Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. We are monitoring demonstrations tonight in louisville and around the country as protesters react to the decision today by a grand jury in kentucky to not pursue murder charges against Police Officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor in her own apartment just six months ago. One officer was charged today with a relatively minor felony but not for the shooting of taylor herself. We will have much more on the protests as well as and that charge later in the show. Conversations with john legend and many others. But we begin tonight with a chilling moment, ive got to say. I dont know any other way to say it. The president of the United States threatening violence to stay in power. Sounds weird coming out of my mouth, but thats what happened. When explicitly asked to commit to a peaceful transfer of power today, he declined, and this was his response. Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transfer of power after the election . We will have to see what happens. You know that. I have been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster. I understand that, but people are rioting. Do you commit to making sure there is a peaceful transfer of power . Get rid of the ballots and well have a very peaceful there wont be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You know it. You know who knows it better than anybody else . The democrats know it better than anybody else. Just to be clear, if you are talking to a person and you ask them to commit to behave peacefully and they refuse, theyre threatening violence, right . What the president is doing here is the most explicit that he has been about his plans for this election. Hes plotting in open public repeatedly a coup to steal the election and hold on to power. Again, it all sounds crazy to say. Those are the plain facts as assembled before us. It is not a behind the scenes type of thing. It is happening in public, in plain view. The election is 41 days away. People are already voting. And, look, a few things can happen between now and november 3rd. I mean, the polls could all be wrong. It could turn out donald trump is much more popular than appears to be right now even with 200,000 plus americans dead from a pandemic. Or some event could happen that changes things dramatically and donald trump could win. He could win in a clear and evident fashion. That is a possibility. Another possibility, one that right now polls would indicate is much more likely is that if democrats fight and organized and the broad bipartisan antitrump majority in this country comes out and votes in unprecedented numbers that joe biden could sweep by eight or nine or ten votes in the popular votes, a decisive historic unambiguous route. Thats another possibility. We also may land somewhere between those two ends where the margins are tight and the outcome is not obvious right away. And thats what the president is very explicitly planning for, because those tight margins sets in motion his plan to steal the election. Now, there are already attempts all over the country to make it harder for democratic constituencies to vote. There is voter id requirements. Those have been around a while and there is plans to send trump friendly volunteers to patrol polling places and intimidate voters. We saw that in early voting in virginia. There are also, right, as part of this kind of attempt, there are lawsuits all over the country filed by the Trump Campaign republicans, places like pennsylvania, right, where the Trump Campaign republicans sued to block voters from using drop boxes of all things to turn in their ballots. Right . Thats because they dont want to be able to vote. And then there is the key tactic, the key rhetorical tactic, which is what we have seen time and time again, the relentless attacks aided by William Barrs lies on legitimacy and integrity of mailin voting while the country is still in the midst of a once in a century pandemic that has not ebbed because of the president s failures. Around support for himself. The goal is that the protrump minority of the country, and it is a clear minority, lets be clear right now as i spoke to you, that that minority votes in person on election day and that the antitrump majority, perhaps more concerned about the pandemic that they largely vote by mail. Of course, the president s abject mishandling and pollicization of the Coronavirus Crisis has a lot to do with us being in this position to begin with. And the president has been explicit about why hes doing this, right . He will take advantage of something called the red mirage where more republicans votes come in first because those people voted in person, making it look like trump is ahead on Election Night and then he will attempt to use the courts to delay something called the blue shift, which is just the counting of more heavily democratic mailin votes. Theyre all the same votes. Theyre all just getting counted at different times, right . Keep that in mind. There is a stack over here, a stack over there. If the Election Night stack is very republican and the mailin stack is very democratic, there is no difference between those votes. But he will try to use the courts to invalidate as many of those votes as he can. Remember, this is why today he refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, the mailin ballots. Get rid of those ballots, he said. Those are also a reason the president says, keeps saying, that he is counting on the courts, the federal courts to help him win. Hes not going to wait for the ballots to be counted. Hes saying it. That is why the president and his allies like senator ted cruz are making this part of their explicit argument to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburgs seat on the Supreme Court. Theyre out there. We should have nine justices on the bench, an odd number to resolve the election. Keep in mind, republicans already have a 53 majority of the court. But apparently they do not trust chief