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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC on day one of this fall pledge drive edition of The Brian Lehrer Show. Every day on the drive, we're going to have a quiz segment. It's a game we call, Is it the truth or is it a lie, and there are prizes. If you want to try your hand, going to give out the on-air number right now. You can call up real quick and get in line. 212-433-WNYC, many of you know it, 212-433-9692. That's not our pledge drive line. We won't ask you for money. Don't come with your credit card. Just come with your brain and your heart. Here's what we're going to do in this game we call, Is it the truth or is it a lie?
Each day, since we live in this era where there are so many lies out there, some of the questions will be on our Democracy in Peril, 30 Issues theme for the day like the one we just did on certifying and vote counting. Some of the questions will be on what we hope, will be an interesting variety, a miscellany, a potpourri of other things, and yes, as I said, there are prizes. Who wants to play? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. If you get three in a row right, we'll send you our brand new Brian Lehrer Show pro-democracy tote bag. All right, who wants to try your hand? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Who wants to use your internal lie detector to see how well you can distinguish truth from lies? 212-433-WNYC. No cost to play, a pro-democracy tote as a prize if you win. 212-433-WNYC. I see Robin in Maplewood has fast fingers and is all ready to go. Hi, Robin.
Robin: [laughs] Hi, Brian. How are you?
Brian Lehrer: Good. Thank you. Is this the truth or is it a lie? Donald Trump asked the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to just find 11,000 something more votes, so Trump would win the state.
Robin: That is the truth.
Brian Lehrer: That is the truth. That was an easy one to start out. I think most of our listeners know that Trump did that.
Robin: Yes, it was.
Brian Lehrer: All right, question number two. In Georgia, in the 2020 presidential election, no human being got to actually see absentee ballots before they got counted. Is that the truth or is it a lie?
Robin: Could you repeat that?
Brian Lehrer: Yes. No human being in Georgia got to actually see Georgia's absentee ballots before they got counted in the 2020 presidential election. They just went from the mailroom, directly into the voting machines, without being vetted by human beings.
Robin: That is the truth.
Brian Lehrer: Oh, sorry, Robin.
Robin: That's a lie.
Brian Lehrer: Yes, that was a lie. Thank you for trying. We're going to go on to the next contestant. We put that in there because it's a lie. It was one of the big lie components or as the NPR station in Atlanta, WABE described it at the time, the law, "Let counties start processing absentee ballots two weeks before election day in the presence of three election officials. The ballots could be removed from their envelopes and scanned." That debunks another big lie about absentee ballots being subject to fraud. Danny in Hartsdale, you're on WNYC. Hi, Danny. Ready for a truth or a lie quiz question?
Danny: Yes, I am.
Brian Lehrer: If you vote in person in Georgia, this is going to be the last one in our Georgia set because obviously, Georgia was such a focal point of big lie conspiracy theories, if you vote in person in Georgia, you slip your ballot into a vote-counting machine, which leaves it vulnerable to being hacked and your votes switch to another candidate.
Danny: Well, I object to the question. It's a two-part question. Yes, you put your voting into a vote-counting machine, but it doesn't make it [crosstalk] [unintelligible 00:04:39].
Brian Lehrer: That's true. That's right. That's the premise. I think you're answering that it's a lie that by voting that way, by using the vote-counting machine-
Danny: That's correct.
Brian Lehrer: -you're making it vulnerable to being hacked and your vote switched to another candidate. You are correct that that is a lie. To go into that a little bit, according to the Gainesville Times from Gainesville, Georgia, printed ballots are kept for a paper trail in case there is an audit, such as a hand count, which was done with the 2020 presidential race. It's not like those ballots disappear once they go into the vote-counting machine. You're right that that was a lie. That was another lie that could have mattered to the big lie being used to steal the election.
All right, your next question. President Biden won because he flipped four states that Trump had won in 2016. That's a true fact. Biden flipped four states from red to blue. The four states were Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, and Ohio. Is that the truth or is it a lie?
Danny: I'm sorry. The four states are Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio.
Brian Lehrer: No, four states I said were Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, and Ohio.
