Power. Meaning he will not commit to accepting the results of the election. Let that sink in. The president of the United States will not commit to accepting the results of the election. Even the normally i didnt hear what he said republicans admitted they heard this. Marco rubio tweeted, as we have done for over two centuries, we will have a legitimate and fair election. It may take longer than usual to know the outcome, but it will be a valid one. Both Steve Stivers and liz cheney said, quote, i have taken an oath to support and defend the constitution. And i will uphold that oath. And trump ally senator Lindsey Graham dismissed even the suggestion that there would not be a peaceful transfer. People wonder about the peaceful transfer of power. I can assure you, it will be peaceful. Now, we may have litigation about who won the election. But the court will decide, and if the republicans lose, we will accept that result. Remember that he said litigation. So what would happen if a defeated trump refused to concede . The atlantics Martin Gelman writes about that scenario in a new piece titled the election that could break america. Quote, the president is not actually trying to prevent mailin balloting altogether, which he has no means to do. He is discrediting the practice and starving it of resources. Signaling his supporters to vote in person. And preparing the ground for post Election Night plans to contest the results. It is the strategy of a man who expects to be outvoted and means to hobble the count. Mart Barton Gelman joins me in a moment, but first, let us go to the white house where we expect to see President Trump before he leaves for two Campaign Events in North Carolina and florida. Joining me is senior White House Reporter shannon pettypiece. I know a moment ago, Kayleigh Mcenany said that the president will accept a fair and free election. Fair is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there, as my colleague chuck todd just said. The president never thinks anything is fair if it does not go his way. And frankly, Kayleigh Mcenany, no offense to her, shes not the president of thean that is not president said yesterday. Right. And i will say, she declined to answer the question several times about whether the president would accept the results of the election if he lost, and finally when pressed multiple times said that the president would accept the results of a free and fair election, as you noted. She went on, though, then to raise questions about whether or not this would be a fair election. Criticizing once again what she refers to as mass mailout ballots, saying that the president has been clear repeatedly that he thinks theres a lot of room for fraud and illegal voting in this idea of mass mailout ballots. The president had tweeted earlier today, telling everyone in florida to request an absentee ballot, which is a mail ballot. They have tried to make this case that what they are opposed to are states that send out ballots to every registered voter. However, only nine states and the district of columbia are planning to do that, and only one of those states, nevada, is considered by any stretch of the imagination a swing state. The other states, california, new jersey, oregon, biden leads the president by double digits. So its unclear how they think the results of these elections are going to be influenced, you know, with so many states that are widely in the lead over the president widely trailing, sending out mail ballots, but there is an attempt to muddy the water because in the same breath where she was talking about states sending mass mailout ballot, she then mentioned voter fraud potential in pennsylvania, where people have to actively request an absentee ballot. Well get into the motivations in a moment with barton gellman. Thank you so much. Lets bring in new jersey governor phil murphy. Thank you very much for joining us. I know the Trump Campaign is suing your state, saying your mailin election plan is unconstitutional. Where does that lawsuit stand today . Yeah, katy, i wont talk about the specifics of the lawsuit, but needless to say, we would not be unless we have a supremely high degree of confidence that is legitimate in every respect. And basically, we have already tried it out. We did our primary on this basis. It worked really well. Everyone is going to get a ballot. You can choose to do to mail it in, to put it in a secure box, and well have hundreds of them around the state, show up on election day and hand it to a poll worker. Or if you dont like any of that, you can actually show up and vote on a paper ballot on election day. We think the ballots, it gets the balance right between Public Health and the sacred right to vote at the center of democracy. Theres in our judgment, theres nothing controversial about this. Ge what this is about, and we think it does it. Does this make it harder for you to get all of the mailin ballots to your voters by october 5th . That was initially your plan . Yeah, we do not see that eventuality. Were working, as you can imagine, quite aggressively with the u. S. Postal service. We have 21 counties, and as you rightfully point out, they have until october 5th at latest to mail these. We see no reason why they will not get out on a timely basis. Certain counties have aurnl glr got them out. If you mail it, it still needs to be postmarked by election day, but we extended it in the primary and were doing it again in the general, you have seven days to make sure it gets in and gets counted, just on the off chance that the postal system is jammed up. So we think it gets that balance right between, as i said, Public Health and allowing people the right to vote, which is their sacred right. Governor, i want you to respond to something the president s Deputy Campaign manager justin clark wrote about mailin ballots. He said mailin ballots