Voter Fraud, Italian Satellites and…Marla Maples? - Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy

In the days after presidential election, CIA director Gina Hasspell flies to Flipford, Germany on a secret mission to secure a computer servers that contain evidence that the election has been manipulated. These servers, owned by a bankrupt Spanish company called Skital, could prove that the election was ragged for Joe Biden. Hasspell and a team of Special Forces troops to send on Freightfurt to destroy the evidence, but in the raid, five troops and the CIA official are killed.

Haspell herself is injured, flown to Guantanamo obey and given a tribe funal for treason. In two thousand nine, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez creates a voting system that could change votes in elections in any country using this advanced technology. One of the technology companies that uses it is called smart Manneck, which supplies voting equipment to a single US

county in election. The scheme between smart Mannick and Hugo Chavez is a secret and successful effort to ring the election for Joe Biden, even though Chavez has been dead for seven years. Patscara Italy, a rogue employee at the defense and aerospace company Leonardo Spa, hacks into military satellites to change the margin of victory in US states where Trump has beaten Biden. It's a variable coupdata and it would go down as the most extraordinary effort in history

to overturn a presidential election. Oh you know what, that one actually sounds pretty fun. Italian military satellites, Mamma Mia, These sound great. Oh and forgetty one. How can I not mention the Hungarian victor. There's been so many bizarre stories going on through the media. You can have some pretty far fetched ideas on both sides, and what we're doing is simply proving or disproving as many of those as we can. Speaking at somebody on the outside, this

feels like it's just feeding into conspiratorial thinking. We're MythBusters. Great, Okay, we're doing things we think are foolish, but people believe it's real. If we validate that something they think might have happened didn't happen, then we're not throwing fuel on the fire. Are you looking into the Hungarian vector? I didn't know about that one Hungary victor. It's a bullshit thing I just made up. That sounds cool and a little bit spooky. This is Jordan Clepper figures the conspiracy.

And yes, those election conspiracy theories do sound a lot more exciting when we put public domain, suspenseful music underneath them. You may have heard a few of those theories, partly because the White House and Republicans in Congress. We're publicizing them in the week after the election to convince Americans that the election was stolen, and it worked to an extent. Republicans still believe the election was stolen, according to a

Monmouth University poll from September of this very year. Today, we're gonna talk to someone who has had the most legal success against Trump's efforts in court to overturn the election, and we're also going to talk to Supreme Court expert about the cases in front of the court now that could determine how future elections here are conducted. But before we get there, I really want to go back to

the Italian military satellites. This is what became known as Italy Gate, and it's filled with more juicy content than a piping hot kil zone. And the craziest part of this conspiracy theory is that Trump's chief of Staff, Mark Meadows was emailing details of it to the Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to try to get him to do something or anything about it. I can't unpack Italy Gate alone.

So let's introduce Eric Lavay. He's a digital research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and a former investigative journalist who wrote extensively about the Italy Gate conspiracy theory, or as I like to call it, lasagna gazi. There's good, There's just there's gonna be a lot of these, Eric, So I hope you're ready. Thank you for being at hair.

Let's start at the very beginning of this conspiracy theory, which comes from an organization called Nations in Action, the group apparently based in Sarasota, Florida, which published a press release titled Senior I t expert at global defense contractor that testifies an Italian federal court. He had others switched votes throughout America in the US presidential race. Can you explain some of this for US? Yeah, definitely. So it emerged it sort of in late and it's still a

little bit murky about where it came from. The Washington posted a really good article on it, but it possibly was. It had sort of origins in an article in Italian media, and then a um AN x C I a station chief named Bradley Johnson put out a video. But the ones who really pushed it forward. To answer your question were Maria's Zack from Nations in Action and a woman named Michelle Roosevelt Edwards. Let's start with, let's let's break down. Talk to me a little bit about Maria Strolo Zac.

You've talked to her, correct, I talked to uh. I called her number and an identical voice answered the phone. Um who said it wasn't her. UH So theoretically talked to somebody who may have been herself pretending to be somebody else. That's why I'm reporting, like, that's why I hate phone calls and I like emails. The Arab zoom works for you because you see what that person looks like as opposed to distrusting. But but who is this person?

Who is Maria Strolo Zat So she's um a conservative activists and the next Georgia lobbyists who I guess was pretty successful and um, I think she ran for office a few times herself, just on the local level, just at some point got very involved in this Italy Gate conspiracy and pushed it very far. I feel like, if you're in this world you're talking about Italian satellites, those things flipping, you're probably a character. Is she a character?

I'm guessing it's interesting because when I watched the videos, like, she's clearly like a very intelligent person. That's what's also like, So there's a little bit of uh, you know, you have this conspiracy theory obviously, which is which is false, But then you have a person who's like, you know, she's laying it out with confidence. Tell us a little

bit about Michelle Roosevelt Edwards. So she um runs another organization called the Institute of Good Governance, and uh, she sort of worked closely with Maria zack On on Italy Gate. So the Washington Post had a big article that at some point in icelandic film crew went to interview Michelle

