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00:00My name's Annmarie Horden and I'm Bloomberg Television Radio's Washington correspondent and I'm so lucky to be joined by the authors of this steal this afternoon. This Steal is a brand new book The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who've Stopped It. And the authors are Mark Boughton and Matthew Teague. Mark is a correspondent for The Atlantic. He's a best selling author. You might have read his book Black Hawk Down and Matthew as well written for a number of public publications including The Atlantic Esquire National Geographic and also producer of one of his very famous essays in Esquire The Friend. But gentlemen I really want to get right down to the book. I finished it last night. What an amazing detailed journey you take us on of these everyday Americans living in these six states. You do a ton of research. And this was all having to do with this overturning of or the potential the trying to overturn the Republican Party or members of some of the Republican Party of the election. And two things really stand out to me. One is you really pulled back the curtain of the very mundane. Events of government that normally we wouldn't notice. And the second is that this book was really all about Republicans. The Republicans who tried to overturn the election Republicans who stood their ground and in many of these states and saw the certification of the election. So let's start with the big picture of the machine of the government. There's a quote here from Gabriel Sterling who's the Republican chief operating officer of the Georgia secretary of state. And he says the whole point of government is you're not supposed to know it's there. The road is supposed to get paid. The election supposed to come off. You're not supposed to have to think about. Think about it. But obviously the whole point of prompted you for this book is you had no choice but to draw back that curtain. Was that surprising to you. These stories you found while you were doing that marketing kick it off you. I know Emory. I wasn't surprised because you know as you say the effort to overturn the 2012 election was directed at the machinery of our election process. And elections in the United States are not held out of the Capitol building in Washington D.C. They're held in every neighborhood every county of every state of the United States. And they're run by your neighbors and my neighbors and Matt's neighbors. So in order to understand how this effort played out we had to go look on the ground in the six swing states. And who were the people who were attacking the election trying to overturn the count or the certification. And who are the people who were responsible for making that count honestly and for certifying it. And that's where I think the real effort went. A lot of attention is focused on January 6th but we feel that the more significant effort to subvert the election is what we document in the steal. And we're back. Sorry for the technical difficulties. You know as a third year we're going into a pandemic and still sometimes technology is failing us. Mark please can you pick up where you left off about pulling back that curtain of the London government. Well we're not supposed to see what you really shed light in this back. Yeah. I mean the the assault on the election took place primarily in the six swing states where the vote was close. And you know as the elections in the United States are not held out of the federal building in Washington they're held in every neighborhood and community every county all across the United States by your neighbors and my neighbors. So the real story Matt and I felt was what happened on the ground in these six swing states in both on the side of those who were trying to to overturn the count or block the certification of the vote. And how did you go about finding these individuals that maybe you could speak to that because you really learn who they are. You learn some of their everyday habits. The granular detail of these everyday Americans that are either helping with the election or trying to watch the election and think that fraud is going on. How did you find these individuals. Well some of these people were thrust into prominence even though they had been unknown previously. They were sort of hoovered up by the Trump campaign and thrust into the national conversation because they had complaints or suspicions or something that the Trump campaign found to be potentially useful. And some of them were just everyday people that we found. And in talking with people in the key states and some we were working with a fantastic team of researchers who helped us find and identify interesting people. The other surprise I have was that all the cast of characters for the most part are Republicans. Were you both shocked by that as well. I was a little bit surprised we didn't go into the project thinking that that would be what we would find. But it makes sense because you know the the effort that was taking place at the local level was to put pressure on people to either falsify the election count or to refuse to certify it. And you know I think in many of those locations because the vote was close these elections are supervised and run by Republicans. And I think Republicans became particularly the target by Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani and others because they were considered to be vulnerable to either being talked into falsifying the results or bullied into doing so. And much to their credit that these efforts failed. Matt Matt what do you think of that. Were you shocked as well. I was surprised. I went into it honestly expecting to find this to be a red vs. blue issue that people would fall pretty cleanly along that line. But in reality it was a matter of who had good information who knew the facts. And usually when people understood the facts they would hold to them regardless of their political affiliation. And so instead of red versus blue it became a difference of truth and lies which is a line that divides every human heart. And that gives me some hope in the future for America. So many of these in their individual stories across these six states. But while you're talking to these people researching them following them around what's the one thread you think that follow each of them even though they were all over the map of the United States. Well I think that the threat is. Oh I think we might have lost their voices but their complaints are like this. Were shall I continue or. Yeah I can hear you now continue. OK that didn't really matter whether these complaints had any validity whether they could be prove or disprove just the fact that they were being made because the idea was to generate such a cloud of suspicion around the election process that even reasonable people would begin to think well maybe there is something to this claim of fraud just because there are so many allegations. Mark did you find that common thread as well. What were the others of these individual cast of characters. I'm sorry. Was a question to me. Oh no sorry sorry Matt sorry Matthew. Well Fred I've sort of mentioned already is that it is really a matter of people holding fast to what they knew to be true. And an example of that that comes to mind for me is Sheryl Guy with the county clerk an interim county Michigan. A fairly remote county up in northern Michigan. And she is as she would say she's not a tech savvy person. And she was dealing with new computer technology to her. And she accidentally shifted about 3000 votes from the Trump column on election night to the Biden column. And one of those votes was likely hers because she was a Trump supporter and she realized the mistake. Within a few hours and came forward and said I've made a mistake and human error and I apologize. It's on me. But by then it had already been taken up by the. The effort to overturn the election. And so quickly there were private jets coming in in the night that people in Washington you know like Rudy Giuliani tweeting about fraud and Antrim