trump s closest allies and advisors are trying to pretend trump isn t actually saying what he won t stop saying. when he talks about a rigged election, he s not talking about the fact that it s going to be rigged at the polls. what he s talking about is 80% to 85% of the media is against him. well, i don t think he was saying the result was illegitimate. i think he was saying there is a bias out there that has been against him. trump s major complaint about the election is not at the poll level. it s at the news media level. this election is being rigged by the national media. the american people are tired of the obvious bias in the national media. that s where the sense of a rigged election goes here, chuck. so the line is that trump isn t actually questioning the integrity of the election. he s just talking about media bite as, a claim that might be more effective if it weren t for the trump keeps contradicting his own surrogates. quote, the election is absolutely being rig
today. nearly 70% of republican voters, self-identified republicans, thought that republican leaders are not supporting trump enough. right. so when ryan and other leaders in the party, mitt romney i spoke to a trump supporter in florida last week who said, i used to love the bush family. i supported them in all their elections and now they re dead to me. so they ve chosen trump s side in that battle. that s the precedent there for the legitimacy of the election, which is that if you can turn people s opinions around on a dime on something like paul ryan, right, then you can or the bushes. molly ball, thanks for your time. appreciate it. still to come, brand-new polling showing the battleground map continuing to expand for the democratic party. tonight news that michelle obama is headed to a deep red state to try and flip it. that s ahead. but first, while donald trump republicans continue to perpetuate this myth of systematic widespread voter fraud, the actual cause fo
clear he is, quote, fully confident in the nation s systems. quote, our democracy relies on confidence in election results and the speaker is fully confident the state also carry out this election with integrity. america has a decentralized system. something that makes it impossible, to quote, rig a election. the secretaries of state in many swing states are republicans, who is safe to assume are not seeking to throw the election for hillary clinton. one of those republican secretaries of state, john husband ted of ohio, says it is utterly irresponsible for trump to push we have so many safeguards in place in our election system. it s bipartisan. it s transparent, and there s just no justification for concern about widespread voter fraud. some trump surrogates trying to thread the needing by insisting trump is not talking about widespread voter fraud, but voter fraud in inner cities where, you know, black people vote.
the white house is such a massive departure of the norms of american political discourse, a fundamental threat to the foundation of democracy, that trump s closest allies and advisors are trying to pretend trump isn t actually saying what he won t stop saying. when he talks about a rigged election, he s not talking about the fact that it s going to be rigged at the polls. what he s talking about is 80% to 85% of the media is against him. well, i don t think he was saying the result was illegitimate. i think he was saying there is a bias out there that has been against him. trump s major complaint about the election is not at the poll level. it s at the news media level. this election is being rigged by the national media. the american people are tired of the obvious bias in the national media. that s where the sense of a rigged election goes here, chuck. so the line is that trump isn t actually questioning the integrity of the election. he s just talking about media bite as,
to me, the issue is more the nominee of the party has a tremendous amount of power in terms of how much legitimacy they cede to the process. one of the things we ve learned in the obama era is if you just unilaterally withdraw and say, no, this is not legitimate, you have a huge effect on a large swath of the population because of how polarized our politics are. that s right. i think the really fascinating thing we ve learned from this trump versus paul ryan frack as, is that with apologies to chairman steele, the rank and file have chosen trump s side over paul ryan s side. that when forced to choose, when trump said paul ryan sucks, instead of saying, no, no, we like paul ryan. they say, yeah, trump, and they all turned on paul ryan. there was a poll that came out today. nearly 70% of republican voters, self-identified republicans, thought that republican leaders are not supporting trump enough. right.