Roosevelt Edwards. I don't know what that was for, but in the house, um, I guess there was remember that movie The Game where there's like there was something weird and like the house and she really, like in Michael Douglas is like, no, like this isn't a real house. That the film crew was in there and they're like, is this your house because it's something and she's like, yeah, it's my house. Anyway, it turns out that it wasn't

her house. It was mother woman's mansion and she's just a realtor like in the area and it's not her house. And the poor woman her husband died. She didn't even know. She's like, why is this woman in my house? Um? Was that woman in the house at the time, She's like, dear lord, dear lord who interviewed in my living room? She was somewhere else or something. But it was like I felt I felt bad for her. No, it's like she was just using this house for like, I don't

know business. You're telling me this person who put up an entire false front to show that she's more successful than she has she's somehow connected to this whole Trump world. I don't buy it. I don't buy it. It It just doesn't It doesn't sit well with me. Yeah, it's it's tough to believe. That was like that was that just that killed me? Okay, and I want I want to dig into sort of their roles within this. But this this initial thought was sort of revolving around an employee,

our touro Delia. Correct. Yeah, there's um. I was like about this last night. This is the hardest thing about Italy Gate, is I mean, to stay at the obvious is like explaining it. The short version is Italian satellites based in Piscara, Italy. Uh altered the votes, giving Joe Biden enough votes from Donald Trump to win. That's the

short version of Italian satellites. They're the bad guys. Well, there's a lot of players in this, uh, the CI, A former president Barack Obama, A the hacker that you just referenced, and a lawyer who put out an affidavit. There's like those four those are the four. And so the hacker he worked for something called Leonardo Spa. Yeah, he worked there. Um, they said he left in two thousand seventeen, which is another problem because he when he was indicted for a separate Uh. I think it was

like data theft. He didn't even work at Leonardo. What is Leonardo Spa? I mean it sounds like a massage parlor and like a deep one just outside Rome that like you you splurs because you're on vacation, but you don't have enough money, so here, so like what's the eper one? Like, come to Leonardo Spa. It's right next to Michelangelo nails. That was a very specific uh, not that this is a hypothetical. I've not had that experience.

I imagine if you're pouring in Italy and just had had a hard time on a long plane because those seats there's not a lot of space and you're a tall person. Hypothetically you're gonna be looking for Leonardo Spa. This is not that kind of spa exactly. No, it's a uh somewhat more boring military you know, like a military they make military equipment and satellites stuff like that, like a like a Boeing. Okay, so a bow and then this is this Arturo Delia. Delia does he actually

work for Leonardo Spa. My understanding is at some point he did work there, but he was gone by two thousand seventeen. Okay, And is there any information that says that he had access to these Italian satellites in a way that could alter election zero zero? Okay, okay, okay, But so walk us through this. So the head of uh nations in action this group to personate Maria Strolo Zach who you've spoken with in your reporting, What she

what she like? Well? And to be clear, I was telling your producer that was that was a funny story because when I called Maria Zack for comment um, obviously being a phone, I can't I don't know for a fact that I can say that the person answered sounded exactly like her, but told me very quickly it was not her um and actually said it was her secretary and could she the phrases could she return? And I was I was telling mad I was like, it's this

is a cell phone. But anyway, I was like, you know, sure of course, but so did you ever did that person then pretend to hang up, put on a gruff voice and then attempt to then answer the phone. It was the same voice, but they were just like, you know, can she return? And I was like, you know, when you're a reporter, like it's things like that happened. So yeah, sure,

of course, no comment. Just to be where if if you're also like a public figure and somebody calls you and you tend to be your own assistant just because you think it gives you status, that doesn't make you weird. That's just a savvy media person thing to do. And if my parents or my friends think that's a desperate attempt or that I'm uh not in a good place, well that's more on them. Can you verify that? Yeah? What what jumped out of me I'll always remember about

that was how quick it was. It was very I mean, you know your comedian, you're an improviser. It was real quick. There was no plus like like that had happened before. Maybe that's you know, that's I mean, that's an interesting way of looking at it as opposed to just somebody who's quick on the on the go. Um. All right, so you had a quick interaction with this Maria strolo Zac. But again to what what what? What? What is our understanding of this story? So she is head of Nations

and Action. What is Nations and Action. If you go on their web page, there's a lot of sort of conspiracy theories, and I think they say that their statement is, you know, good government bringing transparency. Obviously, whether that's true is up to to be determined. And so, but she was able to get this conspiracy and this idea in front of important people. Can you walk us through some of that? Yeah, So she she used to be a lobbyist in Georgia's so she's got like close relationships with UM.

As I reported on UM Congress from Barry louder Milk, one of the one of the top five names in all of Congress. Like, if if you're going to you know, if you're going to articulate what it feels like to hear a Southern Republican droll on, louder Milk feels right, it feels feels obnoxious and white, which is kind of spot Yeah. He's uh, he's an interesting guy. I think I think they were, he and his staff. Uh. I

think we're getting pretty tired of my emails. After a while they stopped, they didn't ever respond to me, but then they added me to their mailing list. So that's how you shut somebody up, but just give him the spam. Um, she got it to him. She got it to Devin Noon as his staff. I mean she you know the thing about last night, Like the ordinary person has so much trouble reaching their elected officials, and yet this person pushing a complete, you know, a conspiracy theory that's not true,

is able to reach very high up people. She claims she gave documents to louder Milk. Do we know what was in those documents? Yeah? I don't know. Did you I know, you guys are probably always working. Did you get a chance to see the affidavit that this is all based around? Tell us? Tell us about it. So the whole thing is that she delivered an affid David. Um. Basically, what it is is it's a photograph of an actual document,

which right away is a little you know, unusual. It's not the document, Um, it's it's a lawyer stating that this hacker that you mentioned in the beginning, Uh, sat in front of him and told his story. That's what it is. No one's been able there is a lawyer that matches this name, but no one's been able to actually show that, like really that he uh, that it was that lawyer. So it's not clear if this thing is even real. You can't even verify that that conversation

