A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
For more about the White House release of intelligence documents about election security, we've called out the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut. Congressman, you wrote an op-ed for The New York Times before the speech titled "Trump's Election Denial Has Never Been More Dangerous." So did he deliver the speech you expected?
JIM HIMES: His delivery was actually a great deal more brazen than I thought. I thought, if you read my editorial, that he might, you know, sort of pick and choose intelligence to point to something more - you know, more ominous than reality.
But let me not put too fine a point on it. The president lied to the American people last night. He made a case that our elections were corrupt. Now, by the way, not the 2016 election that he won or the 2024 election that he won, but the 2020 election, which he did not actually win. Apparently, Democrats forgot - or the Chinese or others forgot - how to compromise elections in the two that he won.
But the point is that it is an utterly false statement to say that our elections are corrupt. He made the argument that the Chinese had done a massive election interference. That's just flat out false. And if you want to check that, I would urge you to do what the president urged you to do, which is to look at whitehouse.gov. Go to the section on Chinese interference, and what you will see is documents - with which I am familiar in my role as a member of the Gang of Eight - that are almost completely redacted (laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: Congressman, you said more brazen than you thought. What was the most brazen part?
HIMES: Well, probably the most - well, again, you know, our elections are not corrupt. They are fair and free, and that is sort of an undebatable fact based on the evidence that is out there. The Chinese election interference never occurred. What troubled me most, quite frankly, was the third big lie that there had been this grand conspiracy, this deep state action to keep the actual intelligence from the American people. Again, a complete lie.
And though it gets a little esoteric, there is a public report, an intelligence community assessment issued in January. By the way, the report was created under then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. That's Donald Trump's guy. And it said - it highlighted a dissent inside the intelligence community. One individual from the Director of National Intelligence office on cyber said that he believed that perhaps the Chinese had actually tried to not change voting tallies or whatever or - but to influence the election. That dissent is prominently featured in that public ICA, it's known as, an intelligence community assessment. So this notion that there was a grand conspiracy is flat out false.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, we just heard from our reporter Tamara Keith, who mentioned that Trump is possibly setting up a reaction if Republicans lose in November, that the election was not fair. Do Democrats have a plan to make sure that people can trust the results in November?
HIMES: Yeah. Look, all we can do is point people to the facts, and the facts are there for all to see, including, by the way, on the documents that the president touted last night. But I will also tell you that we are participating in much broader efforts to make sure that at the most local level, which is where elections are administered, that those administrators know the law.
For example, that federal officers cannot appear with weapons at voting sites, which is something I'm sure the president will consider having watched what happened on January 6, 2021, when his people attacked the capital of the United States. And we're making sure that there will be plenty of witnesses and others to at least record any attempted shenanigans by, you know, civilians or government employees - heaven forbid - who are acting on the president's behalf.
MARTÍNEZ: Congressman, what do you say to voters who, no matter what is presented in terms of evidence, are dug in, are dug in with the belief that elections are somehow rigged or not on the up and up?
HIMES: Well, you ask a question that has been exceedingly painful in both of Trump's presidencies. He has supporters who, if he tells them that the moon is made of green cheese, there is no fact, there is no evidence that will cause them to disbelieve whatever it is that the president says. The good news is that's a relatively small percentage of people. But I'm trying to remind everybody, you know, again, just look at the evidence and consider what I said before. Apparently, the two elections that he won were fine, but the one that everybody knows he lost was not fine. It's just sort of absurd.
Now, here's the key point. America will get the democracy that its citizenry deserves. And if we have become a citizenry that is so obsessed with social media and willing to make conclusions based on no evidence, we'll lose our democracy. And quite frankly, that's what Donald Trump is counting on.
MARTÍNEZ: Congressman Jim Himes from Connecticut. He's a top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Thank you for joining us.
HIMES: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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