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From a raid on an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, to a call to nationalize federal elections…President Trump is making it clear that his next target is our Democracy itself. This week, Alex speaks to Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington about why he’s challenging the FBI’s seizure of voting records. Then, she’s joined by Faiz Shakir, founder of More Perfect Union, to break down the significance of a flipped seat in Texas, and what the Democrats’ prospects are in this fall’s midterm elections.

TRANSCRIPT

 [AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: Hi everyone. 2026 has already been relentless. But for those of you looking for signs of hope in the darkness, searching for a bulwark against creeping fascism, look no further than Texas. As in Texas. Over the weekend, Taylor Rehmet, a Democrat, won a special election for the Texas State Senate by 14 points. In 2024, Donald Trump carried the same district by 17 points. If you’re doing the math, that is a 31 point swing. And this wasn’t some ho-hum, low-key race. President Trump enthusiastically endorsed the Republican candidate, Leigh Wambsganss, truthing just a day before the election, the radical left Democrats are spending a fortune to defeat a true MAGA warrior, Leigh Wambsganss. You can win this election for Leigh, who has my complete and total endorsement. This, of course, is what Trump said after Wambsganss lost.

[clip of news reporter]: What is your reaction to that?

[clip of news Trump]: I don’t know, I didn’t hear about it. Somebody ran where?

[clip of news reporter]: In Texas, a special election for a legislative seat.

[clip of Donald Trump]: I’m not involved in that, that’s a local Texas race.

Alex Wagner: Leigh Wambsganss, isn’t that a character on Succession? With friends like these. Okay, so Texas has everyone asking what this may signal for the very important election that is coming up in November, the midterms. Everyone, including Donald Trump, who has every intention not to lose his vice grip on power this year or any other year. And we know this for certain because earlier this week, Trump appeared on his former underling Dan Bongino’s podcast and said Republicans should nationalize elections.

[clip of Donald Trump]: The Republicans should say, we want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.

Alex Wagner: James Madison is literally rolling over in his grave. As part of his onslaught against federalism and free and fair elections, Trump has explicitly menaced states that refuse to participate in voter intimidation and suppression. Last month, his attorney general, Pam Bondi, tried to extort the state of Minnesota for its voter rolls using ICE goons as leverage. And last week, the FBI raided a Fulton County election site in the swing state of Georgia. The feds took nearly 700 boxes of original 2020 election documents, including ballots. Director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard personally oversaw the raid and then put Trump on speakerphone with the FBI agents involved in it for what might best be described as a dictator’s pep rally. So yes, while that special election in Texas is a very real sign of coming rejection for Donald Trump and MAGA. What happens if Trump tries to break up with democracy first? I’m Alex Wagner. And this week on Runaway Country, we’re going to get into Trump’s latest insane attempts to trash democracy and talk to someone who is on the front lines of the battle. Marvin Arrington serves on the Fulton County Board of Commissioners for District 5 in Georgia. That elections office pillaged by Tulsi Gabbard and her henchmen, it is in his district. And Marvin Arrington is not going quietly into this good night. On Wednesday, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners filed a motion challenging the FBI raid and its confiscation of Georgia voting information. If successful, this could force the return of all that Georgia property. But even then, it might be too late.

Marvin Arrington: Even if a judge orders them to return all of the ballots, we won’t know if they returned them all or not because the chain of custody has been broken.

Alex Wagner: After this, to put all of it into context, I’m going to be chatting with Faiz Shakir, the founder of the progressive media site, More Perfect Union, the former national political director of the ACLU, and a longtime advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders.

Faiz Shakir: For 2026, I’m feeling quite bullish and needless to say all the things, nationalizing elections, ballot tampering and fear and terror. We’re getting eyes wide open here. Like we’re not fools, but we are projecting a sense of strength. I don’t want to live in the place of cowering and fear.

Alex Wagner: Faiz and I will talk about how all these pieces, Texas, Georgia, Minnesota, fit together and what it tells us about where we’re headed. If the president is hell bent on undermining democracy in its most basic form, what can we do about it? That is coming up. But first, my conversation with someone who is doing something about it. Fulton County Commissioner, Marvin Arrington. [music plays] Marvin Arrington, Commissioner of District 5 of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners in Georgia, a man at the center of this story. Thank you so much for joining Runaway Country.

Marvin Arrington: So glad to be here. Thank you for having me, Alex. It’s a pleasure. We’re here fighting for the people of Fulton County and frankly, for all Americans.

Alex Wagner: Yeah. I remember where I was when I heard that the FBI was effectively raiding Fulton County for its voter information, but how did you find out that the F.B.I. had come to town and was using a search warrant to come and get ballots from the 2020 election?

Marvin Arrington: So my day job, I’m an attorney. I was in Zoom court and I got five or six calls from three or four different state representatives letting me know what was going on. And I had to finish my Zoom court appearance but I called them back and I immediately rushed over because the elections hub is Fulton elections hub is in my district.

Alex Wagner: Mm-hmm.

Marvin Arrington: In Union City, and so I wanted to make sure to be there to find out what was going on firsthand.

Alex Wagner: So what happened when you got to the scene?

Marvin Arrington: So when I got to the scene, they were already there, and they had already served the search warrant, the Clerk of Superior Court was there. Apparently the first search warrant was made out to the Board of Registration and Elections, or either just to our Fulton Elections Department. But because these records were in archives, the archives are held by the Clerk Of Superior Court. So they had to redo the warrant. They had to go back and get another warrant because the warrant that they had was legally insufficient because it was served on the wrong party. And so we were waiting around, I guess, for them to get another order. And I was calling around to different attorneys and speaking with the county attorney who basically said that there wasn’t much that we could do, but just comply at this point. Uh, and certainly I was not satisfied with that answer. My, my charge to her was to, we need to do any and everything that we can. Right. Um, and so I, yeah, I’m a criminal defense attorney as well. So I call some, uh, other criminal defense attorneys that do a lot of federal work to find out what we could do, uh did not get, I guess, the information that we needed in a timely fashion, but later that night I learned. That we needed to file a Rule 41 (g) motion in order to attack the motion. To try to limit the motion prevent them from leaving the state with the ballots, which Unfortunately, they’ve already—

Alex Wagner: They did.