took place. No, and the document, you know, I can't say I'm an expert on court documents in Italy, but there's no numbers on it, like it's just it looks like someone like wrote it on Microsoft Word. And she's also, uh, Maria Zack was doing an interview about Italy Gate from the back of a car in Washington, d C. On January six. What's going on there? This happened. It's very real. The president is right for an interference did occur, and

people need to be prosecuted in our country. Who actually participated. That was the show called America Can We Talk? And that's a very strange interview just because, as you said, it's taking place while our capital is being attacked. But there's no mention of it till the end. They're like, I think Maria is actually something like, well, if they're able to, you know, get this under control, we can you know, get this affidavit to more people. It's like,

whoa like, you know, it's very strange. Um. So there's there's a lot of interesting red flags and characters within this. But after all these conversations, meetings, talking to congressmen, louder Milk, how high did this go? Like who in government was actually taking this theory seriously? That's a great question. Seriously, I mean in terms of as you said yourself, Meadows, I guess would be the highest ranking person to get it. But taking it seriously, you know a lot of work

with conspiracy theorists. You wonder who's an opportunist who's not? Well? I mean, it's interesting question you say, like taking it seriously.

We we we don't exactly know what people actually thought, but I I would argue that part of the whole game plan here was just so doubt so the fact that there were different threads for people to hold on to to grasp clearly Donald Trump as somebody who was just flooding the marketplace with any thought out there, so that it's getting in people's heads, like who had awareness of it? We're talking Meadows, Meadows knew about this, which means ub had awareness on this. How did this thing

get into more mainstream culture? Yeah, and Zach too um. She says she delivered or she told Trump about this at Maral Lago in twenty. I can't confirm that, but she said that a number of times. Um, so I guess to answer your question, if if that's true, then that reached Donald Trump. Now what all this is happening? Is it fair to say that we didn't know how much of the voter fraud conspiracy theory would stick. Uh, these stories were so outlandished that it didn't seem possible

that millions of people would believe them. And yet even today the majority of Republicans say they don't think the election was legitimate. Does that encourage Republican lawmakers to push more conspiracy theories? Either probably won't be consequences, and then doing so probably will at least help them in some way. Consequences are like obviously incredibly important. Like when there are no consequences, we're giving a wide latitude to speak and that's a good thing. But as you know, some of

these conspiracies are incredibly harmful. So I don't know. In cases like I don't know what's saying, Alex Jones, when people are actually held accountable makes a huge difference. They some of them stop tomorrow and you never hear from them again. What do you think it was about Italy Gate that made it so sticky and interesting to people. So there's a conference call I think it was on January four. It's between Maria Zack and supporters. Uh so

it's right before the attack on the Capitol. It's like forty five minutes long, and it's just she lays out Italy Gate, and then it's weird, like all these random people are popping in, like like I said, like Marlon Maples pops in, and just like it's just she's the only Everyone else is just a first name, so you don't even know really who they are. What's one of the Maple's doing there? I I don't know, like, uh,

a supporter, I guess, uh, very strange. And all of this was sort of to just hip everybody to the Italy Gate theory so that they had it in their back pocket. I mean, I don't want to say that. She comes right out and but there's some hints of to continue this work. I we will need funding. UM like a private plane has talked about at one point. So no, she's she's she's asking for a private plane.

I don't know. It might have been um one of the other people, but there's definitely more than one hint there about like we need you know, money, this sounds like a timeshare situation. She gets everybody on a conference call. Let me tell you about this fascinating Italy situation. If you give me your attention and enough money for a private plane, I have something that is going to take your breath away in pops. Marla Maples was like, Oh, tell me more. It's like, thanks, Marla. Marla has been

on this for quite some time. Her her family are big Italy Gate supporters, and you too could be an Italy Gate supporter. For just a mirror two thousand dollars, we can give you the correct mindset to keep you happy from this day forward. Listen to the last seven years kind of feel like a time shared. Like do you ever feel like that, like you're just trapped? Yes, I do feel like I've given over a portion of my life to live in a different reality every year.

And you look at it, You're like, I think this is a bad investment. I think the time share is giving in to all of this bullshit that we're talking about. It just it sucks away so much time that I could be using for something else. It's not a time share. Maybe that's maybe what we're describing as a time suck, we've all invested in a time suck that we will never get back. We can all agree is a really

bad investment. It's wild. I mean, this is the conspiracy theory that like I think I was telling your producer, Like even other conspiracy theorists are like like, like, that's how far this one is is out there? Like, yeah, what does this Italy Gate conspiracy rank in terms of all the conspiracies related to the election? I would say in terms of the ones that are like the wildest, this has to be at the top. I can't think of I know you guys have been doing this for

a while on your podcast. If there's an another one, I can't think of one. You've got Hugo Chaves so dead. Hugo Chavas is a fun one. It's definitely takes a stretch of imagination, but there's intrigue their sexiness to this. Uh, I'd have to put it up there as well. It's also like the little details that kill me, like the data. It wasn't enough that it was the Italian satellites. They

routed it through Germany. It's like like why, Like that's what I don't understand, like, but it's just fascinating there's somebody on the ground or in the air in Germany that was getting this information or or or working through the satellites through Germany. Yeah, they're saying like at some point they never got into the sort of like how the stuff was transmitted, but it was from the satellites and went through I think some servers in Germany and

