Trump's Trials - The Republicans who stood up to Trump after the 2020 election

Episode Date: September 14, 2024

For this episode of Trump's Trials, host Scott Detrow takes speaks with Dan Reed, the director of the documentary "Stopping the Steal."In the film we hear from Republican officials in Arizona and Georgia who wanted Donald Trump to win the 2020 presidential election but were not willing to break the law for him. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify for new episodes each Saturday.Sign up for sponsor-free episodes and support NPR's political journalism at plus.npr.org/trumpstrials.Email the show at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The Supreme Court justices have issued a major ruling and an election case. The Justice Department will be relentless in defending the right to vote. Will you accept the results of the election? If it's a fair and legal election, absolutely. It's Trump's Trials from NPR. I'm Scott Detro. Frankly, we did win this election. Many states such as Nevada and California set millions of live ballots to every person on their voter rolls,

whether those individuals had requested ballots or not, whether they were dead or alive. This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. You know, we won, won Georgia just so you understand. That was then President Trump in the months after the 2020 election. Joe Biden, of course, won it,

but Trump kept insisting it was stolen. He kept putting forward conspiracy after conspiracy. It all built to January 6th, 2021. We fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell, you're not gonna have a country anymore. Nearly four years later, at Tuesday's presidential debate, Trump was asked if he had any regrets about his actions that day.

I had nothing to do with that other than they asked me to make a speech. I showed up for a speech. Trump is, of course, facing two different criminal cases and a dozen charges related to his efforts to overturn the election, though this week a Georgia judge again narrowed some of the charges he's facing in the state-level criminal case there.

At the debate, moderator David Muir pressed Trump on the lack of clear evidence tied to his election lies. You know this. You and your allies, 60 cases in front of many judges, many of them Republican. No judge looked at it. And said there was no widespread fraud. They said we didn't have standing. Again, not true.

The cases went nowhere because there was no evidence of this widespread fraud. But that didn't stop Trump and his allies from pressuring Republican state officials to throw out the election results. In HBO's new documentary, Stopping the Steal, we hear from Republican officials who wanted Trump to win, but who were not willing to break the law for him. And when we come back, we will speak to the director, Dan Reed. On the Ted Radio Hour,

paleontologist Ken Lacavara says a spot in New Jersey sheds light on exactly what happened when an asteroid hit the Earth. This makes this the best window on the planet into that pivotal, calamitous moment that wiped out the dinosaurs and really made the modern world as we know it. The day the dinosaurs died. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the presidential campaign for NPR.

So I go to rallies, a lot of them. I want to hear what the candidates say, talk to voters, and find out what ideas are resonating. And I put it all in my reporting to help you make sense of this election. It's why being there is important. To help support this work, sign up for NPR+. Go to plus.npr.org. On How to Do Everything from the team at Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, we try to find the answers to all your burning questions.

I'd like to know how do I get someone to tell me if I smell? That's the perfect question for us. So we went over to her house and we sniffed her. Because we care. Listen to the How to Do Everything podcast from NPR. We'll sniff you too. And we are back with Stopping the Steal director, Dan Reed. Dan Pex for joining us.

Hi, thank you. You're originally from the UK. What drew you to this story? When I came to the realization that it seemed likely that Donald Trump and his entourage had set out to overturn the results of the 2020 election, I thought, this is insane. This is like the boldest and most daring heist in political history. It's actually sort of trying to steal the keys to the White House. That's quite something. But I wasn't really, although a lot had been reported on, I wasn't really clear about exactly how this had happened.

