Brian Lehrer: It's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning everyone. Just five days to go before the electoral college is scheduled to vote in the presidential election disputes have only now made it to the US Supreme court. This is what President Trump wanted. He retweeted a doctored photo someone created of justice Amy Coney Barrett that looked like lasers were shooting out of her eyes. He tweeted that just yesterday, but last night the court denied the lawsuit to throw out Pennsylvania's result.

It was a terse one-line denial with no dissent noted, but it's not over yet. The attorney general of Texas has filed a suit in which basically Texas asked the Supreme court to throw out the election results in four other states. Of course, they are Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. The court has given the force state defendants until tomorrow afternoon to respond.

We'll talk about that in more now with Susan Glasser who writes The New Yorker Magazine column called Letter from Trump's Washington. She will almost certainly have to rename the column next month, but the Supreme court may yet have something to say about that. Susan is also the author with her husband New York Times Washington Bureau chief Peter Baker of the new book or I should say white house Bureau chief Peter Baker of the new book. The Man Who Ran Washington about former Treasury Secretary of State and Republican power lawyer in the Bush versus Gore post-election battles, James Baker. Susan always a pleasure. Welcome back to WNYC.

Susan Glasser: Thank you so much Brian for having me.

Brian: No wait did I get Peter's title right the first time or the second time? Is the White House--

Susan: Entitled to it as long as you mention the book. He's the Chief White House Correspondent.

Brian: I was right the second time. Sorry about that. What do you make of last night's Supreme court decision and the fact that the Texas attorney general filed an even bigger for state hail Mary just yesterday?

Susan: Look, I think it's as unequivocal as could be, it's the one sentence that should land like a bomb inside the white house. The fact that there's not even a single opinion, there's no dissent, there's no commentary. It's these lawsuits the record is extraordinary. Essentially, they've gone 50 lawsuits filed and 50 defeated in this vein and really disruptive attempt to attack the integrity of the election results. The Supreme court Trump has been puffing it up as you pointed out even just hours before this suggesting that somehow Amy Coney Barrett is going to repay his appointment of her to the Supreme court with some of a last-ditch ruling in his favor to swing the election to him.

It just wasn't grounded in any reality. That overall has been the message from the judiciary, the federal judiciary, and state courts since the election. It's been very, very clear cut that you can't just attack the election without any evidence and think that courts are going to throw out millions and millions of ballots.

Brian: What about this other suit from Texas? I personally think that it's not a coincidence that it was filed on the same day as the so-called safe harbor date where states are supposed to certify their electors so they can vote in the electoral college next Monday. I don't think it's a matter of delay and procrastination or they couldn't get it together. I think they filed it now on purpose to try to lob a bomb into the electoral college vote scheduled for Monday.

Susan: That is certainly possible. It's unequivocally much more as one election lawyer put it. It can't a press release than an actual lawsuit. There is, as I understand it, less than zero chance of this lawsuit gaining any traction in the Supreme court. The constitution allows states to sue each other, generally, this is a provision that is used for things like water rights or disputed boundaries between two states. The idea that one state, Texas is going to tell other states how they should run their elections is literally preposterous.

It does seem in that sense that it is explicitly political. Your point is the timing towards the December 14th electoral college meeting. It's also notable, of course, that yesterday was under federal law the national safe harbor day. That means that states if they certified their election results by midnight essentially they're unchallengeable. There's no grounds for overturning or changing the electoral results in those states if they complied with this federal law and made it by yesterday safe harbor date. The fact that Texas filed this lawsuit on that date, again, I agree with you. It seems like definitely not a coincidence

Brian: If the firewall of democracy holds should people be grateful and have a lot of respect for Republican elected officials at the state level and the judicial system including judges and justices appointed by Trump refusing to give up democracy even against their partisan interests?

Susan: This has been the thing that I think I've really been wrestling with since the election. Brian, that it's a classic glass half full glass half empty Trump era question. These are folks like for example in Georgia Republican secretary of state, Republican governor, public, and officials who voted for Donald Trump, who campaigned for him, who essentially signed off on many previous abuses of power. When he came for them and their offices it was too far. On the one hand, unequivocally that's given them a certain authority to speak out now.

