 Trump was incredibly shameless and brazen in the way that he tried to subvert the will of voters in 2020 by trying to steal the election away from Joe Biden, the rightful winner. And now we're learning just how active the Trump administration was in trying to thwart democracy because of a new PowerPoint that we all are learning about now where they go through very specific ways that they can just end democracy in the United States. And to say that is not hyperbole. We were this close to losing our democracy because of Donald Trump, and you might think, well, it didn't happen. This is just old news. I don't know. See, because we're learning about this now should light the fire under our butts to fight to save democracy. Now, since we have a limited amount of time to act, Democrats should be doing things to fix the vulnerabilities that make us susceptible to a coup succeeding. And we'll talk about that. But now I want to get to the details here because they are genuinely disturbing. And reading this should be the wake up call that everyone needed if they weren't actually taking this attack on our democracy seriously. So the Washington Post reports a retired U.S. Army colonel, they're talking about Phil Waldron, who circulated a proposal to challenge the 2020 election, including by declaring a national security emergency and seizing paper ballots said that he visited the White House on multiple occasions after the election, spoke with President Donald Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, maybe eight to 10 times and briefed several members of Congress on the eve of the January 6th riot. A version of the presentation made its way to the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on January 5th. That information surfaced publicly this past week after the congressional committee investigating the insurrection released the letter that said Meadows had turned the document over to the committee. The presentation was that there was significant foreign interference in the election. Here's the proof Waldron said, quote, these are constitutional, legal, feasible, acceptable and suitable courses of action. The PowerPoint circulated by Waldron included proposals for Vice President Mike Pence on January 6th to reject electors from states where fraud occurred or replace them with Republican electors. It included a third proposal in which the certification of Joe Biden's victory was to be delayed and U.S. Marshals and National Guard troops were to help, quote, secure and count paper ballots in key states. So this isn't details from a fictional book. This isn't a story about some developing country that just recently democratized. This happened in the United States where they were actively weighing out things they can do to steal the election from Joe Biden. And looking at these PowerPoints, it's honestly just so shocking. So let's go through it here. On this slide titled, options for January 6th, VP Pence, seats for Republican electors over the objections of Democrats and states where fraud occurred. Now ask yourself, why would he want to seat Republican electors? Well, so they can override the will of the people in those respective states and just override the popular vote and vote for Donald Trump anyway. VP Pence rejects the electors from states where fraud occurred causing the election to be decided by remaining electoral votes. VP Pence delays the decision in order to allow for a vetting and subsequent counting of all legal paper ballots. Now in a slide title recommendations, brief senators and congressmen on foreign interference, declare national security emergency, foreign influence and control electronic voting systems, declare electronic voting in all states invalid. We're talking about straight up canceling millions and millions of ballots, legal and genuine paper ballot counts or constitutional remedy delegated to Congress. So they had a multitude of things that they were talking about here. You lie about foreign interference and you declare a state of emergency or a national security emergency subsequently as a result of said cyber attack. And after you declare that state of a national emergency, then you use that to further do authoritarian things, give yourself more legal leeway. This is genuinely stunning, genuinely stunning. And it's not that surprising to know that Trump wanted to do these things and these things were being considered, but to see how intricate they were in going through all of the different things that they can do to kill democracy. It's still, it's surprising to see this also by just sending electors that would vote for Donald Trump and override the will of the people. I mean, at that point, they just don't care about democracy. They don't care about votes willing to declare electronic voting in all states invalid. I mean, we are talking about mass disenfranchisement full on authoritarianism. I mean, there are dictators and authoritarian regimes who aren't this bracing, but these are things that the Trump White House less than a year ago was considering. Just let that sink in. This was a very serious attack on our democracy, a very serious attack. More details here. So in response to the possibility of Republicans sending alternate pro-Trump electors to the electoral college to just override the popular votes in many states, while Mark Meadows was briefing a member of Congress on the idea and reportedly said that he loved the idea, loved the idea of stealing an election away. And on the eve of the January 6th Capitol, Ryan Mark Meadows sent an email suggesting that the National Guard was on standby to, quote, protect pro-Trump people. So anticipating the riot that did actually happen, they were suggesting that maybe the National Guard can come in. We're talking about them trying to push a military coup. We were this close. Now, whenever I talk about the threat that Trump posed and continues to pose to our democracy, there's a lot of people that roll their eyes because they think, look, we should just look forward. Trump's out of office. Now we have to focus on Joe Biden. Exactly. That's why you talk about this. Because right now, Joe Biden and Democrats have a very limited amount of time to act. If they don't fix this now, if they don't see all of these vulnerabilities in our system and correct it, they're essentially complicit in a coup that does occur. And when you look at how GOP-controlled states are giving themselves the legal authority to override the will of voters, we don't know if this is constitutional. I mean, I should say it's unconstitutional, but we don't know if the Supreme Court would invalidate these things because there's been some hints that maybe Amy Coney Barrett and Kavanaugh or Alito, I can't remember which one, would actually side with these states doing this. But basically, they're trying to strip local county officials of control and allow the state legislature to control elections, not allow the state attorney general in some states to control the elections, let the state legislators control the outcome of elections. So in the event Georgia, for example, with Brian Kamp wants to send alternate electors to the Electoral College, they can do that. So it's not that this is old news and we should move on. Contrary to that, we should be focusing on this right now because I am anticipating a bloodbath in 2022. And if that is the case, then Democrats have less than a year to act and meaningfully get this fixed. Like there's a lot of things that they have to do. A lot of things that they have to do first and foremost, abolishing the Electoral College is really important because that's one of the key ways that they were considering just undermining the will of the people. On top of that, they need to do voter reform, create national laws that override these states that are putting into place voter suppression and anti-democratic bills. Now is the time to act. So anyone that tells you move on from Donald Trump, move on from January 6th, no, those people are enabling the future coup and death of our democracy, essentially. We have to act now. And look, we were really lucky that Trump wasn't able to pull this off. It happened pretty quickly. I don't think that he anticipated a loss. So he had a very disorganized attempt at doing this coup. He tried to cobble together some idiots to come up with these plans. He tried to do everything that he could. He tried to put pressure on people. We know the infamous call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, where he tried to pressure him to find votes. Trump tried to do what he could, but he couldn't. But he's not going to fall short next time. If he runs for president again, who knows what's going to happen? This man is an authoritarian. Now Republicans are giving themselves the power to assist Donald Trump. Donald Trump is trying to cleanse the GOP of anyone who didn't go along with the big lie. And he's endorsing candidates who support the big lie and believe the election was stolen. So this is incredibly serious. And if you don't take this seriously, then you just don't care about democracy. And I know that that seems really reductionist, but this is a serious threat that we haven't encountered before. Donald Trump is an authoritarian. When he was in office, he joked about running for a third term. And that's not a joke. Like, he was probably being serious. He would run for a third term. This man is an authoritarian. And it's not necessarily just Trump that I'm worried about. But if another authoritarian-esque demagogue like Donald Trump arises in the future, once Trump is long gone, well, they're going to see the way that he laid the groundwork. And they might be a lot more smart than Donald Trump. They might be able to actually pull it off. Trump might be able to pull it off with the assistance of Republicans in many GOP-controlled states. So now is the time to act. Now is the time to not just move on and let Trump go. Now is the time to put pressure on the Democratic Party nationally to pass laws that protect democracy. Otherwise, they are complicit if a coup does end up killing democracy in the United States.