Danny: I think it's a lie.
Brian Lehrer: You are right. That is a lie. Biden did not win Ohio. He flipped the other three Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia, but Trump held Ohio. The other state that Biden flipped was Wisconsin. All right. You are one correct answer away from winning a Brian Lehrer Show pro-democracy tote bag. Donald Trump won all of the following--
Danny: I don't understand the intent of that lie though. It just sounds like an incorrect statement to me.
Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's right.
Danny: Where does that get somebody to lie about?
Brian Lehrer: That's right. It's a true or false question. It's not a lie somebody tried to perpetrate.
Danny: Ah, okay.
Brian Lehrer: It was a lie by me.
Danny: Very good. Got it.
Brian Lehrer: One more for you. Donald Trump won all of the following states on this list. We just did states that Biden won. Donald Trump won all of the following states on this list Virginia and West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Is that the truth or is it a lie that Trump won Virginia and West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina?
Danny: At least one of those Carolinas makes it incorrect.
Brian Lehrer: You're going to say that is a lie, and I'm going to say you won yourself a pro-democracy Brian Lehrer Show tote bag.
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Danny: Unbelievable.
Brian Lehrer: Even though you got the state wrong. You didn't have to get the state right. You just had to get that it was a lie, right and the actual state on that list that Trump did not win was Virginia. He did win both Carolinas. Danny, thank you very much. Hang on. We're going to take your address off the air and we're going to send you The Brian Lehrer Show pro-democracy tote bag. Erica in Brooklyn is our next contestant. Hello, Erica.
Erica: Hi, Brian. How are you doing?
Brian Lehrer: I'm doing great. Are you ready?
Erica: Oh, yes.
Brian Lehrer: Is this the truth or is it a lie? In the blue state of New York, voters had a ballot question last year that would permanently allow mail-in ballots for anyone without an absentee ballot excuse, like illness or being out of town. That much is true. That question was on the ballot in New York last year. Is this the truth or is it a lie, despite it being blue New York, that absentee ballot expansion question failed?
Erica: That is true.
Brian Lehrer: That is true. New York state voters defeated the proposal that would have allowed no-excuse absentee voting permanently, among other things that it also defeated. All right, your next question. Arizona's Republican gubernatorial candidate, who came up in the previous segment, Kari Lake, claimed her primary election was rigged against her even though she won. Did she do that?
Erica: That is true, I believe.
Brian Lehrer: That is true. According to the Arizona Mirror, Arizona, they say, is like a conspiracy theory clinic. It says, Lake told reporters that after her victory that MAGA supporters outvoted the fraud, but she refused to provide any evidence of wrongdoing. When asked by reporters, what evidence of election fraud her campaign had allegedly seen, she responded, "I don't expect to turn you guys around." There's a story from Arizona about Kari Lake. That's two in a row. One more and you'll win a pro-democracy tote bag. Is this the truth or is it a lie, state legislatures have the final say on who gets their state's electoral votes? The state courts may. not intervene. I'll say that again. State legislatures have the final say on who gets their state's electoral votes. The state courts may not intervene.
Erica: Oh wow. Wow. I'm going to say that is, Oh, I'm probably shooting myself in the foot here. That's true.
Brian Lehrer: That is not true. That is a lie. Thank you for trying, Erica. Thank you very much. To flesh that out a little bit, this might sound a little wonky but it is actually crucial to preserving democracy post-Trump. Trump's campaign to overturn the election failed largely because he failed to convince any state courts that the votes in their states were rigged. Republicans are now pursuing the so-called independent legislature doctrine, which claims the constitution only gives the state legislatures the power to approve a presidential election result and the courts may not weigh in. If they succeed in enacting that, the elected partisans in state legislatures and we know how they be, can give themselves the final say over electoral votes.
There you go. There's Day one of, is it the truth or is it the lie? We're going to do a quiz like this every day and every day we'll be giving away some of the brand new Brian Lehrer Show pro-democracy swag. Thanks for playing. Glad we gave away a few of those tote bags today. Brian Lehrer on WNYC, much more to come.
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