It also has made it, I think, more clear at least to some portion of the electorate, just how far outside the bounds of normal politics Trump has gone by attacking the election results. At the same time, I had a conversation with Congressman Adam Schiff last week who, of course, led the impeachment which did not succeed in the Republican Senate. I asked him this same question. He said, "Look, I welcome them belatedly to the fight, but there's nothing surprising about Trump and what he's doing because," in fact, he said for months that he was going to attack the legitimacy of the election and where were these people then in effect.

It's a hard question, but look, it's a close call for our democracy, this field that we've blown through so many of the guardrails, it shouldn't come down to worrying about the safe harbor date, that's a procedural thing that shouldn't be invested with big political significance. It shouldn't come down to-- Remember a couple of weeks ago in the Wayne County Board of Canvassers? We shouldn't be worrying about them and having the entire power of the national election after the fact in their hands.

Brian: Are you surprised that a lot of these state-level Republicans are holding the line in the way that they are? If they all acted like Mitch McConnell, which is basically do anything you can to increase Republican power, then they would all be following the base passions, Republican base passions in their districts and in their states. You wouldn't have Brian Kemp the governor of Georgia who until now has been so pro-Trump and some of these state legislative leaders in the states that are in play, legislative leaders who are Republican holding the line. They could very easily, seems to me, be enhancing their own political standing with their constituents who vote for them by subverting democracy.

Susan: You're right. That's certainly one scenario and again that's what makes it such a close call for our democracy because we're meant to depend and be a nation that has the rule of law and not of individual men and women. The great fear is that we're now down to having a president who's willing to attack the laws. We're now down to individual men and women and relying upon them to do their jobs. That's literally not how the system shouldn't have to come back to that final fail-safe moment. I would point out that there is also arguably a moment where the political interest of at least some of these state and local officials do diverge from Donald Trump.

Why is that? Because if you are a state elected official or a local election official you are essentially-- If you agree with Donald Trump and national Republicans to throw out the votes in your state or your district you're saying to your own voters essentially, "Never mind. What you did was not valid." These appeals, for example, by Trump to state legislatures to overturn the will of the people as expressed by certified state election results, it's not necessarily in their political interest to do so to say to their own state, "Never mind." That's why you see some officials speaking out in a strong way.

Brian: There is a letter from Pennsylvania state house of representatives majority leader and other Republicans in the state asking Congress not to seat the state's Biden electors when that congressional vote to officially accept the electoral college results, another thing that's just supposed to be a technicality, but now everybody's looking, "Oh, January 6th. What will Congress do after the Electoral College?" At least one congressional Republican from Pennsylvania says he's ready to have that fight.

Susan: Yes, I was really particularly struck by that as well, Brian, to have a state legislature who, by the way, followed the law when it came to their own actions. They said, "Well, we don't have the ability as a state legislature to overturn the certification of our votes," but then to send what appears to be just a nakedly political letter that's not going to have any actual impact. Again, it shows the toxic power of this attack. It's like a proving attack in a way Trump and those who are working with him are probing to see what are the potential weaknesses in our system.

I think one of the things that really have had me anxious of at night is think about if this election had actually been closer. What if these battleground States had not all broken for Biden? What if there were genuine evidence of fraud in one or two or three of these States? You can play this out, but imagine once they are over finding the weaknesses in the system what they would be able to do with either a more organized or legally competent group of attorneys or in a situation where there was actually something to go on.

Brian: If there was real fraud then it should be found though and if these elections were close and there was real fraud, then it wouldn't even be a subversion of democracy, in that case, they should actually look into it and expose it.

Susan: That's exactly right, but again, remember what happened in this situation where we actually did have a very close, essentially a too close to call national election in 2000. That raises a whole lot of issues that are not easily resolvable or clear cut, which is one of the reasons why people still have bruise feelings and argue about the 2000 recount in Florida to this very day.

The striking thing about 2020 was that despite Trump's best efforts to do so, it just isn't an analogous situation. In 2000, basically, the entire presidential campaign came down to one state. It came down to Florida and it came down to essentially a tie in Florida, a few hundred votes only separating Al Gore and George Bush. Then, you get into issues like the way in which the voting was conducted, the hanging chads, and all of that. The kind of counting that occurred in various counties, the different standards that were in play so you can call that fraud or not.

There's just a lot of ambiguities and uncertainties that one can turn up in a process like that, but this is something completely different. The president of the United States is making a fantastical unbelievable claim that literally millions of votes across multiple American States involving a conspiracy that included the dead dictator of Venezuela Hugo Chávez, voting machine company based in New York, Republican officials, it's literally a fantastical and absurdist claim.