delegates inperson voting, the most secure method, to second class status by deeming every ballot cast at a polling place provisional. Citizens who want to vote in person face a real threat their ballots will not be counted. Whats your response to that . First of all, i never heard of this guy x i have not heard this statement before, but hes completely ludicrously wrong. Its just not based on fact. It just isnt the case. Every vote will get counted. I mean, we take voter security, whether youre mailing it in, dropping it in a box, handing it in, or filling out that paper ballot, your vote is going to get counted. We have history and the facts on our side. So i would strongly and completely dispute that statement. What are you prepared for the president to do to contest the results of the election . What plans are you preparing for if there is not a clear result on Election Night . Im sorry, repeat that one more time. Naturally, your signal cut out right when you gave that answer. Do you mean in new jersey or nationally . I mean in new jersey, if he contests the results in new jersey, and then if you want to answer nationally as well, ill take that answer. Yeah, i mean, its above my pay grade in terms of the National Reaction other than to say i think any this has been a theme in this administration, and i think its bad for the country, and its bad for both parties to continually and constantly question institutions that have been tried and true for decades if not centuries. Whether its our peaceful transition of power, if there is one, the department of justice, our health experts, nato, you name it, its one institution after another. It does no one any good on either side of the aisle to question any or all of the above. Thats not to say theyre beyond reproach or beyond critique or beyond review, but theres a way to do that and a way not to do that, and i just cannot take hearing about this, you know, lack of a peaceful transition. In new jersey, you know, well do what it takes. As one of your colleagues pointed out a few minutes ago, Vice President biden is up substantially in the state. We dont take that for granted. But that is a fact, if you look at any polling right now, but well do what it takes to protect the results. And we are, as i said, supremely confident in the model we have put forward. Governor, given all hes saying about the mailin balloting, saying that the election, the only way he could lose the election is if it is rigged, also not committing to a peaceful transfer of power, do you think the president of the United States is a danger to democracy . I dont know about that, but i suspect confident about where things stood. I do know that. I just would reiterate what i said a minute ago. I think this constant questioning, which has been a theme of this administration, of institutions, not that they are beyond review, critique. Thats why we have people like inspectors general inside of all these institutions. They need to run right, and they need to run fair and transpar t transparenty. But theres a right way to do that and a wrong way. I think undermining folks confidence in the credibility of these institutions, including elections and democracy, i think is hugely detrimental to our country and to members of both parties. Certainly doing it at a critical moment in our history. New jersey democratic governor phil murphy, thank you for joining us, sir. We appreciate all your time. In a column in the im sorry, in a story in the the Atlantic Barton Gellman says his goal is to throw an election into chaos and grab a second term regardless of what the votes say. According to gellman, if trump sheds all restraint and if his republican allies play the parts he assigns them, he could obstruct the emergence of a legal victory for biden in the electoral college, and in congress, he could prevent the formation of consensus about whether there is an outcome at all, he could seize on that uncertainty to hold on to power. With me now is Atlantic Staff writer barton gellman. His new piece is titled the election that could break america. This is not the first time, bart, the president has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. He did it in 2016, talking about whether he would accept the results of the election. Obviously, he wasnt the president back then. Hes also done it in the leadup to this election before this. You did an extensive report, exhaustive report about what that could mean. Talk about the effort to undercut mailin voting and what the president could be trying to do. Well, the president has made it clear by word and deed and just by psychological disposition that he will in no event concede defeat in the election. Thats a big problem because concession is how we end elections. There is no umpire who has jurisdiction over the whole thing and can say to the loser, you lost, the game is over, the whistle has blown. The mailin vote part of it is quite interesting because trump has spent months now discrediting the legitimacy of mailin votes, making up nonsense, frankly, about fraud or about election rigging or about forgeries. Theyre all just completely invented from whole cloth. Mailin ballots, absentee ballots have been used for decades with no discernible fraud. But the way hes done the campaign has skewed the electorate, split the electorate into republicans who are now believing him and are disinclined to vote by mail, and democrats who want to protect their health in an age of covid, and are inclined to use vote pie mail, and this creates a proxy in which the president s thousands of lawyers on election day and afterward can look at votes that come in by mail and by the numbers be confident is more likely to be a democratic vote and a republican vote, and therefore try to get those disqualified. And there will be endless litigation, potentially on the scale of the florida recount