then I guess back to the USUM. So they're theoretically, if this were real, not only are there folks in Italy who are culpable, but there are are folks in Germany as well. Is what always kind of blows my mind with a lot of these conspiracy theories because they they hype the idea behind it involves so many people

that even afterwards, you'd expect. One thing we're really bad at is keeping secrets, especially if it's multinational effort to overturn results in very specific states, and then it just disappears into the void, which is sort of h I think people should consider a major I don't know if red flag is the right word, but if if you believe so strongly in something you believe has happened, and then thirty seconds later. When it doesn't, you know, when

it's gone, You're just onto the next thing. It kind of questions like credibility. You know, I think we lost that a long time ago. Well, Eric Leavy, thank you for unfolding this conspiracy theory like carefully needing a perfect pizza pie. Thanks so much for having me. We're gonna take a short break. When we come back, We're would talk to Pennsylvania Attorney General and Governor elect Josh Shapiro.

We'll be right back. In the days after the election, Pennsylvania became the focus of Republican efforts to overturn the results. They ramped up their attacks on the legitimacy of mail in ballots and claimed that ballots would arrive after election day and be mixed with ballots that arrived before election day.

Anticipating a possible Supreme Court showdown, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro began separating those post election day ballots and became a high profile example of a Democrat fighting back against the voter fraud conspiracy theater, and as the Trump team became litigious before and after election day, Shapiro beat Trump

more than forty times in court. In last month's mid term Shapiro won the race for governor of Pennsylvania, defeating one of the country's most prominent voter fraud conspiracy theorist Doug Mastriano. And Josh Shapiro is with us today to talk about the exciting world of voter fraud. Welcome to the show. Good to be with you, Jordan, Thanks for having me, of course, and we were debating a current

governor elect soon to be governor, Josh Shapiro. That's that's most of it, right, Yeah, And look, I only require our four children to use all of the titles when they address me. You can call me whatever you want, and well, not whatever you want, but you can call me one of those titles. I was gonna say, do you also throw in the beat Trump forty times in court, Monica or there's probably a lot of people also have that in their their name as well. The guy has

been to court many, many times. I don't know about that, but listen, we went to court forty three times against the former president and his enablers, and we beat him every time. We protected the right to vote. We had a free and fair, safe and secure election here in Pennsylvania back in again and most recently in two the will the people was respected each time. When you've been at the center of these claims over voter praud for

over two years. Now, even though you did win the race for governor, Uh, it appears as if the state is moving forward. Does it still alarm you how many voters, obviously many of them Republicans, appeared to have bought into these conspiracy theories. It does, But you know Jordan's I don't blame the voters, and hear me on this. I blame the leaders who've been lying to them for the better part of the last two and a half years

about voting by mail, about this phony election fraud. Um. When you have leaders who you trust, who you put into positions of authority, and then they lie to you over and over and over again, it's hard to blame

the public. I blame the leaders. And the good news is we're defeating those leaders who pushed the big life from the former president to his chief enabler here in Pennsylvania, who I just beat in the governor's race, And hopefully now what we can do is continue to speak truth to the good people of Pennsylvania, to the American people and help them understand reality from the fiction that the former president pushed and get us back to having a

healthier democracy. Well, I went to one of the rallies your opponent held right there at the state Capitol and talk to some of the tens of people who showed up. Showed up that day, and after a minimal amount of fanfare, Mastriano appeared and he was freaking hilarious going after the pillow guy, are you serious? Give me a break? Beat Scotty, beat me up. No sign of intelligent life anywhere. Boom. But even with the Covenant Trump endorsement, the crowd was tiny.

Was it small because of mass Triano's far right policies and election denialism? Nope, this is Facebook speech. The reason there aren't people here because Facebook is SI. Yes, it was a low turnout. I felt like it. It seemed as if you had a good shot of winning that race. Uh. I want to talk a little bit about Mastriano though, because he may have spread more election related conspiracy theories than any other uh candidate. Let's go through a couple

of these. He Uh. He was claiming the voting machines glitched in Michigan and switched six thousand Biden votes. So we're also responsible for a hundred thousand vote dumps that were all for Biden. In the middle of the night, sharing a Gateway pundit post of suspected fraud issues that included away for people to search for dead people who voted using something called the Social Security death master file.

Pretty catchy. He was claiming dominion voting machines were built intentionally to rig the election for Democrats, and claiming that Acts seventy seven of Pennsylvania law that allows no excuse voting by mail was illegally passed and was responsible for Biden's win. Can you walk us through some of these and tell us how how you pushed back against them, Well by calling them what they were, complete and utter bullshit,

that's what they were. He was lying to the good people in Pennsylvania, um and his conduct to try to overthrow the last lecture. Remember, he was part of the violent mob that stormed up to the capitol on January six, and he went there that day, and this real important, Jordan. He went there that day not just to hear a speech from the former president or be part of some

peaceful protest. He went there that day with a singular purpose, that's why they were all there, and that was to deny people's votes from county because remember, when you vote here in Pennsylvania. It's true in other states, but let me focus on Pennsylvania. You vote for the presidential race in Pennsylvania, your vote gets tallied by your local county board of Elections, gets certified by the governor and the

Secretary of State in Pennsylvania. But then in order for your vote to finally count, it has to be read across the desk in the U. S. House of Representatives. That's what they were there to do on January six, and he was there as part of the violent mob

to stop them from doing. Then he comes back home to Pennsylvania, launches a campaign for governor and Jordan's He says in his campaign that he was going to use his power as governor to be able to review all the voting machines, make corrections, as he called alls them,

and then he would pick the winner. That's not how our democracy works, that is not how our republic has survived over the last two and forty six years, and so it was important for us to beat him to just obviously win the election, but also to protect our democracy, to protect the will of the people, and to make it clear to folks that spewing conspiracy theories, being part of a violent mob pledging to overturn the next election is not the way things work in the Commonwealth, in Pennsylvania.