Brian: When Biden won Michigan by 150,000 votes, Pennsylvania by 80,000 plus votes, so it's not close, which helps protect the outcome from party politics and petty politics at the state legislative level. My guest is Susan Glasser, who writes the column for The New Yorker, and is the co-author of the new book about former treasury secretary, secretary of state and Republican power lawyer in the Bush versus Gore post-election battles. James Baker, the book called The man who ran Washington.

We can take a few phone calls for Susan Glasser, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or tweet @BrianLehrer. To your latest headline in The New Yorker. The President is Acting Crazy, So Why Are We Shrugging It Off? Sometimes I see the president in this phase as actually acting crazy as like psychotic saying he's won two to nothing in presidential races, all that stuff. Two and O, I should say, in presidential races, meaning he won them both, but sometimes I just see it as more of the same offensive to most, but highly effective mobilizing of a big base that's now donating to him at an unbelievable rate to people who aren't doing it just by being purposely outrageous in strategic ways, so crazy Susan or crazy like a fox?

Susan: Look, I think the crazy like a fox thing has been pretty systematically debunked at this point. I don't actually subscribe to the idea that Trump is a master strategist of any sort, obviously, he's being defeated over and over and over again in some ways. He's conducted a massive post-election campaign to have the federal judiciary resoundingly reject him and to confirm that he is a loser. Every day brings new evidence of how much Donald Trump has lost. He's lost here, he's lost there, he's lost in this court.

He's lost in this state again and again, but I did ask in the column, this question which continues, I think to haunt and perplex which is, think about that fantastical election conspiracy theory I just outlined, either Donald Trump actually believes that in which case, it's just insane or he is knowingly perpetrating the most direct frontal and cynical assault on our election system we've ever had from a president.

Some people suggested after I wrote that, "Well, maybe it's both." We don't know what's inside his head. I don't think we need to. It is factually speaking, a purposeful assault on the electoral integrity of our democracy and it seems pretty clear Trump is aware that he did not actually win. What are his motivations? Is it about fundraising? Is it a scam? Is it a coup? An attempted coup? I think it can be both things.

Brian: He's always had authoritarian dreams and he never said he would leave office peacefully. If he lost the election, he would never promise to reporters when they asked him a peaceful transition of power because he would never accept a defeat as not a function of fraud. You know, Susan, there are armed protesters showing up in places now and the Arizona Republican Party retweeted someone saying he's willing to die for the cause.

Let me read this from the news site, AZcentral, the Arizona news site, "The Arizona Republican Party has asked his followers if they are willing to die for the cause of overturning the presidential election results, eliciting alarm and criticism from within and outside, the GOP." The party's official Twitter account on Monday night shared a post from Ali Alexander, an activist with an organization called Stop The Steal that has protested election results. Alexander wrote, "I am willing to give my life for this fight." He is, are you? Susan, I'm speechless after reading that, are you convinced there isn't going to be a gorilla terrorist movement for Trump between now and January 20th?

Susan: Look, that is one of the real risks here and when you incite people to this level of disaffection, the poll numbers are absolutely stunning, there's such a partisan gulf between those Republicans who for the first time believe that somehow the election was not honest, was not legitimate, the results were not real. I was speaking yesterday with someone who has great experience in counter-terrorism, its senior levels of government, mostly internationally, but who was saying their biggest fear right now is the activization of a heavily armed disaffected movement inside the United States.

I think a lot of people are holding their breath and hoping that this does not take a violent turn, that's a great fear. Remember over the summer it seemed at times that Trump was almost inciting this violence, even in the wake of the protest after the killing of George Floyd. That he seemed to want the United States to take its political divisions into the streets and that somehow that would benefit him politically. It's a very fraught moment and I think you're right to raise this as a real fear.

Brian: To the headline of your article, The President Is Acting Crazy, so Why Are We Shrugging it Off? The shrugging it off part, this Arizona story it's one of those stories that I'm uncertain, whether I should even mention it on the show, because it gives a wacko fringe undeserved publicity as if it was a serious possession dying for the cause of overturning in this presidential election, but on the other hand, it needs journalistic scrutiny when it comes from an official source like that the official Arizona Republican party, not just some guy. What do you think the role of responsible media is here?

Susan: I think you're absolutely right to flag this as probably the signature media dilemma of the last few years. You talked about a fringe position that shouldn't be given airtime. That's literally how Donald Trump entered national politics. The original scene, if you will, of his public, career was promoting the ridiculous birtherism conspiracy involving Barack Obama.