Justice John Roberts to be enough of a hack to hand them the white house. So thats everything they are doing in public. But it is even worse in private behind the scenes, especially when you think about how they might use the power of the presidency again to steal the election after the votes are cast. And this is the subject of this new piece titled the election that could break america. The piece is nearly 10,000 words long and breaks down how much effort is going into stealing the election. I want to take you through a piece of his reporting. This is not fan fiction. It is not doom casting. This is reporting, right . The Trump Campaign reportedly actively engaged in conversations about appointing, appointing loyal electors for the Electoral College in battleground states where republicans hold the majority with a justification based on those claims of ramped fraud. Trump would ask legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a late of electors directly. After they delay and they fight and they scratch and they claw and hopefully they get lucky with a bunch of judges that donald trump installed and they get to get them not to count as many of the mailin votes as possible and take a long time, those votes they suspect are largely democratic and they agree to discount it because who can say there is all this fraud. Just listen to the president and hand him his electors into victory in the Electoral College. I know. It sounds like distaupic science fiction. It is what is happening in front of our eyes. We have to be honest about it, the same we we had to be honest about what the virus was going to do to this country back in late february. It is, frankly, a plan for an authoritarian power grab. Now, as you digest this, before you get paralyzed by this nightmare scenario because part of the plan here, i think, is to psych people into paralysis, there are even more nightmare scenarios were going to talk about. But the key thing thats important to remember is there is an off ramp here. And it doesnt lie with donald trump. It doesnt really lie with Mitch Mcconnell or federal judges or anyone. The remedy to avoid all this is just a historic mobilization of the countrys antitrump prodemocratic majority coming out to vote, delivering a resounding unquestionable defeat to the president and his agenda in order to save american selfgovernance. And joining me now is bart gellman. Staff writer or the atlantic. Author of the piece. It is a great piece of work. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. You hear these people say, well, trump is not going to leave if he loses. My thinking is, no, we will leave. We will be kicked out of the white house on inauguration day, january 20th. But you are describing a plan to essentially use the rules and the jockeying around them to create a plausible legal victory in the absence of an actual popular one. And it starts on Election Night. Lets talk about the sort of plan around in anticipation that Election Night the votes are kind of polarized along in person mailin voting. What does that do . What does that start to set in motion in terms of the plan the trump folks have . So trump has deliberately polarized that. Thats an insight i didnt come to until very recently. His comments on mailin voting, chris, are designed to drive his votes to the polls in person and democratic votes to stay in the mailin ballots, to be safe from covid. And that gives him a proxy so that his lawyers, probably more than a thousand lawyers hes got lined up to go in the battleground states beginning on election day or beginning eight months ago because they have been fighting this out all year, they know which ballots to target. They know which ones to accuse of being fraudulent. They know which ones to challenge signature by signature and envelope by envelope. And the idea is to freeze the count in place on Election Night. Its never going to get better for trump than on Election Night because that is when he is expecting his voters to turn out and many democratic voters yet to be counted. So the idea is to freeze that in place, to raise accusations of fraud and rigging and general chaos to go into court but basically to delay any period during which biden could be coming back or to delay any recognition that biden is ahead. This is all assuming that things dont go well for him, chris. As you pointed out, he could win. He could win legit. Sure. But his plan is the plan of someone who does not expect to get the most votes. I mean, i guess one question, right, is there are different rules in different states, and this matters quite a bit about when those ballots are counted, when theyre allowed to be counted. There has been republican mischief around those states intentionally intervening to make them not counted, to make it illegal to start counting them before election day. Am i right about that . That is right. There have been a number of lawsuits around the country that lead to the question you have got a whole bunch of mail ballots that have come in. Theyre stacking up in the offices. Are you allowed to start comparing signatures . Are you allowed to say, yes, john doe requested a ballot. Here is the ballot. The signature matches. The address matches, all the checks they are supposed to do. And then they put the inner security envelope, which has the ballot, the actual vote in it into a place where it will be counted on election day, but it is a laborious process. If you can do that preprocessing before election day, then you have a chance of having same day results. Some states dont allow that. Arizona does. Florida does, which is key, which is why florida ends up being key because they count quickly. That process starts at ballots come in. I know this is technical but think about this. When were talking about the two stacks, there are some states with two stacks and some states with one stack. The states with one stack, youre opening them and this person is a voter. Youre saying, it goes in the same stack as the same day votes, right . And florida is one of those states. It is part of the reason that florida closing early and counting quickly is key. Lets talk about this idea of that time line, right . Because i think people need to think about this. Obviously there is a lot of people on the other side thinking about this. There is basically the constitution and statute, right, creates a deadline for states to appoint their electors in december 8th; is that correct . Right. So december 14th is the day the electors meet in their 50 state capitals and cast their ballots. Popular misconception aside, the Electoral College itself does not meet as a body. Thats december 14th. December 8th is called the safe harbor date. That is the deadline for each state to appoint its electors to certify these are the electors who will cast our votes. And after that deadline, they cant be sure that congress will accept the credentials of those electors. As long as there is no controversy about who the electors are on december 8th, then congress accepts. If there is a controversy, and this is going to be key in our story here, then its congress that decide. If there is more than one slate of electors, for example, or if there is controversy about who counts, then congress decides which electors if any to accept. And thats the key to the trump plan. And that was key to the reporting here because i have thought about this scenario for a long time because it is in the constitution and if you sort of game it out. But you have i mean, i think the chair of the Republican Party is on the record in your story saying hes discussed this. You have sources close to the Republican Party in pennsylvania saying, yeah, were talking about. And its one plus one equals two, right. If you get enough lawsuits that you delay and it is december 6th and they say, oh, man, we havent counted yet and we have to send our electors in. Pennsylvania selects donald trump electors to the state of pennsylvania. Here you go. Right. So you have to rewind a little bit. Its in the constitution. Yes. That eight legislators can appoint electors for president in any manner they choose. And the Supreme Court ruled in bush v gore in 2000 that state legislators can take back that power from the people any time they want. So were accustomed to voting by popular vote for who is going to represent our state in the state electors, but the constitution doesnt guarantee that. And the idea that some trump people are discussing, not saying they have a plan to do it, but i know that it is coming up and they have discussed it also with the Republican Party in pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, is that they would ask republican legislators who control both chambers in pennsylvania and in fact in all six of the most closely contested battleground states to name trump friendly electors notwithstanding the popular vote, regardless of the popular vote that it will be a claim that the county isnt finished or that it it was corrupt or that it was rigged or that there are still legal disputes. And so just appoint some trump people. We should say that mark caputo of politico got some on the record comments from political state reps in florida today saying no, we wont do that. Which is good. It is good to have it on the record. Joni ernst is also saying there is no way were going to confirm a justice in an election year. So take that for what its worth. Read it. When i spoke to you in late february about the virus, we should be clear about what the possibilities of the future are. Thank you, bart. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. Still to come, if you are watching this, you are wondering what option do you have to make sure your vote is protected and what to do about all this. Do not go anywhere because we will talk about that next. I feel like were forgetting something. Let me check. Xfinity home gives you peace of mind from anywhere with professionally monitored Home Security built around you. No, i think were good. Good. So when youre away, you dont have to worry. The tent. We forgot. The tent. Except about that. Xfinity home. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Hey look, i found the tent get xfinity home with no Term Contract required. Click or call today. Will you commit to making sure there is a peaceful transferal of power after the election . We will have to see what happens. You know that. I have been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster. I understand that, but people are rioting. Do you commit to making sure there is a peaceful transfer of power . Get rid of the ballots and you will have a very peaceful there wont be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You know it. And you know who knows it better than anybody else . The democrats know it better than anybody else. By the way, thats flatly wrong. The ballots are not out of control. Were in the midst of a once in a century pandemic that has killed 200,000. And sickened 7 million. Were amidst an overlapping and cascading crises, tens of millions of people out of work. A historic crisis for the country in terms of the strength of our democracy. All of us as democratic citizens are being called upon to do what we can to avoid a catastrophic blow to our system of government. There are going to be battles fought in the courts. And various things the campaigns are going to be doing. There are also small things you can do to play your part in this. Obviously voting is one of the key essential tools. But in a pandemic, it is unclear how to do that safety. The Brennan Center for justice issues studies among other issues Election Integrity and security. How polling site consolidation affects turnout and wait times at the ballot box. Joining me, michael wallman, nonpartisan law and Public Policy institute at nyus law school. That program is aimed at protecting the vote. Okay. Lets talk about what people can do, about voting. First obviously you need to make sure you are registered and we have plan your vote tool at nbc. Com planyourvote.