Were in this country, well, I was surprised many of the people I talked to that day were also there at January six. It was almost a mini reunion. Uh, you have been aggressive at pushing back and it made headlines for that. Do you think that your victory is a sign that voters are energized by candidates who pushed back aggressively against election desers. You gotta fight back against it, and and look, we've done it in big ways and small.

I mean I've I've been to the hunt clubs in rural communities in Pennsylvania and confronted folks directly, and they'll say to me, um, where they were saying to me, Uh, you know, the election stole and so so what what evidence do you have that let's just have a conversation, Well, there was massive voter fraud. And I say, you know, I'm I'm the Attorney general it's my job to prosecute

election fraud, along with some district attorneys as well. And we had about a handful of cases of election fraud in by the way, where each of those individuals who were prosecuted, we're trying to cast one extra single vote for their candidate for president, by the way, for Donald Trump, not for Joe Biden. But even if they were trying to do that for Joe Biden, it wasn't going to affect the outcome of the election. It was not this

widespread voter fraud, and they were prosecuted for it. And so I confront folks with truth and try to force them to think about the reality of what they are saying. In addition to that, it was critically important for us here in Pennsylvania, in Arizona, in Michigan and other places to defeat those people who continue to spread the lies. Now, I said on election night when I won Jordan's that

this is the beginning of our work. Just because we beat these election deniers doesn't mean that it's rid from our system. We have to now do the hard work that folks have been doing for the last two forty six years in this nation. Right our ancestors and their ancestors, to perfect our union, to speak truth, to make sure that the will of the people is respected. So I

think we've done step one defeating those extremists. But now we've got to do the hard work of perfecting our union, and that test now falls to me as the next governor of Pennsylvania. How complete do you think step one truly is? Because I do look looking at those the major election deniers, the races in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Here's swing states where the people in control roll of verifying Uh, those ballots, uh could have very well gone to election

deniers those big places. They were defeated. But but there's still a lot of people who are election deniers who are in position of power in America. UM, a lot of very close races where perhaps election deniers were defeated, but it didn't. When I looked at this, I didn't exactly see the idea of election denialism expunging from the

American narrative. But perhaps stepping back for a little bit, is there is there a fear that Democrats are a little too confident in the pushback of election denialism after this election. Well, well, let me say, I'm not confident that it's over at all, So don't you know, certainly don't put me in that category. I'm in the category where we had a good day on Tuesday, November eighth in defeating those extremists, those election deniers. But we have

so much more work to do now. I believe that these election deniers are Mastriano particularly just profoundly and pathetically weak people. And let me explain what I mean by that. They know it's bullshit, but yet they say it over and over again because they're willing to sell out our democracy and our country for some short term political gain, for some short term attention, maybe some love from the former president. That's why they do it. That's the definition

of weak. If you're willing to sell out your nation and our values on behalf of your own short term goals. Well, now we've denied many of them that short term goal, and hopefully in defeating them the way we have it forces that next batch of candidates to go along and say, Jesus, that really the path I want to take to be successful.

It doesn't make them any stronger. It just speaks to how again, how kind of spineless so many of these folks are letting them know they're not going to be rewarded for the lie, and so I think hopefully this will have an effect on the politics as we go forward. We all so need to work on ridding our system of these weak folks and getting some people with backbones

back in it. And by the way, Jordan's even folks who might disagree with me on some policy, that's okay, But we got to get back to the point where we have strong, capable people in positions of public trust who argue about tax policy and healthcare policy and educational housing, all the things that we shouldn't be arguing about. The

healthy fights were supposed to have. But we've got to continue the battle against these weak people in defeating them in their elections and defeating them in their in their political aims. Did you have any Democrats from other states reach out to you to ask advice on confronting this

selection denialism. I did a lot of them, folks running uh for governor and other offices, and you know, I suppose, obviously I'll keep those conversations in private, but I did speak to them about the need to take the fight on directly, to not give an inch on this. You know, when they say that something was stolen, challenge them on it. Put the facts out there. Make sure that you're going directly to the good people in my case of Pennsylvania,

with the facts. Do not let any of that nonsense stand. Okay, looking forward, Well, where we are right now, Trump is running again, Elon Musk is green lighting misinformation all over Twitter. We know that voter fraud conspiracies, they're gonna get worse. What are tangible steps the Democratic Party can take to fight and to push back? Knowing the world are in right now, you know, try to meet people where they are.

That's why I'm talking to you today. I mean, you've been out front on the importance of combating election denialism. You have exposed a lot of these folks and and the lies they tell by you know, mocking them and and and showing not the humor in it, because obviously this is incredibly serious, but but showing people this in a way that they can comprehend it if they don't read, you know, from page of the Wall Street Journal, the

New York Times. Not to say that your listeners don't read the New York Times, but the plant at least read the headlines. Good at reading the headlines, But like you know, you've got to meet people where they are. You gotta communicate to them. You got to show them

the difference between fiction and reality. And then I have responsibility now as a governor um to hold myself up to that high standard and to continue to speak truth and continue, uh, you know, to communicate meet people where they are, whether we're talking to them on TikTok, on your podcast, anywhere. We've got to meet people where they are and continue to share the truth. You say, you you you went to hunt clubs, You went to places where people had questions about the election. I get the

question all the time, do you ever change people's minds? Boy, that is that's a unicorn. I can't say I'm watching people change their minds about information when you were at those places, being confronted with outside facts doesn't always is often met with resistance and the doubling down of the things they think, they believe. They feel challenged away that I have not found conducive to reaching a new understanding.