Right now, I think it's very understandable as I wrote that the press, the media is not wanting to give trumps in seeing conspiracy theories about the election any more attention when it's pretty clear that the states have all certified their results and that the electoral college outcome on December 14th is not in doubt. You could say, from a traditional news standpoint, therefore, there's no real news value in the president attacking the outcome of the election with these watches because they're not going to succeed.

There's no scenario by which it can succeed, but of course, the allegations themselves have a reality. Especially because they're amplified in the loud fringe pro-Trump media space. I guess what I've seen the last few years has convinced me that we have to be able to look at what Trump is doing squarely in the eye. To really understand what are the consequences of this and just saying, "Well, we don't like this or it's not true, so we're not going to publicize it." Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think that the political consequences are obvious. Look at these numbers of what is happening to Republican's faith in democracy as a result of the purposeful attack on it that the president is launching.

Brian: Mike in Queens you aren't WNYC. Hi, Mike.

Mike: Hi. I'm just curious as to why we're not looking more into the situation of possible treason charges against Trump and Giuliani and Texas and the other people that are involved in this attempted coup. In other countries, this would be commonly something that would be done by the party that won. "We need to figure this out. Is there a treason here being perpetuated by Trump and his cronies?"

Brian: I understand why you would feel that way. Susan, I could feel calls like that for the next 20 minutes if I wanted to. Treason is a specific thing that has to do with helping a foreign enemy of the country. Trump, no matter what we think of these things, does have a to go to court over and over until the process is completed.

Susan: That's exactly right. It's if you were to start taking extra-legal measures then it would pose an even different threat to the system. He can raise money making false claims, that's what he's been doing all along after all. His free speech enabled him to say he's treating even now while we're having this conversation, ridiculous claims they should be hopefully labeled and contextualized as such.

There is a robust debate already breaking out as, of course, among Democrats as to whether the new Biden administration should continue with potential prosecutions of Trump. There's of course the open question of whether he will seek to pardon himself, which would be an unprecedented use of the presidential pardon power, and whether that would be legal or legitimate. I think we're going to hear a lot of debate and dispute for many months after Trump is out of the white house on, what if anything should be the approach for prosecutors.

The American tradition up until now has been that the president himself, should not be subjected to what people could see as a form of victor's justice, that that was part of what distinguished the US and its democracy from other places like Ukraine. Where, as you know Trump was impeached, over his dealings with Ukraine. In Ukraine just a few years ago there was a very controversial effort and US was strongly critical of the incoming president trying to prosecute and imprison his defeated opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko.

Do we really want to be that kind of country? Gerry Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, he probably lost his own presidential bid because of it, but I think many historians, many Democrats, and Republicans have ultimately concluded that that was the right decision.

Brian: Gary in Queens you're on WNYC with Susan Glasser from The New Yorker. Hi Gary.

Gary: Gary. Hi Brian, Ms. Glasser, I think misrepresented the case number one. I just want to make three quick points. Number one, it's about state officials or Supreme courts, usurping the legislatures. That goes against the constitution, not state law. That makes it a federal case. It's not what you label it as frivolous or a wacko theory. This lawsuit from Texas is meaningful.

We can't live with States doing that. Also, you mentioned the rule of law, by your exact quote. Trump electors back in 2016, urged by celebrities and I saw advertisements about it to vote for Hillary. There was, if you want to call this an insurrection, that's called an insurrection too, plus the Russian gate stuff, which I don't know if you believe that's your business. The other thing is it's a disadvantage to file this late during safe Harbor. You keep saying it's intentional, it's a strategy. What's the strategy. It's to their advantage to have done it earlier. Please clarify.

Brian: Do you think Gary, just before I get Susan's response that the Supreme court should actually throw out the results in the four states, without any evidence of massive fraud, just these changes in the rules?

Gary: That's a true level question. Number one, you're implying that they're going to accept the remedies. First, you have to make a decision. Did they violate the law or not? Did they violate the constitution or not? That's precedential. Then, the remedy and I don't know what the remedy is, I'm assuming they're going to ask for like you said to rescind the results of that.

That's a steep hill to climb. I don't know if they'll do that. I doubt, but Trump's adolescent behavior aside. I think there's merit to a lot of the criticisms of what was done on the ground. I don't know. This is the first time I've listened to in weeks. I don't know if you've been covering this. There's a lot of irregularities and the problem, I think, is that election officials who violate the law or the regulations for voting the way they did, try to establish identity, unilaterally without any opposing teams of people to view the results.