And also I thought, well, there are a lot of people who are saying that Trump tried to steal the election, but maybe they just have a political axe to grind. Maybe the evidence isn't really there. So I started to dig around in it. And what I realized was that, A, no one had really put together the whole story from a sort of 10,000 foot bird's eye point of view. And secondly, that all of the key people who I think stood in the way of this attempt

to subvert democracy were Republicans. And so I thought, well, why don't I tell this story through the eyes of the Republicans who stood in Trump's way when he tried to overturn the election results. I think one of the things the film does very well is lay out in a chronological way, just in a very straightforward way, all of the things that Donald Trump was saying from early in the morning of election night when he comes into the White House and says, frankly, we did win this election on. At rallies, in interviews, at White House appearances, you intercut that with things that his legal team, the elite strike force as they called themselves at one point, Rudy

Giuliani and others are saying. And I have a couple of questions about that. One is that there were a lot of moments and I was covering the campaign. I was mostly focused on the transition that was already underway, but I was, you know, I was paying close attention. There were a lot of these moments that in real

time felt farcical. They felt like they could not be a serious attempt. And I think Rudy Giuliani sweating off his hair dye is a very good example of that. And then when you know what it all led to, when you know the violence of January 6th and how close things came to toppling over,

they kind of take on a different meaning. And I'm wondering, as you were going through this footage, if you thought any differently about it than you may have when you saw it in real time. I think you put your finger on something important, which is that the way the steel, if that's what we're gonna call the attempt to overturn the election results in 2020, the way the steal unfolded was a series of events that

could be seen as quite trivial, or absurd and burlesque and comical, as you just said. And I think it takes the passage of time and also the assembling of these moments into something coherent, into something that seems like a conspiracy really to steal the election. It takes that to be able to feel the chilling effects of a consistent and sustained execution of a plan. That's what it was. Giuliani and co. went from state to state through the swing states and President Trump reached out in person to very obscure officials.

I think one of the Gabriel Sterling, one of the protagonists in the Georgia drama says nobody should ever know who I am. Nobody would have ever known who I am were it not for this terrible thing that happened. And so I think, you know, what you have is a series of quite kind of small events and small skirmishes, if you like, in the election story, and none of which are for all its drama, was not really the most significant event in the steel. What was? Well, the steel was what happened, was the cumulative effects of what happened before January 6th. President Trump's embrace of John Eastman, the constitutional lawyer, in the hope of

convincing everyone that Mike Pence would be able to simply change the results of the election. So I think it's that sort of the slow steady strangulation of the democratic process that with the perspective we now have seems really chilling and dangerous. But at the time, I think, you know, as you said, you were there, it seems crazy, it seems nuts. The reason I mentioned at the very top that you're originally from the UK is because I think one powerful line of response

to all of this over the last four years from President Biden, from others, is what did all of this say to the rest of the world about American democracy? The attempts to overturn the election, how close they came to actually happening, the violence of January 6. Do you have any thoughts on that after finishing this project and spending so much time thinking

really closely about this? America has always been, despite the ups and downs over the years and whatever political angles one might take on how American democracy has played out. America has always been that shining beacon on the hill in terms of how we practice democracy in the rest of the world. And I'm saying that as a Brit, I am filled with apprehension and even perhaps a little bit of fear as I put together this story. It's made me a little afraid. But I hope we're heading towards a new era in American politics and

all this will go away and we'll look back and it will be like a bad dream. That was Dan Reed, director of the upcoming documentary, Stopping the Steal. It premieres on MAX September 17th. Thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you, Scott. Thanks to our supporters who hear the show sponsor free. If that is not you, still could be. You can sign up at plus.npr.org or subscribe on our show page and Apple podcasts. This show is produced by Tyler Bartleman, edited by Adam Rainey, Krishnadev Kalamur and Steve Drummond. Our executive producers are Beth Donovan and Sammy Yenigan.

Eric Maripotti is NPR's vice president of news programming. I'm Scott Detro. Thanks for listening to Trump's Trials from NPR. The candidates for November are set. I know Donald Trump's tight. Between now and election day. We are not going back. A campaign season unfolding faster.

Kamala Harris is not getting a promotion. Than any in recent history. Make America great again. Follow it all with new episodes every weekday on the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Elena Moore. I cover new voters for NPR. That means people who've never voted before, especially young people. Their numbers and power are growing. What issues do they care about?

How do they feel? What they say can tell us where this election is headed. My job is to bring their voices to you. To help support our work, sign up for NPR+. Just go to plus.npr.org.