Did you actually see that in those moments, in those those those those hunt clubs with people who were confronting you and you're pushing back. Sometimes I did directly, But what I was really going after was was not to embarrass anyone in front of their peers. We're forced someone to have to look at me in front of their peers and say, you're right, I'm wrong. What I've thought

for the last year, you know, is incorrect. What I really wanted was when they left there to be thinking about it and the process it and to maybe make a change in their thinking or their politics or the way they might vote. And Jordan, I got some pretty good evidence that we we made a whole lot of people think because I won this governor's race by a big margin, and we wanted by about fifteen points, but I got more votes than anyone in the history of

Pennsylvania running for governor. And the reason I'm telling you that is not to pat myself on the back, but because it would be impossible to win with the number of votes we did in the margin we did with only Democrats. We got a whole lot of Republicans and independence cross party lines to support us, a whole lot of people who clearly rethought their politics after even and said, you know what, we're gonna go with this guy. We're

gonna we're gonna go against the election denier. We're gonna believe this truth and and hopefully we're gonna all be able to continue to come together to repair our politics. Well after such a clear hubble bragg such as that, chill about that. Now that you did a pretty good job. That's that's where I can You're a savvy politician. Even even the bragging does come across somehow as as humble

and informative. That's that's well played. Uh well, your high profile and your success here has up some of the speculation where people have have seen you in the light of somebody who could be a Democratic nominee for president. Do you want to use the Jordan Clepper Fingers the Conspiracy podcast as a platform that you confirm loving hearing that speculation? Yeah, now, man, Look, I'm just so excited to be governor. I haven't even been scorning yet. I got a lot of work to do. That's all I

want to do. That's all my wife and kids want me to do, and that's all I am gonna do. Awesome. Well, Well, thank you for talking to me, Governor Elect Josh Sapiro. We'll be right back We're back and we're talking election fraud. It's obviously something I hear over and over on the campaign trail, But unlike some of the other conspiracy theories we've covered on this podcast, this one has some serious

implications on the future of our democracy. This about the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case called More versus Harper, and it could fundamentally change how elections are conducted. To break this down with me, I have Supreme Court expert, author of Lady Justice, Women, The Law and the Battle to Save America, and host of the Slate podcast, Amicus

Dalia Lithwick. Welcome to the podcast. Hi, Jordan's Dahlia. I have to call it the fact, and you're well aware that you are wearing not one but two headphones today. Is there a conspiracy in this? Do you want me to do a secondary podcast on your hyper attention or you're just a super big Jordan clapper fingers a conspiracy fan. I mean I can repurpose the joke I made the first time you teach me where I said that if Rudy Giuliani can wear two watches, I can wear two headphones.

But I I you know, I'm a belt and suspenders guy. I went to law school and we learned to be very, very, very compulsive. So that's my story. I'm stick and do it. You're a belt and suspenders guy. What does that mean? That means? It's it's it's is that an overabundance of caution or fear that your pants could at any moment fall? Like? What is? This is what we do on this podcast. We really get into the nitty gritty. But this this, this is a move out of fear respect. True story.

I heard the expression at one point very early in my career covering oral arguments at the court, and I was like, what the hell does this mean? And all these lawyers were like, it just means being careful, idiot. So I think not to suggest that you're not knowing this term implies anything, but it was. I learned the hard way that apparently everyone but me knew that belt and suspenders is just kind of shorthand for lawyer Lee.

Over cautiousness maybe, but also fear that your pencilful do I was going to say, it's interesting, isn't like you. It's it's all about spin. It's either caution or it's fear. But but I see how the attorneys do it. It's a it's a deductive sound, and I appreciate you taking that certain suspenders action to listen to this. I want to talk about, you know, the potential collapse of democracy. It's a it's a hobby of mine, and I want

to discuss this more. V Heartbrook. Can we talk about that case itself and what that might mean for elections? Sure it is. It's hard to say this crisply Jordan's but it's both the most serious and least serious case of my career. It's serious because the implications are vast, which we're going to talk about. It's also rooted in so much nothing that it's almost painful. Like when they call it the independent state legislature doctrine or the independent

state legislature theory. Almost everybody puts doctrine in theory in air quotes because there's no there there. It's not something that is rooted in constitutional history. It's not something that's rooted in tradition. It's something that was almost entirely plucked from a chunk of a Rernquist opinion uh in Bush Vigore that only got three votes. It's not a majority opinion where he was kind of spitballing. You may recall

Bush Vigor also not a serious decision. So this is like a Rank quest fever dream that we're in the midstup right now. It's a rank with fever dream where he's sort of spitballing. Hey, maybe state legislatures have, you know, kind of plenary unreviewable power and state courts can't come in and bigfoot on them. It gets two votes, that should be the end of the story. But instead it's being lifted up as this important piece of doctor um.

And not to get too in the weeds, but the really the reason it's serious is because if the claim in this case, and this case comes from a North Carolina gerrymander, the North Carolina Supreme Court says, oh hell, now do do your maps again. And the North Carolina Republican Legislature takes this to the Supreme Court and says, we're here profering this completely assinine, rootless theory that when a legislature does election stuff, no court can review it.