Brian: The signature verifications.

Gary: Little things like that. That should be against the law and punishable. There's nothing against them doing this, slap on the wrist. No one goes to that kind of violations.

Brian: Gary, thank you for all of that. Susan, what are you thinking?

Susan: I would say I appreciate the lecture, but don't take my word for it. Take the word of the almost unanimous views of Supreme Court legal experts at the course themselves, that this is a lawsuit that is going nowhere fast, and it does not have a legitimate basis for having one state, challenging the voting decisions and operations of another state period, full stop. I would say that what we just heard there is what we're hearing, in general, from the president's allies, it's just stew of unfounded allegations.

His opinion, which is that, "I don't like these regulations, or somehow there's something going on." Go ahead, prove it in court. None of this has been proven in court, that Trump legal team has not been able to produce the evidence of massive violations of any state laws. That this fellow is happy enough to call up and said, "Save your listeners," that somehow his opinion is that there have been all these terrible things. That's why we have a system of laws. It's why we have evidence that's required in state and federal courts in order to prove wrongdoing. That has not been proven. It's not an opinion. It's a fact right now.

Brian: We'll take one more call before we run out of time, and you'll be happy to know that this caller has a question about your book and how it relates to all this news. Anna in Manhattan you're on WNYC with Susan Glasser from The New Yorker and author of The Man Who Ran Washington about James Baker. Hi, Anna.

Anna: Yes sir. Good morning Brian. Good morning Ms. Glasser. My question has to do with what came out even before the book was published. The news that Secretary Baker was planning to vote for the Republican, has he put it, he was very careful. I noticed not to mention the name of Trump because he's a Republican and after all even though she started he had left him he was going to vote for his party. Following what happened now with Trump and he's actually undermining democracy.

There are not if or buts about it. Have you or your husband had a chance to revisit the issue with secretary Baker to find out how you feels about it? I remember seeing in the New York Times at the time that Trump started trying to stop the counting, a statement-- It was a short article in the statement by secretary Baker that in Florida that we did not try to stop the counting, the counting took place and then the legal issues came up, but this is a totally different territory right now. I was curious whether you had any opportunity whether secretary Baker had any more thoughts on the issue or hopefully a change of heart? Thank you.

Susan: Thank you so much. You're right. You have a fantastic memory. In fact, that was the last conversation that my husband Peter and I had with secretary Baker it was in the immediate aftermath of the election. He was very unequivocal that Trump and others should not try to create an analogy and a comparison where one did not exist between what's happening right now and Trump's overall assault on the election results versus what happened in 2000, which was a very different issue. That is the last conversation we had with him. You're right. We spoke with secretary Baker over the course of five years really about the rise of Donald Trump and in some ways, it really told us a lot.

I think about the evolution of the modern Republican Party because Baker, in so many ways, is beyond Trump and he told us-- His words were that Trump he thought was "crazy" that he was called "nuts." He disagreed with him both ideologically, he remains a free trader. He remained a believer in international alliances and diplomacy. He was offended by the sheer incompetence that he saw in much of how the White House itself was run. At the same time he said to us before as the 2020 election began to play outlook, "I'm a Republican. I'm still a Republican even if my party has left me."

He always stopped short of publicly endorsing Trump. He's been as you can tell from these comments critical of him and yet he never could renounce him. I think in many ways that's a lot of the behavior we saw at least from many of the more establishment type Republicans in Washington over the last few years, they couldn't renounce someone who had become so popular who had taken over their party. Yet they were clearly unhappy with it and that's how we ended up arguably in this situation we're in right now.

Brian: In our last 30 seconds what happens to your column next month which is titled, Letter from Trump's Washington? Do you just make it, Letter from Biden's Washington, or are you considering it's bad luck to rename a column before anything is official?

Susan: I think it's fair to say, Brian, we have not come to a final decision. Do you have a preference? What's your vote? Do we just delete the Trump's or do we add in Biden's? What do you think?

Brian: I would not presume to get in the middle of your meeting with David Remnick and say what The New Yorker should do but I'm sure it'll be good whatever it is. We'll keep having you on the show even when it's Biden's Washington. Susan Glasser, thank you as always.

Susan: Thank you, Brian. Great to be with you and all your wonderful listeners.

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