they just come back out in force. T

his time, Democrats think they have, as one expert put it, the wind behind them, the wind in their sails. They flipped the state for Biden. There's this effort to really wipe the slate clean with getting rid of Trump and supporting these senators would be a repudiation of what Trump stands for and what he's trying to do or getting rid of these two Republican senators. It's hard to say how it's going to play out but each side is hoping that what's going on will motivate and mobilize their base. We'll just have to see.

Brian: We'll just have to see. In a runoff like you're saying anything can happen.

Vanessa: Yes. Anything can happen.

Brian: It does seem that there are competing political analyses in Georgia, that you were just laying out. I would love to be a fly inside the heads of David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, as they decide whether standing with Trump is helpful to them and that we keep hearing Trump's whole fraud thing is partly designed to keep the Republican base inflamed on behalf of those senators as you were describing. At the same time, the strategy risks are bigger Democratic backlash turnout. Who knows what they're actually thinking? Please keep doing this, or please stop doing this, but publicly they're standing with him. Let's take a phone call. Doc in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hi, Doc. Thanks for calling in.

Doc: Hi, Brian, I'm a huge fan, first-time caller. I just want to say I'm furious. I'm 52 years old and shortly before I was born, my mother who held an MD at the time was forced to prove that she could read before she was able to vote. Now, we're about 55 years later, and they're still trying to disenfranchise our votes. We can go to college, we can become educated, we can hold jobs, we can raise our children properly, but we still can't vote. I'm furious about this. When does it end? What can we do?

Brian: You want to tell us more about your mom and the family history and how that sets you up?

Doc: Well, my mother is the first black woman to graduate from UPenn Med School. She was also the first person from our family to go to college. What that did was that set us up to succeed. A lot of hard work went into that. My father is white, they were an interracial couple, and they received a lot of difficulty from both sides. I don't hate white people. I don't hate anybody, but I'm tired of being disenfranchised and not being counted a full human being. It's extremely frustrating. Again, I don't know what is it that we do to fix this. I have an eight-year-old daughter, and I don't want her to deal with this 50 years down the road.

Brian: I wish I had the answer, but obviously, part of the answer is stay mobilized. Doc, thank you for your call. I'm glad you made your first time call it to the show. Please call us again. Okay?

Doc: Yes.

Brian: Vanessa, what do you want to add?

Vanessa: I just wanted to say that it's interesting that Black people who are upset like in Georgia, who are upset about what's happening, their response is to double down on democracy to say, let's go and vote and have our voices heard. Let's put faith in the process if you will, that if we show up and vote for our interests, then things will work out. I think it's really interesting that as some people are trying to apparently disenfranchise Black voters, the response is let's believe in democracy.

I would also say that in some conversations both with people I've written about and my neighbors around and about, more so people seem to think that at some point Trump will lose. Well, he's already lost, but he will go away, but he won't stop fussing and complaining and challenging. They're really sad for what that does to our democracy. It continues to chip away at some people's faith, it continues to divide people, it continues to enrage and inflame his supporters who throw that back at the other side. People are just disappointed that it's not going to be the end of the divisiveness.

Frankly, I know a lot of journalists avoid discussing it, but that frankly, hinges a lot on racism. Instead of trying to dust the flames, if you will, they're throwing gasoline on. Instead of trying to bring people together, they're using race as a wedge to separate people. Those people are denying your guy of his presidency. We got to stop them. There's just something very disturbing and disheartening to people who believe in this country, even though the country hasn't always been fair to them.

Brian: I do think it remains to be seen after presumably, this ends and Trump does have to leave the White House, that whether or not he will be this galvanizing force power broker in the Republican Party. If then, so many Republican politicians say good riddance and the media starts ignoring him, and he becomes a political has-been, like a lot of other people who get to feed it. Katie in Manhattan. Hi, Katie, you’re on WNYC. Thanks for calling in.

Katie: Thank you, Brian Lehrer. I am an old Black lady from North Carolina. I grew up under Jim Crow. Racism is in our DNA and informs everything we do. In terms of this Senate race, what we have to do is find a universal message say that shows how white people will be impacted by a Republican Senate that will bar and block everything. If that is my fear, and what the Democrats need to do is to find a universal message there.