End of story. There's that in a nutshell. If you're to explain it to our audience or even our host, pretend there's somebody who read the headline of a box article, but maybe didn't get all the way through because they're busy. Is that basically it? It's it's something that's looking at the power of state legislatures over federal elections and question whether or not they have ultimate power. Is that is?

That's ish. But there's there's one clarification. There's one section of this that has to do with the electors clause in the Constitution. That's the federal elections. There's one that is the elections clause that has to do with state elections. So this particular case actually doesn't implicate some of the stuff we talked about Brad Raefinsburger and you know, state electors and sending over fake state electors. This is not

scooping up that this is about state processes. But it does mean that if read state and let's remember thirty of the fifty states have read state legislatures, if they aside they want to make up new rules about ballot initiatives, they want to do new vote suppression, they want to um uh close polling plate, whatever they want to do.

They are saying nobody can take this to a state supreme court, not even a federal court, a state Supreme court and complain because basically, nobody is the boss of me. So this, this particular one, is about the state, how state election procedures are handled. But one tiny wrinkle there, Jordan,

this worth saying. One consequence of that is that if they win on that claim, you're going to have on the same ballot they used to have state and federal elections complete chaos because one set of them can't be reviewed and one presumably can. So one of the things that this is going to inject into the system is totally different lanes for state and federal office. Okay, so

you're looking perplexed. I'm worried that I've I mean, it sounds it sounds like there maybe should be a checker, a balance in there that these state legislatures should be able to be the final say, where do the justices stand on this? Like, what is the actual likelihood that state legislatures will gain control of federal election procedures? I Mean, here's the tricky part. We already have four justices on the current Supreme Court who have evinced real enthusiasm for

this theory. So we have Justices Alito, Gorschen, Thomas that are kind of like pedal to the metal, this is cool. Uh And in some of the pre election cases we saw them sort of effusing about how cool this was. And then we have a fourth Justice Kavanaugh, who's done some like chin stroking e like, oh, this is kind of I think this is pretty compelling, but isn't necessarily all in. Let's remember it takes four votes to grant a case, so that might be it. We don't know

where Amy coney Berry's Barrett sits on this. We do know that Chief Justice John Roberts doesn't think this is necessarily a fantastic idea. We also know he's irrell, event so there might be five votes already going in. It's probably coming down to Amy coney Barrett is going to uh decide this case. That's that's your best guess right now.

My guess is that John Roberts thinks this is too extreme, and he's written lots of prior cases of famously uh an Arizona case where he has said time and time again, no, no, no, no, we're not taking state just judges powers away over state legislatures. So I think he's pretty much going to adhere to some version of that. This is whacky do right, we have we made that point enough. This is insane and

John Roberts has many things insane, he is not. So Yes, I think it comes down to what Justice Barrett thinks, and we have no idea on this doctrine what she thinks. Well, this issue has popped up over the last hundred years. Supreme Court has batted it down over and over again. Why is it cropping back up? Now? It's cropping back up as part of this kind of law you're larger, and I think this goes to your sort of vote suppression frame. What do you do when you can't win

majorities anymore in America? Right? What you do is you capture state houses and then you gerrymander the heck out of your state voting systems to make sure that tiny

minorities stay in charge. And so I think this is of a piece with a whole subset of things, whether it's voter suppression bills like you know, the stuff that Stacy Abrams has been fighting, or whether it is ridiculous you know, malapportionment that means that you know the Alabama case that that the Court heard earlier this year, Meryl, where you have a third of Alabama. Of Alabama is

African American almost a third seven percent. They're all smashed into one of seven districts, so they can't um elect the candidate of their choice. So I think there's all sorts of ways that you suppress majorities. And I put this in the bucket of why do its small if you can do it huge? Right, if you can just do whatever you want. Is a state legislature and it's

unreviewable by any court. And by the way, just one other parenthetical, there's a maximalist, crazy version of this not at issue in mor V. Harper that would also say that governors like you talked about checks and balances, also have no power to do anything they can't veto this. So I think one way to sort of lock in minority rule for time and memorial is to just make it impossible for majority will to be represented at the

ballot box. Go big or go home, and while you're at home, just stay there because there's no reason to go out to vote, or that you can have an entire orderly election. And this is where folks should think about what happened in Georgia, in where you have a completely orderly, non chaotic election, and then you have the legislature be like, hm, no, we don't like those electors. Let's go for this slate of it, which is what John Eastman and Donald Trump were asking Brad Raefinsburger to do.

So I want to be super clear that issue is not I think in the four corners of what this appeal is. But I think it's of like, you have to draw a straight line between this and the kind of election denialism we're seeing in where you had states and state legislatures being lobbied by Donald Trump, by Jenny Thomas, by John Eastman to be like, never mind what the voters say, let's do it this way. Well, let's let's let's draw that line. So we do have conspiracy theorists

and election deniers and pretty prominent positions. Granted, quite a few of them did lose in the mid terms, including Kerry Lake in Arizona, who is now contesting her loss for governor even though the results have already been certified. Is it crazy to think that whole states that have election deniers and their legislatures could just choose to throw

out the results in federal elections. I don't think it's crazy, and I think, in fact, one of the things this doctrine is setting up is the stepping stone toward that right. I mean, the reason it didn't happen in when Donald Trump called Georgia and said, you know, give me a fresh ballot of fake collectors is that there was no architecture in place to support that right. This case would be part of building the architecture that says state legislatures