Marvin Arrington: —with the ballots right and they’ve broken the chain of custody most important.

Alex Wagner: Right.

Marvin Arrington: Is is the break-in chain of Custody, right? The 41 (g) Motion would allow us to ask for in a forensic accounting but frankly that had to that would have had to have been done.

Alex Wagner: Before?

Marvin Arrington: At the same time as part of the transfer because otherwise there would have been, you know, that’s why we now have a break in chain of custody. Even if a judge orders them to return all of the ballots, we won’t know if they return them all or not, because the chain of custody has been broken. And frankly, it’s a bad way. For him to try to prove that he won the election, because if he wanted to prove it, he would want to maintain the chain of custody in order to make that claim, but.

Alex Wagner: Commissioner Arrington you are you are giving him the benefit of the doubt that the facts and the truth is like not I didn’t having a true investigation is is even something that he sets out to do in any of this stuff.

Marvin Arrington: Right.

Alex Wagner: I We hear so you’re scrambling basically you guys are like this is happening There’s confused there’s police body cam that shows there’s some back and forth around that search warrant. They have to go back they get the proper search warrant they come in. How many records are we talking about? Like how long does it take them to get the stuff out of the, wherever it was stored?

Marvin Arrington: Uh, so my understanding was that it was, and I don’t want to get it wrong. I, it was either 700 pallets or 700 boxes of information.

Alex Wagner: And those were the originals that they took, right?

Marvin Arrington: The originals, and I think we have backups of the original ballots, but I don’t know that we have digital copies of the originals ballots. But I don’t know that we digital copies of the absentee ballots nor do we have the digital copies of provisional ballots, right? And so what he did was frankly create an opportunity for him to find the 11,000 votes he’s been looking for since 2020. But if he was really interested in fraud, Alex, he would have… Um, we’ve held 17 elections since the 2020 elections.

Alex Wagner: He didn’t lose any of those though.

Marvin Arrington: Well, if you think right he didn’t lose any of those.

Alex Wagner: Therefore he’s not interested

Marvin Arrington: You’re right, because if Fulton County is this hotbed of fraud and it’s happening all over, why would it only happen in the one election that he lost, right? Why wouldn’t it happen in any of the other elections?

Alex Wagner: You’re asking good questions. Uh, I gotta say though, it sounds like there was a previous ruling in a civil case that entitled the feds to, I believe it was copies of the voter records, right? But they went for the originals, which seems like a very meaningful difference.

Marvin Arrington: Well, and I don’t think there was actually a full ruling. Judge McBurney indicated that he would make the records available to them, but no one had asked. And I think there’s a court hearing coming up perhaps this Friday or next Friday where they could have made that ask, but in order for them to get those copies, my understanding is it would have cost them approximately $450,000 to make those copies. And so that is likely the reason that they circumvented that process. And my other understanding is also a federal case filed in the Northern District of Georgia before Judge Thrash against Ché Alexander our clerk of Superior Court. And I think they served a subpoena out of that case. Uh, and that is under review and so I don’t imagine that judge Thrash will be happy that they basically circumvented his authority and his discretion and by doing this end around [both speaking] to just go grab all the records.

Alex Wagner: Well, yeah, and I would assume it’s not that useful to their case to have copies if someone else retains the originals the hard copies, right?

Marvin Arrington: Right.

Alex Wagner: If you’re gonna… I mean are you what’s your level of concern? You talk about the chain of custody for the laymen It’s just the feds have these records. Nobody has eyes on them No, no, I mean it there was a day in which the fed’s were impartial, but this is very much It feels like a political strategy that Trump is executing on to prove once and for all that there’s been fraud in the 2020 election in Georgia. And given that I mean, are you worried that the records are being tampered with and and like how is anyone gonna know? It’s not like you guys are gonna sit there and comb through seven I guess they’ll they’ll probably show some evidence at the end of all of this and one can check whatever they’re alleging against whatever information you guys still have on hand, but what’s your level of alarm? What’s your level of panic as you see these 700 pallets being walked out the door, the chain of custody is broken, you guys are gonna go to court over this and you have. But just as someone who’s a steward of these elections, how worried are you?

Marvin Arrington: Frankly, I’m very worried, right? This is a code red. This is, you know, a full frontal attack on our democracy. This. They are sowing seeds of distrust into the election process. And the sacred trust between the voters and the election processes is very fragile. And we have had free and fair elections in Fulton County and in the state of Georgia. As you know, we had three recounts, two automatic and one manual. We had an independent audit by the Republican-led State Board of Elections and the Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, as well as our Republican governor, Brian Kemp, both certified that the elections in Fulton County and in Georgia were free and fare. And so this is, you know, just uh an attempt like you say to for by this administration to prove something that didn’t happen. And you know, he lost election in Fulton County in 2020 by 240,000 votes.

Alex Wagner: That’s a lot of fraud he’s going to have to find.

Marvin Arrington: Yes, Joe Biden got 73% and he got 26% of the vote in Fulton County. And so, you know, I don’t know how or why he wants to attempt to try to rewrite history, but he’s already been re-elected. We had an election in 2024 and he won.

Alex Wagner: He’s president.

Marvin Arrington: Right.

Alex Wagner: One, I want to get to the sort of end game in a second, but just to go back to the what transpired because it’s so unusual. The next day the president gets on a speakerphone call, according to reporting from the New York Times. He’s talking to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence who’s down there for this raid. We’ll talk about that too. And he gets on the phone with the FBI agents who were tasked with grabbing these records. And the New York Times describes that conversation as quote, “the kind of conversation you’d have at a pep rally or a coach giving an encouraging halftime speech to his players.” What’s your response to that? What do you make of that?