County people coming into her office they really turned her life upside down. And she a lady who has worked for that county for her entire life since she graduated high school is not going to run for re-election again as county clerk. And I think then she held fast to what you need to be true. But there is a cost that comes with that to. Yeah man I want to ask you what what is her life like now. Because when you talk about this in the book it does seem like she's completely ostracized as well from her community and that's still the case. I don't know if it's still the case. I think hopefully it died down a little bit but it was really painful for her. There were people who she had known her entire their entire lives. Neighbors and friends and churchgoers and acquaintances whose very birth certificate she had signed herself who called her un-American and not patriotic and much worse than that. It was a really painful difficult time. I think things have settled down politically a little bit in Antrim County since then but she's not going to run again. Yeah. We should note that she came forward immediately apologizing for this technical error she made and fixed. It felt terrible about it but it still became this really tornado for her and her life. When you look at these characters who gives you hope and who do you think the American system needs to worry about. Mark Crumpton family here Cheryl is certainly one of them. And when all this pressure on her was to get her to say that she hadn't made a mistake that the machines had switched the vote. This was the narrative that the Trump campaign was trying to promote. She knew that wasn't true. And much to her credit she refused to change her story. The same is true of Clint Hickman who was the chairman of the Board of Supervisors in Maricopa County Arizona. Maricopa County is Phoenix and it is basically his neck per cent or more of the election in Arizona. So ask those Maricopa County. So goes Arizona and Clint. As the president of the Board of Supervisors was responsible for running the election in Maricopa County and he was intimately familiar with the difficulties and the challenges and the methods by which they ran a fair and honest election. So on election night Glenn as a lifelong Republican and a Trump supporter. So he was shocked and disappointed within his own county. And the state went for Joe Biden. But then he was even more shocked an hour later when Donald Trump came on television and specifically named Maricopa County as a place where the vote had been rigged where the vote was fraudulent. Well Clinton knew that wasn't true. And he ended up being the source of all kinds of attacks. Protestors on his front lawn people calling for his prosecution and execution as a criminal. He calls from Donald Trump himself trying to get him to alter the vote count. Clint you much to his credit basically showed that the American people are not as dishonest as Donald Trump would like them to be. Right. You both come onto this talk with a little bit of optimism for the future. Matt what do you think this signals all this research about won the midterms this year and then the broader election in 2024. Do you think the system is ready for this again. Well I hope so. You know who tried to organize the theft of the election have had a practice run now but the system is also had a practice run at standing up against that. And Mark mentioned the decentralization as a strength of our system that still holds true. It's not something in one building and in Washington D.C. where you can run in with a bike helmet and claim to overthrow the election. It happens in your town and mine and counties all across the United States. That's still the case and it's still our friends and neighbors who are running those elections. There are more worrying signs when it comes to the placement of elections supervisors by the GOP. Things like that. And that that could be a problem. However it would be the short term solution because in any representative system of government the party that comes up with policies that appeals to the plurality of the voters will win in the end. So I think it really will come down to ideas. Mark what is your thoughts going into the midterms and then presidential election 20 24 knowing all of this granular details of how our election really works. Well as Matt said I think that you know despite these efforts by Tropfest to place people in responsible positions in places all over the country it would be extraordinarily difficult to alter the count in a national election. You might succeed in an individual county even in our precinct. But I mean there are just so many people involved. Most people are honest. Most people believe in the importance of an honest election recount. So I just can't see the election itself being altered. I think the more vulnerable place is certification of the election. And there I think we're seeing efforts in state legislatures all over the country even though all of these efforts failed in 2020 to put people in positions where they can basically disavow or set aside the electoral vote and appoint their own slate of candidates. I don't think that would be terribly important in a congressional election but in a national election with the president at the top of that that's a real threat. And I think it's something that Congress could act to safeguard. Right and Congress is talking about voting rights this week. And there's also of course the January 6 committee that is ongoing in their investigations which are a lot of the reporting that they're looking at. You include in your book. Do you think their work this committee will be able to impact and safeguard our future elections. Well my hope is that it will. I mean ISE there are certain diehard supporters of Donald Trump who will just discard anything that this committee says and already know. We know that the Republicans in Congress have labeled it a purely partisan exercise. But I do think that the airing of the details of what happened which we've done in our book which I think will be done on a national level during these hearings will do a lot to make Americans understand exactly what happens. And I think fair minded people will be fairly shocked and and and disillusioned by the Trump. Matt what do you think. Do you think the commission will ultimately be successful given also the fact that it does is up against a lot of our lack of cooperation thus far. Well yeah. The lack of cooperation as it is troubling. But I think that the American people will understand hopefully how to interpret that. There will be partisans as Marcus said some people will be so hardened in their stance that they won't be persuaded of anything. But I think that many many Americans when they hear the details will be moved by facts maybe not completely. They may not abandon their party but hopefully they will hold to the candidate is most loyal to truth instead of personal. I have a few seconds left just a quick question. When are we gonna get the film. So far we don't we have no indication that's going to happen but it would make a very dramatic story. Without a doubt there's some great characters and some very heroic kind of profiles in courage that we don't recommend in this book. And I would love to see they'd get that wider audience. Matt you're the producer. We'll see. We'll see. OK. We'll say. All right. Thank you both so much for joining me. Joining me Mark Boughton and Mark Matt Teague. I'm so sorry Mark and Matt. You guys are a tongue twister and their book This Deal. Thank you so much. Thank you.

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The Steal Authors on 2020 Election, Future of American Democracy

Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague, co-authors of The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 US Election and the People Who Stopped It, speak with Annmarie Hordern, Washington Correspondent, Bloomberg at the Bloomberg Year Ahead virtual summit about their reporting for the book. (Source: Bloomberg)

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