can do whatever they want. It is unreviewable, nothing can go to a state Supreme court. And one other point again on this is in there's an easy way to solve this particular North Carolina case, which is the actual legislature in North Carolina has already said that the state judiciary can review these questions. So this is an easy case. It shouldn't even be a question because the legislature has

taken this power away from itself. But I do think you're exactly right to say this is really a building block toward a future where state legislature's power are so utterly unreviewable or even creepily reviewable only by the U. S. Supreme Court, that you should just stay home. Well, you say this shouldnt even be a question, and I guess I'm curious what that says about our country's political ideology

and also the ideology of the justices. There are a number of conservative legal figures who are coming out against the Supreme Court even hearing this case. The fact that they are, what does that say about the ideology of the justices. So this is without a doubt for me, the most interesting part. Right, You've got Mike Ludig, the guy who almost got Chief Justice John Roberts seat at the court, right, he was on the shortlist. This is

a stalwart conservative legal movement giant. He's also the guy, by the way, who you may recall, Mike Pants was like, dude, can I do this thing that Donald Trump is asking me to do and not certify the election? It was Mike Ludig, you know, conservative legal giant, who was like, no, Mike, you can't do that. So he's wildly come out opposed to this, and in fact, I think he's one of the people, at least he said on my podcast like this would signal the demise of orderly elections and checks

and bounces. So he's come out against it. Ben Ginsburg, famous Republican election lawyers against it. Every chief justice of every State Supreme Court is on a brief in this case saying like this is insane. Stephen Kellibrasy, co founder of the Federalist Society, has come out again like there's very few sane conservative figures who are for this. So then your operative question is why the hell is the

court flirting with this? Like why are they playing footsie with a theory advanced principally by John Eastman, the guy who was the architect of the January six legal coup. And I think the reason is because there's no breaks at the U. S. Supreme Court, because they have a six justice supermajority. Everything in the world they wanted last term, abortion guns, you know, kneecapping, the e p A, kneecapping, the CDC. Everything they wanted, they got. Everything they didn't

get last year they're getting this year. So this is just a my friendly. A litment at Michigan calls it the hashtag Yolo Court. You know, they used to have some solicitude and sensitivity for what the public could tolerate, and I think now they're like directly in opposition to what the public can tolerate. There like, oh, Americans hate this, let's do it great, This is what what an uplifting conversation. It's so good to hear about the people who are

pulling the levers here. Okay, so let's if states choose to do this. If this is a situation that does come into fruition, what happens next is that it for democracy? Is there anything people in these states could do to prevent that? Well, I think that you're going to see very much what you're sort of seeing post Dobs, which is blue states will rush to bolster blue state supermajorities and will create, you know, supermajority districts, and will do all the things that New York tried to do and

failed to do in the midterms. But you'll see red states rushing to bolster uh, you know, the power of Republican uh supermajorities and all the ways that they do that. And so I think, in a weird way, maybe it's a sort of second iteration of the red state blue state patchwork we're seeing around guns, around environmental protection, around abortions. We're just going to see both sides further, you know, push whatever it is that they can do to make

sure they have unlosable power. And that's pretty scary. The important question. I think we're all thinking about what does this mean for me in the short term? Am I going to go out into the world and just here stop the steel forever or at least until rogue Red's days decide to reinstall President Trump again. That is what we call Stephen Bryer four part hypothetical question. Can we start with There's so many pieces of that. I mean, I think, uh, what it really means is that, first

of all, this is an incredibly abstract case. Nobody understands this case. This should be bigger than Bush figre. The implications, as I said, are vast, and yet I think folks are just like flummox right on the stop the steel folks, I have to say, just looping back to where you started Jordan's I'm pretty happy about the fact that the stop the Steelers got absolutely she lacked in the mid terms because it tells me it was not as salient

as they thought it was. And more urgently, and I think the polling really showed this people kind of like democracy. I mean, it was one of the issues that people showed up. You know, in addition to reproductive rights, people were really anxious that the machinery of crushing democracy had kind of gotten a toe hold, and so I actually think it's not to say this isn't a worry. It's a huge worry because the Supreme Court, as we have both stipulated, does not care what you and I think.

But I do think that the appetite for crazy, lawless vote suppression democracy uh shattering initiatives is not what I think Donald Trump and carry Lake thought it was. And so I'm like, I was like eight Bourbons in this

time before the you know, before the midterms. I think maybe this isn't terrible because I think as much as it sucks that the U. S. Supreme Court is an unchecked your stocracy that is going around doing whatever the hell it wants with life tenured people, when of whom has a wife who was involved in January six, that's bad. Let's agree. I think that folks recognize that after Dobbs

in a way they didn't. And I think that the ability to just sit there and like take it on the chin because the Supreme Court says so is much. I think the taste for that is in decline right now. I think people are sort of angry, and so I'm not as hopeless as you sound well, I will drink to that. That looks like a a good place to end. Diala Lithwick, thank you for coming out of the podcast.

Who is a pleasure? Thank you. Well, that's it. The end of our six episode limited edition mini series something like that. It's a limited series, it's a podcast, whatever it is. We did six episodes. That's what we said we're gonna do, and now we've wrapped it up and there's a chance we'll come back because there's always a world in which Americans believe dumb shit and we want to talk about all of that. Thanks for listening. This

has been a blast. Listen to Jordan Clapper figures the Conspiracy from The Daily Show on Apple, podcast the Heart Radio, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. What's the Daily Show weeknights at eleven tent Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast.