00:04:01.860So let's start up at the top here because I have got a state party chair who called Tuesday night one of the best nights of her entire life0.97
00:04:13.520and who is now headed to a judge to undo part of that same night.
00:04:18.760I have got a federal judge who told the Justice Department out loud from the bench,
00:07:08.380That is a woman who got everything she asked for.
00:07:11.180And on the same ballot, in the same booths, by the same hands, on the same day, the workers of Washington State passed an initiative, 6-3-8.
00:10:32.820six. Now I could spend the next 10 minutes on how that feels and I'm not going to because you
00:10:40.240already know how it feels and because what it feels like is not useful to you. What is useful
00:10:46.840to you is how. And I went and I got the how this morning because the part of the story that nobody
00:10:55.580is going to tell you is the part where this was already stopped once and the people who could
00:11:01.560have stopped it, decided not to. So follow the calendar with me because it matters.
00:11:08.620This did not start as a ballot measure. In Washington state, there is a thing called
00:11:14.500an initiative to the legislature, and it works exactly like it sounds. You gather the signatures
00:11:20.920and instead of going straight to the voters, it goes to the legislature first. The lawmakers
00:11:27.820get the first crack at it. In early January, the people pushing this turned in about 445,000
00:11:38.480signatures. On January 22nd, the Secretary of State, Steve Hobbs, formally notified the
00:11:47.560legislature that the signatures had been verified and certified. That is the letter. It has a date
00:11:55.360on it. The legislator was told in writing in January. And the rule is this. If the legislator
00:12:04.900does nothing by the end of its session, the measure goes on the next general election ballot
00:12:11.380automatically. The end of that session was March 12th. So here is where I need you to be very
00:12:24.000clear-eyed because this is the whole thing. That legislator is controlled by her party
00:12:30.940comfortably for years, including the two chambers she just spent Tuesday night celebrating for0.97
00:12:37.440growing their majorities for the sixth cycle in a row. They had the paper in January. They had
00:12:44.900until March 12th. They could not have amended it. I mean, they could have if they wanted to,
00:12:49.780They could have amended it. They could have passed a competing version. They could have written their own policy and put it in statute, which was the one thing that actually would have settled it.
00:13:03.180They did nothing. And when you do nothing with an initiative to the legislator, you're not blocking it. You're mailing it straight to the voters.
00:13:14.680That is what the statute does on its own, while everybody is at recess.
00:13:21.440So the sequence is not complicated, and I want it in order, out loud, once.
00:13:27.480January, the legislature is told in writing that this is coming.
00:13:32.700March, the legislature's session ends with the bill untouched, which sends it to the ballot.
00:13:39.740November 3rd, 1,252,000 people vote for it.
00:13:47.140November 3rd, later that same evening,
00:13:50.580the chair of the party that controls that legislature
00:13:53.600calls it one of the best nights of her life.
00:13:58.120November 4th, she announces she is taking the result to a judge.
00:14:04.740And I want to be fair to her about one thing,
00:14:06.940because being fair is how you stay credible and I intend to stay credible. She is allowed to do
00:14:12.920that. Going to court over a ballot measure is legal. It's normal. It happens in this country1.00
00:14:19.500constantly in both directions and some of those cases are righteous. That is not what is bothering
00:14:27.060me. What is bothering me is which number she is arguing with because she is not arguing with the
00:14:36.040count. Nobody in Washington state is claiming a miscount. The returns are the returns and her
00:14:43.180own side had a terrific night in them. She is arguing with the answer. And that is the thing
00:14:54.720that I want you to carry for the next 15 minutes because you are going to watch it happen four more
00:15:01.640times in this hour in four more places by four more people who have absolutely nothing else in
00:15:10.020common. Tuesday, the voters answered. Wednesday, everybody who did not like the answer went and
00:15:19.720got a lawyer. And the very next one on my list is the strangest one because this time the lawyer
00:18:27.140Wednesday, the day after the election, a federal grand jury sitting in Santa Ana handed up an
00:18:36.540indictment. Ten people, Los Angeles and Orange counties. Ten were charged. And before I go one
00:18:47.300syllable further, here's the thing that I'm going to say once and mean. Those are charges. Ten people
00:18:55.440have been accused not one of them has been convicted of anything and in this country you
00:19:00.320are not guilty because a grand jury said the word that is not me being soft at all that is me
00:19:08.020refusing to do the thing that I have spent four years watching other people do on our side I'm
00:19:14.360not doing it all right so here's now the details of the whole thing all 10 of those people are
00:19:23.900lawful permanent residents, green card holders, every one of them. These are not people who came
00:19:31.300across a river last spring. These are people who are here legally with documents in the system
00:19:38.860in line. And here is the number that I did not expect. And it's the reason this story
00:19:44.640is not what you think it is. Nine of the 10 are not charged over a ballot at all.