litigation in 2000. Except in multiple battleground states. You heard Lindsey Graham say a moment ago, expect there will be litigation. You also write about the period between election day and inauguration day. Those 79 days that you call the interregnum. You write, according to sources in the Republican Party at the state and national levels, the Trump Campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass Election Results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where republicans hold the legislative majority. With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly. The longer trump succeeds in keeping the vote count in doubt, the more pressure legislators will feel to act before the safe harbor deadline expires. That deadline is december 8th. Explain that. Yeah, this is something i didnt understand at all until i started reporting this story. We are accustomed to the idea that we vote, and based on the popular vote in each state, the electors are apportioned. You win the states electoral vote if you win the states majority and public vote. Thats not in the constitution. The constitution says that the electors are chosen by each state legislator as it sees fit. And so all of them, since the middle of the 19th century, have said well do this by popular vote, but the Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the state legislatures can take back this power from the voters at any time. And so trumps people are talking about a maneuver in which they would go to the Republican State Legislature in a swing state like pennsylvania or michigan or florida, and say we think the official vote count is cooked. Its crooked. Its rigged. Throw in all of your madeup charges, and you should therefore as a legislature, appoint trump electors to represent what you believe is the faithful depiction of the will of the people of the state. So disregard the popular vote because the count is now hopelessly embroiled in fraud, and instead you choose the electors. This has happened once before in american history. In 1876, four states sent in dueling slates of electors. You know, one, for example, that was certified by the governor and one by the legislators or Something Like that. And it was not until two days before the inauguration that samuel tillden conceded the election to rutherford hayes. Its not a good precedent for us because one of the reasons he conceded defeat was that the republican incumbent president , ulysses grant, was prepared to declare martial law from preventing tilden from claiming inauguration. If we come down to that, to the final moment in which two people are preparing to be inaugurated because we still havent sorted out the election, then the commander in chief is going to be one of those candidates, and the candidate who had caused the chaos in the first place. So after that safe harbor day where the delegates are chosen and we can put the timeline of events up on the screen. This is where you say things can really go off the rails in an unpredictable way. You game out scenarios that take it all the way up to inauguration day, where donald trump, joe biden, and nancy pelosi could all make a claim to hold the office of the presidency. When you game out these scenarios, is this in your mind the worstcase scenario, or are these becoming likelier by the day . Well, the problem is the distance between worst case and plausibly likely is very uncomfortably thin right now. I believe that there is no circumstance under which donald trump will concede defeat. Besides litigation, which does eventually end, and besides just talking about it in public and on social media and marshaling forces in the streets, the most effective thing he could do to throw sand in the gears is to cause dueling slates of electors to be appointed, to cause his republican allies in some states, i talked with the ones in pennsylvania, to say were sending trump electors regardless what the vote says. Once that happens, then the constitution and the electoral count act put the Decision Point in congress. Its up to congress to decide which electors get to count. If any, because they could also decide that none of the electors from a disputed state are going to count. The law is full of logic bones and sort of labyrinth dead ends and its easily possible that congress deadlocks in that circumstance. You say theres no umpire here, which is a surprising surprising to consider because we have never been in this situation before. I encourage everybody to go out and read barts story, and also the big news from it that the Trump Campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass Election Results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states. Thats huge news. An incredible reported piece. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Pleasure to see you, katy. And still ahead, Bernie Sanders returns to the campaign trail for the First Time Since march. And hes focused on exactly what we were just talking about, what sanders calls his nightmare scenario. His former Campaign Manager will join me. Plus, the president is now accusing the fda of playing politics because the agency has decided to tighten its restrictions to insure the safety of a vaccine. First up, though, protests continue in louisville and across the country to demand justice for the death of Breonna Taylor. Civil rights Attorney Benjamin Crump who represents the taylor family, joins me next. My father always reminded me, a good education takes you many different horizons and that sticked to my mind. So, when 1 a day came out, i said, why not . Why not just utilize that resource. And walmart made that path open for me. Without the 1 a day program, i definitely dont think id be in school right now. Each week for me in school is just an accomplishment. I feel proud every step of the way. And at fidelity, youll get planning and advice t