thrown into chaos has gop candidates simply act like trump and refuse to admit defeat. the warning lights are blinking red that this could happen. right now the trump-owned party, as i like to call it, is executing a strategy to seize control of the t.o.p. from the bottom up and reshape america s elections. it s been doubbed the precinct strategy, and guess who s the svengali driving this hostile takeover. we re tacking action, and that action is we re taking over school boards. we re taking over the republican party from the precinct committee strategy. we re taking over all the elections. we re going to take over the election apparatus. american citizens that are volunteering, they are now going to volunteer to go to become a precinct committeeman. they re going to swvolunteer to become an election official. they re going to run for county clerk and overthrow these county clerks. they re going to take over the secretary of states. we re going to take this back village by village, p
cnn.com/full circle. you can watch it on the cnn app any time on demand. go to cnn.com/podcasts or any of the major platforms. just search anderson cooper 360. news continues. reporter: anderson, thank you very much. i m jim acosta, and this is democracy in peril, to sound the alarm democracy is still very much in danger. tonight we ll dig into how former president trump s forces are purging state and local operations across the country. it s of course happening add the national level, too, is trump is picking and choosing his favorite big lie peddlers in key contests. that s happening under the watchful eye of senate leader mich mcconnell. the big question, though, is what happens if our mid-term elections later this year are thrown into chaos as gop
attacks on the truth has eroded faith in american democracy and its institutions. you don t trust the election officials. nope. you don t trust the fbi. nope. you don t trust the courts. nope. who do you trust? trump and his supporters. i trust and anybody that when i listen to them talk they don t turn my stomach with the disingenuousness. do you have trust and faith now in american democracy, in american elections? no. i mean i think whoever wins wins. he will win if he runs again. but the people that know we were cheated are almost at the point of saying i don t want to vote because it ll happen again. because it ll happen again. what is your reaction to hearing from an american like that? well, ten years ago shock and disbelief and i would have thought, well, she s an outlier and she s not representative of anything larger than a fringe monument, maybe. but of course that s not the case anymore. barbara walter is a professor
today we found out senate republican leader mitch mcconnell told cnn s manu raju he s encouraging gop candidates for congress to honor the election results in this country, saying, quote, it s important for candidates to remember we need to respect the results of our democratic process unless the court system demonstrates that some significant fraud occurred that would change the outcome. i guess it s nice for mcconnell to say that, and it echos some of the cautions to the party that we ve heard from him in the past, like when he blamed trump for the insurrection but voted to acquit the former president during the impeachment trial. now i can hear all of you guys saying right now, mitch, please. mcconnell has had a year to clean up this party, and frankly he s blown it. we need to get rid of this january 6th commission and replace it with a november 3rd commission. this january 6th commission is a total sham and waste of time.
election? probably not. but that s a terrible thing, right? yeah, it s a terrible thing. i don t think you can trust our government anymore. it s sad, but i really don t think you can. that s what trump was all about, making the elections in the future fair so we can believe when you vote for somebody, that person s going to get your vote. you know, they re good people. they re trying to do what they think is right. it s the leadership that s cynical. it s the leadership that knows better, who s feeding them lies consistently. they always talk about the big lie. they re the big lie. reporter: while just 30% of americans think there is solid evidence that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election, 62% of republicans say so. looking ahead to the 2022 midterm elections, only 42% of republicans say they re somewhat or very confident the results will be counted accurately. they re priming their supporters to believe that democracy isn t worth defending