Marvin Arrington: Um, you know, I I’m frankly at a loss, right? Because the only thing that the records from Fulton County will show is that he lost the election in Fulton County. And even if he won, even if we were to somehow, uh, won Fulton County or which that wouldn’t have happened, but even if you were to say he found the 11,000 votes to win the state of Georgia, that still would not have been the difference. It still would I would have made him the president. Would not have changed the outcome of the overall election, right? It wouldn’t change the electoral college vote.

Alex Wagner: Does it concern you that maybe this isn’t actually backward-facing but forward-facing, that this isn’t really about 2020 and Trump’s ego, but maybe about casting doubt on the integrity of Georgia elections in advance of 2026, when there’s a couple of high stakes, you know, Georgia always matters, Jon Ossoff is up. There’s a key Senate race, it’s a swing state, or 2028, when another Republican’s gonna be at the top of the ticket, but nonetheless, you know, Trump has a lot of thoughts about. Why his movement should remain in power, and he has a lot of thoughts about why Democrats regaining at least the lower chamber, if not both chambers of Congress, could be problematic for him. I mean, are you worried that the end game here is to tamper with upcoming elections as opposed to revisit settled history about past elections?

Marvin Arrington: Absolutely, right. Worried about our state Republican takeover of Fulton County elections, and now from what we’ve heard from the president, he wants to nationalize the elections, but only wants to do it in 15 cities or 15 states, which again is further troubling. But yes, I mean, I think this is a move to intimidate voters, right, and to bully voters, and or if nothing else, to make voters say, oh, well, it’s not going to matter. It may increase voter apathy, right? We’ve got enough voter apathy as it is, but I mean, imagine this type of talk could just make someone sit out because they think he’s gonna rig the election. Right? And he feeds into that by thinking that Fulton County employees are rigging the election. Our employees work hard. Those elections employees work long hours into the night, counting ballots. I believe that they operate with integrity and no one has shown me anything otherwise.

Alex Wagner: I, one thing that struck me, I covered a lot of the election in Georgia in 2020, and one thing that stuck out to me both ahead of the elections and in the aftermath, especially as Trump demanded a recounts and there were numerous allegations of fraud, is how bipartisan the movement was to stop Trump and how bipartisan the response to these allegations was, right? You talk about Brad Raffensperger and Brian Kemp, Geoff Duncan, who’s Lieutenant Governor. I mean dyed-in-the-wool conservatives were like, back up, this is not an issue. Voter fraud is not a issue. We run free and fair elections in Georgia. In the aftermath of the FBI coming in and seizing the ballots and voter rolls from 2020, what’s been the response? Not just among Democrats, but among independents and Republicans that you know, as this is going down, and Trump once again tries to relitigate how badly Georgia runs elections.

Marvin Arrington: Well, unfortunately, I have not heard any response from our governor nor from our secretary of state, but that just further proves your point of affecting upcoming elections, right? The secretary of state is now running for governor and him coming to the support of Fulton County at this juncture, as he runs for Republican primary, probably does not help his chances in that race. And so… Although, you know, he had integrity and I’m happy that he stood up to Trump at that time, you know. I don’t know that, you, know he’s in the same position that he is now, where he can actually have that same voice and speak out in the same way. Certainly, I wish that he and or our governor would speak up and speak out. Brian Kemp stood up to him and he challenged Brian, had someone challenge Brian Kemp in the next election and Brian Kemp won, right? And so, you know, and Brian Kemp’s going out. This is his last term, so he’s got nothing to lose. I wish we would hear from him and I hope that we will hear from him.

Alex Wagner: There’s other stuff, there’s other chicanery that’s happening in the state, independent of this very public display. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit in district court against Brad Raffensperger related to voter registration that the DOJ wanted, that Raffensberger said, we have to redact that information. You can’t legally in Georgia share voters’ birthdays or their drivers’ license numbers and social security numbers. And the DOJ was like, mm mm, we want it all. And then also, I believe county commissioners, you could probably speak to this, defied a judge’s order and were threatened with jail time and a $10,000 a day fine for refusing to appoint nominees to the Fulton County Elections Board who were election deniers, one of whom had ties to Cleta Mitchell and refused to certify the results of 2024 primary. And another had challenged the voter registrations of thousands of Georgia residents. I mean, what is it like to be at the center of these unending onslaughts from this administration. I mean, what is the mood as you’re trying to protect democracy?

Marvin Arrington: Well, we just have to keep reminding the residents of Fulton County that we’re here to protect them and their rights and their personal information, right? The nomination and appointment process for the elections board is that that order was really crazy because no judge can tell me how to vote. I vote my conscience, right. And so and in fact, they can’t even make me attend the meeting. I actually missed one of those meetings because I was in the hospital having a procedure. Right. But but he can’t compel me to even attend the meeting, let alone tell me how to vote at that meeting. And the judge acknowledged that. But the appointment and nomination process goes all the way back to Marbury versus Madison. This is not something new. Fulton County didn’t create the nomination and appointment process, the parties each nominate, and the county commission, which is the governing authority, is the appointing authority that shall make the appointments. And so, you know, the idea that we have to just accept their nomination, there would be no reason for us to make the appointments. The parties could just make the appointments themselves.

Alex Wagner: Well, maybe they want to do that. I mean, all of it seems so just decidedly undemocratic. And then there’s just the drudgery of having to be, I mean I wonder what it’s like to be in the middle of all of this and the degree to which you have seen evidence of new reporting in Politico that we have that I think in the years since 2020, roughly 50% of top local election officials from across 11 now Western states, which is not Georgia, but still they’ve left their jobs. 50% of top local election officials in Western states since the 2020 election. I mean, is there, are people just over it?

Marvin Arrington: Well, I think that’s the worry, right? And we can’t let people get over it. We have to continue the fight. We have the keep up the struggle because otherwise they just win, right, and we can just lay down. We have keep fighting and we have to keep pressure on them. You know, I went to Frederick Douglass High School and… First thing we had to learn was his poem from his speech, that power can seize nothing without demand and never has and it never will. Show me exactly how much injustice of people are quietly willing to submit to, and that is the exact amount of injustice that will be inflicted upon them. And it will continue until it is resisted by words or blows or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. And so it’s never been more relevant than today.

Alex Wagner: Preach, Frederick Douglass, preach. [laughter] I’m I mean that’s beautiful because I think what you get at is the other truth of all of this is the more powers above us try and repress or suppress the vote or deny people their constitutional rights, the more people want to hold on to them and I hope that a similar response happens in this in this next round which is the more you try and assert that people are behaving unlawfully and curb their rights and curb transparency, the more it’s going to throw the doors open and you know hopefully good people who care about democracy triumph and are you know invigorated in the struggle because man it is real. Marvin Arrington for everybody who’s not watching on YouTube, because you should. Marvin Arrington is wearing an extraordinary bow tie sitting next to an American flag And talking about defending democracy and I have never been prouder to hear about what’s happening in one of these United States. Thank you for just giving us some hope that good people are fighting the very, very important and good fight down in a key state as it concerns our democracy. I really appreciate your time, sir.

Marvin Arrington: Well, I’m happy to do it. Thank you, Alex, for having me. It’s been a pleasure. [music plays]

Alex Wagner: After the break, I will put all of this into context with Democratic advisor and strategist, the great Faiz Shakir.

[AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: It is such a pleasure to have you on this podcast Faiz Shakir.

Faiz Shakir: It’s always good to see you, Alex Wagner.

Alex Wagner: It’s,  people on the other side of this don’t know that we had you waiting in different online studio waiting rooms and you’ve proven your mettle through, we knew you were tenacious.

Faiz Shakir: Nothing can stop me from appearing on this wonderful podcast with you.

Alex Wagner: And that’s the can-do attitude we need here at Runaway Country. I want to ask you about the events of the last couple of weeks in the context of where we’re headed in November and whether our democracy, what number alarm bells should be ringing in terms of our democracy? Is it a three alarm bell situation, a four alarm bell, situation? And to recap, we have seen ICE raids used as leverage to force Minnesota hand over its voter rolls to Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi. And then most recently, in the last several days, we’ve seen FBI raids on an elections office in Georgia to gain access to 700 pallets worth of material, including the ballots themselves from the 2020 election in Georgia. Both of those tactics seem like a pretty good strategy to fuck with people. Um, you either scare the shit out of them so that they don’t come and vote. Or you cry foul once they do actually vote if they vote against you. What worries you most about what we’ve seen from the Trump administration recently?

Faiz Shakir: Well, the authoritarian mindset is that you have to cultivate fear within a populace and it authoritarians don’t work unless you can terrorize the population and make sure people are sensing that they are insecure in their livelihoods and Trump has obviously operated on this playbook from day one. Whether it’s Minneapolis or Georgia or wherever it might be, that they want to instill fear. And some of it is reality and some of is perception. And the goal for us as a populace is are you cowed by fear or do you essentially mobilize against it? And to my mind, the story of his second term has been a fierce mobilization against him. People are not cowed or backing down. And that point to an authoritarian, Trump has a populist streak about him, which is actually it. A nice thing, from my vantage point, in the sense that he wants people that he could command, right? Authoritarians want people behind them. They don’t want to turn around and look over the shoulder and find that there’s nobody there. And he’s concerned when he’s…

Alex Wagner: Even if they’re there by force.

Faiz Shakir: [laughs] Well, exactly. However they’re there, they’re there, right? As a populist, he needs people. And he’s concerned when, if there aren’t going to be people, and you can sense on Epstein and moments around Minneapolis, there’s some fear in his part where he’s like, I think I might be losing the country. I’m worried about it. He’s not going to say those words, but I think he has a sense of it. And that’s our job right now is right kind of constantly mobilize. I was talking to some people about the, you know, in the political science playbook, there’s some theories and ideas that the way you confront authoritarianism is you get to a percentage of a mobilization of the masses, and it could be 3%, 5%, whatever it might be. But at that point, it creates kind of a sense that the country can’t be governed by my authoritarian tough iron hand, that I have to react to people. And I think this is the moment we’re in, Alex, is whether there’s a sense that there’s democratic revolt. And I’m optimistic on that score.

Alex Wagner: Well, I guess, so I hear you on the sort of mass uprising in a case like Minnesota, even when it wasn’t mass uprising, it was people taking the streets, getting murdered in the streets, but people nonetheless taking action themselves to say, we will not stand for this. It feels like a trickier proposition, though, when you’re talking about the machinery of voting democracy and elections, right? Like, how do people revolt when the FBI has a search warrant? It marches into an election’s office. It takes the original copies of very sensitive voter information. The president calls for something like nationalizing elections, which is, first of all, not gonna happen, I should say, but nonetheless would be a mechanism that would be executing, doing something like that would require, I would assume, vast constitutional amendments and changing many different things about the way our bureaucracy works, but isn’t something that would play out in the streets the way ICE raids do, right? And I think where Trump holds a special dispensation is when he tinkers with the machinery of democracy that is less visible. And that’s why the Georgia stuff, I mean, all of it’s disturbing to me, right? The boot of fascists stomping through Minneapolis, which I saw firsthand, is one kind of terror, but bureaucratic kind of like norm-shattering. Election chicanery is all equally terrifying and could be even more long-lasting. So how do you yeah? How do you stoke outrage about that?

Faiz Shakir: So in one sense that he needs people to execute these orders, right? And certainly you’re right that Tulsi Gabbard and others seemingly for now want to go along for the ride. A lot of others don’t. So I think you do get a sense occasionally of people leaking from within, fighting, resigning, whatever the case might be in this term of Trump. There has been people in the machinery saying, I’m not going to generally go along with this ride. Also, the machinery has fought back. If you go back from the beginning. You know, the fights against universities and medias, there was a lot more caping going on at that period of time. And given where we were then and where we are now, there’s far more, I see, spine on the sense of people with power, whether they are media, universities, wealthy people, lawyers, accountants, whatever the case might be, being more comfortable saying, hey, this administration is one I’m going to stand up to, whether we’re fully there, obviously we’re not, but there’s more happening. And part of the reason the more is happening is because of the sense of the people are on their side. If I’m gonna go out and make this case, if I’m Jimmy Kimmel, or if I’m Harvard University, whatever the case might be, I know behind me, I turn my shoulder around and there’s way more people here than there are with you, Mr. Trump. And so that is still, I think even in your machinery, Trump has always benefited from the idea that I’m going to push the line to the edges and over it, and I’m to test the waters. Let’s see how people react if I shoot off boats off the coast of Venezuela, what will they do? If I want to go after Greenland, what they do. And sometimes he keeps rolling when he feels like, oh, there’s not sufficient pushback here. Or in the case of Greenland, I’m going to retool. I’m gonna pull back and I’m gunna say, hey, there is a different plan and strategy or tariffs or whatever the case might be. You see him kind of basically recalibrate according to democratic pushback to him. And so I just want to express, even in the machinery, and I remember this, they tell you, when we show up, hundreds of people show up at the courtrooms and inside courtrooms. It had an effect on judges, it had an affect on lawyers, and it basically became the unwinding of family separation, which was in this first term, and I think it’s still the case now that don’t minimize democratic revolt.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, and I will say the head, I believe, of the FBI field office in Atlanta or in Georgia resigned a week before the raid with no comment. Tulsi Gabbard, though, is still there. We’ll talk about her role in all of this in a second. Before we spoke today, I spoke to Marvin Arrington, who represents, I think it’s District 5 on the Board of County Commissioners. And he’s involved in a lawsuit against the government trying to get the records returned. He is squarely in the crosshairs of this fight, right? He’s really worried about the chain of custody with these voter rolls and these ballots, which is to say the feds have the originals. There are no copies, I believe, of the absentee votes and the provisional ballots. So God knows what Trump might find within those or whether he might find more of them. Do you allow yourself to conjure up the sort of worst case or most ludicrous scenario that might come from Trump in terms of lies about what happened in the 2020 election?

Faiz Shakir: Operative word you just said is lies, right? So the sense of the authoritarian playbook, one part we talked about already at the beginning, which was fear, instilling terrorizing fear in the population. The other part is has to be coupled with a sense of a big lie, big lies as they were. That if you’re gonna terrorize the population, you’re also gonna feed them nonsense to make them, to your point, fall in line behind you. And right now we’re in that period of many, many manufacturing of lies and we know that where this is. Intending to go. We are not deceived. You are not deceived, I’m not deceived as to Trump wanting to rush back out and say it was stolen from me in 2020. And maybe it will be stolen from me in the future again. And therefore these kinds of efforts are needed to prevent stealing’s of elections. The point that I would make is that again, this is a democratic revolt of media and information ecosystems.

Alex Wagner: Yeah.

Faiz Shakir: You are doing a great job in your own sense. And I am confident and comfortable that a lot of the public at this point is less deceived than they’ve ever have been when Donald Trump rushes out to propagate bullshit. There is far more—

Alex Wagner: Wait, why are you. Can I just ask, first of all, I love that you’re such a fucking optimist about this.

Faiz Shakir: Not always, in this case. [laughs]

Alex Wagner: I know, but it’s really needed because I’ve been like stewing in like the dark night of conspiracy for the last several days. I’m like, here we go. You say you’re comfortable and confident in the information ecosystem. Why? Why? I guess, and I ask that because we now have, in addition to Fox News, which propagated 2020 election lies libelously. We have, in the mix, CBS, which is now owned by Trump lackeys, the Ellisons, and has proven not to be a fount of information and facts, and could easily at least entertain both sidesism as it concerns claims of election fraud. We have CNN potentially falling into the hands of a Trump ally. We have the Washington Post, which today announced it’s laying off a third of its newspaper, and is in the hands of Jeff Bezos, who has steered the paper directly in Trump’s direction and we have a splintering of institutional media if not the outright atrophy of it and I don’t know I’m all for the new media landscape being one of you know sort of a pioneering spirit and greater conversation and you know rigorous analysis but I wonder if… That’s enough to counter co-opted mainstream institutional media that is intent on currying favor with this president.

Faiz Shakir: And despite all that, Trump is moving towards his lowest lows in the second term, and there might be an entire two terms of his presidency. The public approval of him on any of his core things, economy, immigration, whatever the case might be, is also at its lows and going lower. There’s more distrust of him as an individual than there has been, according to public polling again. And this is with the deck stacked, as you say, not just in the media ecosystem, but in the financial ecosystem, you see Trump, MAGA world having hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal for this upcoming election, crypto, APAC, a whole bunch of other actors storing stockpiles of cash to play major roles. And what they know and what you and I know is that they’re working upstream against the fact that most of this country is not buying what they’re selling. And part of the reason is that, well, one is the reality hurts and bites. And like we have lived it and thankfully, you know, on any of the major issues of Trump, people aren’t just not deceived by it. He’s, he, I don’t, I, he is losing everyone, but his core MAGA base. That is, you, the 33% of the country that he’s just, he’s at his 80, 90% approvals and everybody else is moving off. And you see it with even Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, where they even express some concerns. About, you know, MAGA in ways that they would never have deigned to do even a year ago, or certainly four years ago. And part of it is there, the people in the ecosystem that are reacting to the public are finding that the public is moving away from the nonsense of Trump.

Alex Wagner: Do you, you mentioned the reality, the lived reality of people in this country and they’re not buying what he’s selling. How should Democrats talk about these existential threats?

Faiz Shakir: Now we get to the heart of the problem [both speaking] or the issue, right? Because despite that Trump’s—this is the question asked for the election—is that, okay, if Trump is sinking like a rock, and I believe he is, would they, is there still a world that you would vote for a Republican over a Democrat?

Alex Wagner: Yeah. That’s my question.

Faiz Shakir: And the chances are, yes, because some of them are going to deceive or play a game, right, say many of them will start to distance themselves in ways from Trump. And or message to populists on the ground in ways that are, you know, are different from Donald Trump. So if he’s pro-AI, if he is pro-oligarchs, you see a number of Republicans saying, I’m against data centers and no, I actually stand with the American public. I think we should have no tax on tips, a very populist kinds of language that they’ll use to try to win over people separate from his own agenda and the failings of Trump. The question for Democrats is what do you come forward with in an agenda in this moment that speaks to the pain and suffering of people who say, man, I don’t believe anybody in government. I am so shattered in my belief in government, I feel like nothing, everything is, um, I’m cynical about everything. I think you’re raising some of the concerns on your own end. It’s like, you know, become cynical about everything. So the bar for a Democrat is much higher, and I think we’re not owning it quite yet, although there’s time, and I’d like us to feel like this is existential here. The bar is that you have an unimpeachable integrity, that you are someone who rises above and says the government means something, not only of my agenda, but of me as an individual in character and willingness to take on wealth and power on behalf of people. I think it’s a recipe of Mamdani, of course. I think he’s continues to rise in popularity. I think of continue to go higher is because all he’s doing is embodying a sense of an integrity of government service. Finally, you came in, despite of whatever misgivings I might have about whatever you are, whatever you might do, you can win me over by saying, well, my fundamental belief is that governments serve people. And here I am to try to execute that on a daily basis. And there aren’t enough, I think, right now coming up with both agenda and—

Alex Wagner: Integrity? Integrity and affordability. Are those our new buzzwords?

[AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: To put a finer point on it, I’m hearing you say that the Democrats’ positioning needs to be around this just perverted economy that we have.

Faiz Shakir: Position is one thing, Alex. You’re right. I mean, we can get to position. But even before that, are you molded by the influence of big money?

Alex Wagner: Right.

Faiz Shakir: That’s kind of a core question, right? Because we see in the president, he is the model of it. Like he literally from the day he comes in, I’m transacting for money here.

Alex Wagner: But you’re you’re talking about fundamentally economic kind of an economic argument whether it’s the being corrupted by the influence of big money, or you know engaged in the fight against what is increasingly an oligarchy in the United States. But you are not talking about and this sounds like a dumb question because we I think we litigated this in 2024 and we know what happened but like as it concerns other existential threats to our society like say trying to steal pervert our system of democracy, the ballots in Fulton County, et cetera, it sounds like you’re saying to me, the integrity question needs to be framed in terms of economics and vulnerability to, I guess, you know, big money adulteration, rather than, you know, kind of the abstract argument about federalism. Wow, that sounds so sexy. [laughter] I’m not actually, I’m really, where’s your abstract argument about federalism, Mr. Candidate? I’m not suggesting, you know what I mean, like. It’s so blatant what’s happening. He wants to nationalize elections fast. Like, what the fuck?

Faiz Shakir: Needless to say, you and I fully believe in democratic institutions, norms, and ethics, and [laughs] as someone who is a believer of them, you know, I try to think about persuasion to people who aren’t already with us. And for a lot of those people, they hear you saying, I hate Donald Trump and everything he stands for. Which is correct. I do. That’s correct. You and I are in that camp. And they say, well, your structural arguments are that, well you want the system to work according to the things that you want to do when you’re in power. I understand, you know, Democrats want it to work a certain way, Republicans want it to work certain way. You just don’t like what he’s doing. He doesn’t like it what you’re doing. And I don’t think that that’s our analysis of the situation. However, I understand and empathize with people who see it that way, that, okay, you know you guys are tribal and you fight over quote unquote “democracy” institutions when you are in power versus when you aren’t in power, and my point in reaching those types of people, is to say that economic democracy to them matters a hell of a lot.

Alex Wagner: I hear what you’re, yeh.

Faiz Shakir: Their livelihoods and their standard of living. And even with respect to ICE, just like, what is the community around you? How is your life being improved, not improved? Do I associate and understand with what is going on with you, especially at a time when oligarchy has its power and sway of attracting the wealthiest and most powerful in our political system to move towards them? The test is, do you know and understand my life as an Uber driver, as an Amazon driver, as somebody who is just trying to go day to day here? And you have a better chance of winning them over, particularly people who are already with us.

Alex Wagner: So it’s like thinking of ICE as an attack of like the powerful against the working class, where like the thugs is dispatched by the powerful to sort of harm the most vulnerable, both in terms of, you know, politically and economically, socially, financially.

Faiz Shakir: That’s part of it, in my view, I’m a believer that integrity matters a lot in this, that people believe in law enforcement, want it to succeed and want it work. I tend to believe that’s my own view. They don’t believe that law enforcement should be used for these partisan political ends or just out the kinds of activities. So the question for a Democrat is you want to come in, can you show the integrity of, I will utilize law enforcement. It won’t go away. I’m not here to say, you know, there will be no enforcement of people who do heinous things in society, owning that there are the small minorities of people or criminals do bad things and they don’t, we don’t want them. To disrupt life for the vast majority of us who are peace-loving and want to just go about our lives. So as a Democrat who believes in law enforcement, can I say that when I am in power, law enforcement will be used to ensure that there is accountability against small, tiny minorities of people who try to disrupt the life for the rest of us. And I am comfortable utilizing those law enforcement skills and focusing them on where actual harms exist, not unleashing them to propagate further harms that are unneeded to society.

Alex Wagner: Well, so you brought us firmly, you’ve steered this ship into icy waters, shall I say, fast. And you raised the question, even in the way you frame it for how Democrats should talk about law enforcement and ICE, and I would argue there’s a difference, at least in Minnesota, between how law enforcement, the police were acting and how ICE was acting, but nonetheless. I want to talk to you about this race in Texas where a Democrat wins by 14 points in a in a district Trump carried by 17 points in 2024. When you got that news this week and how much stock did you put in it and because Texas is a border state and because ICE has been so dominant in the national narrative lately and the videos obviously of Alex Pretti and Renée Good getting killed became the subject of dinner table conversation nationally. How much do you think that had to do with that victory? How much imports you play? How much of a bellwether do you think it might be for 2026?

Faiz Shakir: Alex, I think this is a fact, you can check me on it, that Democrats have flipped 26 state legislative seats since Trump took office, and Republicans have flipped zero. Zero. So scoreboard, we’re looking up, it says 26 to zero. Do you have, what would you like to take away from that? [laughs]

Alex Wagner: I would like to be on the side with the 26.

Faiz Shakir: Yeah, well, this goes to, you know, the first part of the conversation, which is, I don’t want to live in the naivete of hope, but I want to life in the reality of where people are. Where is this country? Are we close enough to understanding them? And I think they’re telling us. They are with us when we present very clear, you, know, both agendas of change plus accountability of Trump. I think, especially in a midterm cycle, there’s a high degree of a desire for accountability of Trump, as you can appreciate, right? That just alone can carry us into victory. And I think a lot of Democrats would know that, understand it, and then move down on the bar of ambition, right, as a result. We can just say, we’re going to check Donald Trump. If we move to 2028, which is very much on my mind as well, as we saw in 2024 after a 2022 midterm, now you’re going to go into a larger. Universal voters. Lots of people are here to dial in. And at that point, the question will be, you know, has the Democratic brand done enough to convert and persuade people to say, you want to roll with us at this point? But if for 2026, I’m feeling quite bullish.

Alex Wagner: Yes.

Faiz Shakir: And needless to say all the things nationalizing elections and ballot tampering and fear and terror. We’re eyes wide open here. Like we’re not fools. We are projecting a sense of strength. I don’t want to live in the place of cowering in fear. And that’s what you hear me saying over and over again. That’s in the authoritarian play book. Cower in fear, no. Chest up proud that we’re coming for you. We’re going to win this damn thing because we got the people.

Alex Wagner: The more immigration becomes something Democrats feel like they can go on offense about, do you think the more it requires of Democrats in terms of a full, fully developed position on immigration? I noticed that you were like, you were talking about law enforcement and it was like, you know, I don’t want to put. I don’t want to put labels on you, but it was a moderated position on keeping space for law enforcement and playing an integral role in society. You did not say the phrase, abolish ICE. Do you think the whole abolish ice debate is something Democrats should litigate right now or in 2028 or ever? Can they avoid it? I-I’m-

Faiz Shakir: I’ve always been strongly that people should say what they really believe and stand by them. I do tend to think that the public itself is as fractured and has different viewpoints on this as some of us do. It’d be foolish for us to just not own that. Of course, people themselves are trying to wrestle with what’s the proper role of ICE and should it exist, should it not exist. At least in a healthy ecosystem. I want people who have firm commitment of their views and have thought deeply about it to propagate those views. I think it hurts us, and I mentioned it with, I think you and I have had a conversation about Kamala Harris in 2024 where, in my view though, that the challenge was when you pipe down and don’t say anything and people assume, wait, you said something before and now you don’t wanna say anything? It suggests to me that either you’ve changed your views, you didn’t believe what you said before, there’s some waffling going on, the sincerity, the integrity has now been lost. If you, I think what I was looking at some of the statements that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has stated recently, and they’re, they’re doing quite well in, in, um, popularity. And one of the reasons, at least in my take of it, is because people see in her conviction, integrity, with the words that come out of her mouth. She believes you put her in office, she’s going to do the things she said she was going to. And just that alone puts you in the 90th percentile of politicians.

Alex Wagner: Right right right. [laughter]

Faiz Shakir: You told me something, you really believe you’ve given me an argument.

Alex Wagner: But isn’t that like, yeah, I mean, the whole point is you get into politics because you don’t say what you believe. I mean is that kind of like the mold of yesteryear? But Trump has changed that, right?

Faiz Shakir: Yeah.

Alex Wagner: Like he has made it OK for people to be audacious and public in their beliefs.

Faiz Shakir: And I think more comfortable just giving a theory as to why you believe what you believe while owning that people will disagree that the 2020 election was stolen from you, but they do agree with you on no taxes on tips, and they disagree with you on Greenland, but they agree with on the single family home should not be bought by large investors. I think there’s some kind of compilation of that, the nuance, the kind of depth of treating people with respect and integrity that says, I’m going to give you a view.

Alex Wagner: I don’t know that he’s treating people with respect and grace—

Faiz Shakir: No, no, no. I’m saying we us—

Alex Wagner: —completely fucking aimless and unfiltered in his rage and like prescriptions.

Faiz Shakir: As we’re talking about, he’s losing people. But there was a period of time he was gaining people, where after we lived through the first term.

Alex Wagner: Well he won. He won.

Faiz Shakir: Right.

Alex Wagner: And I’m saying that in that sense, you treat people with depth of their own appreciation of wanting a real conversation about immigration and come to it with your own viewpoints. So I can give you my viewpoints, I’m not saying it is the viewpoints that I hold for the entire Democratic Party. I want other people to have differences, to have a good conversation about it, and to say, here’s what I really believe. But not to castigate each other saying, you therefore are a horrible human being because you have a different viewpoint than I do. I think that’s where the canceling of various people doesn’t do us a lot of good. Appreciate that there’s a debate, a good and healthy debate that we should have.

Alex Wagner: Do you think the party is capable of that?

Faiz Shakir: Yeah, I think people are capable of it. People appreciate it. Now whether… Who’s in the ring and how they treat each other when they’re in the ring is a different part of the politics can be ugly and people treat each other—

Alex Wagner: Politics ain’t beanbags.

Faiz Shakir: Exactly, so how they act, I’m not as hopeful for, but what I would express is that the public is ready for it. You look at the long-form conversations like you and I have on these types of formats, on YouTube, you know, the conversation, the stuff we’re doing on more people—

Alex Wagner: We hope everyone’s subscribing on YouTube, I’ll just say. If anyone’s  listening right now.