That is, is that with Mitch McConnell in there, in charge of the Senate, he will obstruct everything positive that has to do with rescue, not just the Black people and voting rights and all the things that need to be rescued, but in terms of rescuing us from this pandemic, and that the economic fallout that is still to come. There is a power grab. It has nothing to do with the needs of this country, for Black people or white people in general. The message is that the vote for continuing a Republican Senate means to paralyze every damn thing in this country, to keep us paralized, sir.

Brian: Katie, thank you so much for your call. Vanessa, to her point, when Republicans run for Congress around the country, they often use Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, obviously, on the Democratic side, as the wicked witch imagery and they're running against Nancy Pelosi. This year, they added Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and the squad, but for years and years, it's been Nancy Pelosi. Do the Democrats run in this Georgia run-off against Mitch McConnell, as Katie mentioned, in a similar way?

Vanessa: It's interesting. The activists and strategists that I talked to say that while control of the Senate would be the secondary message in their minds that basically they want to try to make this about Georgia, and tell people that the reason we need to send these two Democrats is because you want health care. They're like about half a million people in Georgia. Georgia was one of only about a dozen states that didn't expand Medicaid coverage for poor adults under the Affordable Care Act. They're about a half a million people who don't have insurance.

Rural hospitals have closed left and right in that state, and with the pandemic, more of them are expected to close because they simply can't handle the load. It just totally disrupted the healthcare system such that it is. There are counties, and we wrote about this back at the beginning of the pandemic, counties that have no doctors, no hospitals, no healthcare, it's really crushed people in that state.

Similarly, the pandemic has also crushed economy. People didn't get stimulus help because of the roadblock in the Senate. They're hoping to focus people on these issues and say, "Look, this is why you need to send these two guys there." They happen to be guys, but these two are candidates there because it would break this logjam and get us some of the relief we need with regard to healthcare, with regard to economic-- what do you call it? Economic rescue.

Brian: Equality and rescue.

Vanessa: Well, rescue it and restore the economy after pandemic. They'd note that the governor didn't manage the pandemic well in the beginning, he didn't want to close the state and then reopened it for some things but not for others. They got into a big fight with Atlanta over wearing mask and reclosing after number surge, and Georgia always had pretty high numbers.

Hopefully, we want to focus people on that and tie the two together, but not just run about like, let's get Mitch. Because a lot of people would go like, "Mitch who?" They wanted to try to make this about what's important, what do you need?

Brian: Marlene in Rockland County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Marlene.

Marlene: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I just want to say it is painful to watch what is happening in America. I believe people need to protest or rebuke what is going on. I believe this is tyranny in the making. It is so sad. I am initially from Haiti. It is really, really painful to watch what is going on.

Brian: Are you saying that this is the omniscient of some of the presidential election stealing you've seen in Haiti?

Marlene: Yes. It is so sad to say, but it is what it is. We have to call it out and people need to protest or rebuke this shenanigan that is going on. It is a shame for the leader of the free world to do such thing. What is it are we portraying to the world at large?

Brian: Marlene, thank you so much. Erica in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Erica.

Erica: Hi, good morning. I wanted to say regarding this matter pertaining to disenfranchising Black votes in these three states. Republicans are coming out now and they're beginning to see the light. I want to know why is Tim Scott, Black senator from South Carolina, where is his voice in all of this? He must realize that he is first a Black man in the eyes of everyone. He is a Black person. If he stays silent on this issue, basically, it's encouraging this behavior by his Republican colleagues and by Trump.

Tim Scott, he needs to be upfront, saying that Black folks cannot be disenfranchised in this way. He especially should know that this is something with historical ramifications. I want to know, has anyone heard from Tim Scott? What is his opinion about what's happening?

Brian: Thank you, Erica. Vanessa, is Tim Scott, enough on your beat to have an answer to her question?

Vanessa: He is not, although it doesn't appear that he's had much to say about the outcome of-- we haven't talked to him that I can see. I did a quick search, it seems that early on, he said, "We should make sure that we investigate any irregularities," but he hasn't come out and said what the caller wants him to say. Neither has any other, except for a few senators. McConnell hasn't said anything. The party chair hasn't said anything. The Republican Party generally has not stood up and faces down.

Tim Scott, he's right. He is indeed a Black man but he's also Republican, and sometimes bad trumps-- it's a bad pun. But there are trumps in everything. People are loyal to their party. She makes a good point but I would just say that the party, in general, is still backing him. Like I said, a few senators have come and spoken up but the leadership has not, of either the Senate or the House Republicans, and at some point, perhaps they will but this has been going on throughout the last four years. People have wondered where's the party? People have hoped that some people would step in and stop this.

I think now people are hoping that circuit breakers outside of the party kick in to stop this power grab. Again, most people don't think it's going to succeed. If you look at what's been happening in the court, but the longer it goes on, and the nastier it gets, it really does erode our sense of country community, democracy and it's just not good. It just leaves a very sour pall over the country. As some of our colleagues wrote, it cripples the incoming administration at a time when it needs to hit the ground running.

These vaccine announcements are exciting but you have to figure out how to push them out, how to get them to people. You have to figure out how to get the economy cranked up again, how to get schools going and they're not cooperating. They're refusing to cooperate with the Biden team and it's just like I said to a lot of people who can't believe that this is happening in this country. There were always protections to keep us from sliding into these types of situations and I do think that's why there's a lot of concern that even if he doesn't ultimately stay in, and nobody thinks he will, it really does-- It has caused some serious and lasting damage.

Brian: It is interesting for me to see even as Chris Christie here or Pat Toomey there, says, "Look, admit it, Mr. President. We are Republicans, good Republicans, we supported you but you lost," the official Republican Party is now doubling down on his effort to flip the election results. I followed these fundraising emails that the Trump campaign sends out about one every hour, it seems like since Election Day, making all kinds of claims, "Trump really won, Biden really lost. There really was a fraud, defend the election," all of this.

Typically, they've come from Trump himself, from Don Jr, from Eric Trump, or from Pence. Over the weekend, for the first time, they started coming from Ronna McDaniel, who's the head of the Republican National Committee, who's calling on Michigan not to certify the votes when that vote takes place tonight. The official RNC is getting behind Trump on this, which they weren't as formally until now. For whatever reason, they're doing that.

We're just about out of time but since you're reporting on Georgia, you remind us in your article, and for a lot of our listeners who don't live in Georgia and don't follow Georgia, the close gubernatorial race in 2018, between Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams. That, of course, the Republican camp won, but it was very close, and in which there were fierce fights over allegations of voter suppression targeting people of color, so much so that you remind us in your reporting that Stacey Abrams never conceded the gubernatorial election of 2018 to Kemp.

Do you have any take on Governor Kemp's role today? He did certify the election results on Friday. Trump needs to flip Georgia in order to have a chance at actually nullifying the vote, but Kemp still seems to want that audit that comes after certification that keeps open a path to flipping it.

Vanessa: Well, I think they are just "humoring the president", but that even they know that there's no real plausible way to do that. I also think that given that everybody sees what's going on, that it would be really hard for them to just wholesale flip it over. Of course, you never say never, but I think it would be pretty difficult to do that. I think they're just trying to, like I said, to humor him to say, "Well, we tried to help you, but--"

Kemp might be looking down the road. He has to run for reelection in 2022 and going full Trump might not play well with some of the moderate or if not moderate Republicans in the state. Some people call them the Country Club, Chamber of Commerce Republicans who don't like that ugliness. It just seems to me that they're just trying to go along but to not anger the President too much but not get too far out of the ski so that it wrecks the party's chances.

Particularly after what happened in the general election, which saw people in the suburbs who had some white voters in the suburbs who had at times-- I'm sorry, who had generally or historically gone out of Republican now, rejecting Trumpism. I just think they're just trying to walk a fine line there.

Brian: All right, we will see. Developments expected today, later today, and tonight in all three states in play Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan. Vanessa Williams, national correspondent for The Washington Post. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your reporting. We really appreciate it.

Vanessa: Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.