00:19:53.900Mm-mm. Nine of the ten are charged with lying on a naturalization application, with filling out the form to become an American citizen, and on a form denying that they had ever registered to vote or ever claimed to be a citizen.
00:20:12.520one of the 10 is accused of voting four times 2020 twice in 2022 and 2024
00:20:24.240so sit with the shape of what is actually being alleged there it is not mainly a vote
00:20:32.960fraud case. It is a case about the application. It is about the last question on the paperwork
00:20:42.160before you get to raise your right hand. And the first assistant United States attorney out there,
00:20:50.980a man by the name of Bill Asaley, said the quiet part out loud. He described these defendants as
00:20:59.380legal immigrants. He said, they are people who are voluntarily going through the immigration0.86
00:21:05.840process. That's who they are. He said, quote, they're trying to become a citizen.
00:21:12.220That is a prosecutor telling you his own defendants are not villains out of a movie.
00:21:18.080They are people who want in. And I will tell you what I think about that since you're here,
00:21:24.860and I am the one with the mic. I think it is worse. Not for them, for us. Because the whole
00:21:35.900transaction of becoming an American is one promise on one piece of paper. It is not a fee.
00:21:44.100It is not a wait. It is a promise. You tell the truth about who you have been and in exchange,
00:21:52.180this country hands you the single most valuable citizenship on the face of the earth.
00:22:00.140And the people in that courtroom are accused of getting the order wrong,
00:22:05.340of taking the vote first and asking for the country second.
00:22:11.220You do not get to vote your way into a country you are still asking to join.
00:22:17.160so count the two cases together because the pair is the point in Washington state somebody lost a
00:22:26.660question she did not like and went looking for a judge in California a judge refused to give the
00:22:34.940government the big win it asked for and then told it where the law actually lets it go
00:22:41.580both of those are courtrooms both of those happened inside the same 48 hours one of them
00:22:52.500is a party chair trying to get a judge to overrule 1,252,000 people the other one is a judge telling
00:23:03.600the government, no, you cannot have 20,000 ballots, but if you've got individuals who
00:23:10.920broke the law, then name them, charge them, and prove it in front of a jury like everybody else.
00:23:19.140I know which one of those I think is the system working.
00:23:24.680Now hold that thought because I have got four more pieces of paper to put in front of you
00:23:29.960and one of them has a smiley face on it.
00:23:33.600And I actually had to write smiley face instead of give you an emoji because it wouldn't work.
00:23:38.240For some reason, it just froze at the very end when I was preparing for this.
00:23:42.580And it wouldn't give me a smiley face.
00:36:44.880The whole state. Again, at a general election.
00:36:49.720That is the rung North Carolina's voters used on Tuesday, and that is why the ballot matters more than the Senate seat on the same ballot, no matter which way you voted on either one.
00:37:06.440Now, the clocks. Three of them. And they are all running right now.
01:00:50.280four women you will never see and never hear because the law over there gives them1.00
01:00:58.760anonymity for the rest of their lives they walked into that building anyway they told 12 strangers
01:01:06.520what happened to them and 12 strangers believed them he had everything the accent the stadiums
01:01:16.460The millions of followers, the whole second act where he reinvented himself
01:01:21.680and lectured the rest of us about who was corrupt.
01:01:26.040The Crown Prosecutor said it today, and these are his words, and they're not mine.
01:01:34.540Predatory. Used his celebrity status to commit sexual crimes.
01:01:40.440A manipulator, he said, with an insatiable desire to get what he wanted,
01:01:45.180whether consent was given or not. He is sentenced Monday. Every other name in this block is waiting
01:01:55.700on a hearing date. He got his. So, what do you actually watch? Not a headline, a hearing date.
01:02:09.900The day a judge puts one of these on a calendar is the day something is about to happen, and that day will show up on the docket before it shows up anywhere else.
01:02:24.460Everybody on that list lawyered up. Not one of them is finished.
01:02:31.180They are waiting the same way we are, and the difference is they are paying for it.
01:02:39.900I want to end with a number, and it is not a vote total.