Faiz Shakir: I see desires for depth and nuance. And I, literally it’s the premise of More Perfect Union. Was that like, okay, I’m going to do these long-form explainers of stuff, and I’ve only seen greater and greater growth. I just, that’s my operating assumption. People appreciate and trust and respect depth of a conversation, but don’t glide over it with superficiality. And don’t give me like a finger in the wind saying, well, I read the latest poll and the poll says, don’t say abolish ICE and therefore, I’m gonna be walking on eggshells. About how to talk about this because I read some poll in there for me to spit out a talking point.

Alex Wagner: It’s gonna be, I mean, it’s gonna require some fucking cojones, I’ll say. And I mean that in the most non-gendered way possible.

Faiz Shakir: Conviction. For all.

Alex Wagner: In order for people to just say, here’s my idea about this thing and tell me what you think of it and tell if you disagree or agree. I mean would require a level of discipline and empathy and I don’t know. Uh patience and confidence, I mean, all the things that I don’t think of national politics as having, but maybe you’re right. I mean maybe we’re in a different moment where absolutism is less the order of the day. I don’t know. I think we’ll see.

Faiz Shakir: We could, you know, I think we’re I think there’s worlds in which we can model constructive debate, even though—

Alex Wagner: Oh, I don’t know fucking anything. And I’m always like, hell, what’s the answer?

Faiz Shakir: Now you’re, you’ve always—

Alex Wagner: I don’t, I’m not an absolutist.

Faiz Shakir: But I think it’s yeah, and it’s also just like having like where we kind of model like how the candidates should quite frankly be doing it.

Alex Wagner: Yes. Be more like us.

Faiz Shakir: Doing it like here’s here’s—

Alex Wagner: Be more like us.

Faiz Shakir: [laughs] We’re trying to be real, and we are real. People know Alex, she’s a wonderful human being. We always be like each other, and we can have disagreements.

Alex Wagner: You’re contractually obligated to say that as a guest on this podcast.

Faiz Shakir: But I think from your lips to God’s ears, I think that that is the case, that people will, you shouldn’t run for office, certainly not the president of the United States, without some sense of depth of grounding and a depth of conversation that you want to have, especially in 2028, when the issues have become far more convoluted, far more depth, like AI and crypto and all of that world of polymarket, there’s so many things that are far more you know, wealth-oriented and distant from the working class, and we should own a person who wants to wield power and authority is going to have to speak about things that are becoming increasingly complex and have nuanced views for the American public to digest.

Alex Wagner: Um, yeah, just be more like me and my takeaway is be more like Alex Wagner and Faiz Shakir.

[AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: I want to end this because you are just a brilliant political mind, which is made obvious by the quality of your conversation, Faiz, but you also have just a real keen insight into the blood sport of winning states for your time running national elections. I.

Faiz Shakir: Didn’t win enough, but yes, try to. [laughter]

Bro, you did a very fucking good job. And I want know how you’re looking at that Senate map. I want to know what you think of in this season of optimism and hope that you began this podcast with. Where are you, where do you think there’s some pickups? What are you optimistic about? And I say this on the tailwinds of this Texas election and heading into maybe not stolen 2026 midterm election.

Faiz Shakir: Yeah, I mean, we’ll see how Texas plays out, but that’s certainly one. But Mary Peltola in Alaska, I think, is a very, very strong candidate and puts that state definitely in play. I certainly think the way Maine is going, I’m more of a Platner fan, to be clear.

Alex Wagner: That doesn’t surprise me. I have an ongoing running debate with Dan Pfeiffer about this. Basically, we talk about the Maine Center race every week, but okay.

Faiz Shakir: So I’m a Platner believer and I’d like to see him try to run it out against Collins and I feel like he’d be in good stead. And then Iowa, I’m really bullish on and then Ohio, of course, with Sherrod Brown coming back. So there’s, if you just look at the map.

Alex Wagner: Return of the Sherrod, yeah.

Yeah. I feel really good about some of these and then there’s going to be some pickup opportunities even that are stretches on me, whether Dan Osborne in Nebraska can do it at the second time against a billionaire in rickets. There’s others, but I don’t- I want to see how it develops because we’re still in primary season right now, and the map changes once you

Alex Wagner: Right. And also maybe you’re not allowed to say who you like, although you did stamp your ticket for for Graham Platner. But like Michigan, for example, I noticed you glossed over that one. And Texas.

Faiz Shakir: I like it. Obviously, I like him. I’ve known him for a long period of time. I’d like to see him get the nomination. However, if you’re asking me, could we win with, you know, other candidates? Yeah, I think we could win, right? Like, I’m not going to tell you we can’t. It’s like kind of how I felt about Bernie. I thought Bernie was the strongest possible candidate in 2020. I thought we’d win with Bernie Sanders. And I wasn’t going to to tell, you like, no, Joe Biden, there’s no way in hell that we could ever win if he was the nominee. Yeah, like, so. I think that these are where voters, you want healthy democracy to play out. That’s why you want a healthy primary. Same with, you know, Talarico, in my view, has been more of a class warrior on economic justice issues than Jasmine Crockett has. Has been more clear about taking on a billionaire class for that reason. I like that message, no surprise to you. And I like the way that we can go into a general election with that kind of an approach. So, you know, but in the end, if democracy plays out and people vote for, I will, I respect it. So that we are having healthy primaries we’re putting up clear choices and then I want to re-evaluate once the choices come through in a general election but I’m feeling bullish again.

Alex Wagner: I love that. We started with you bullish and we’re ending with you, bullish. I just want to ask you, um, cause you mentioned Bernie and you obviously have a long illustrious, uh, career with him. Joe Biden got old. Donald Trump is getting really old. Bernie Sanders is age, ageless? Timeless? What the hell? [both speaking] Maybe because he started out at like 82 or whatever like he’s always been old, but it’s it’s kind of crazy.

Faiz Shakir: We’re, you know, we were on the train the other day. And I said, Senator, I got to ask you, like, you got to give me the recipes of life. I want to get to 84 and have your mental acuity. He’s still a sharp, he remembers every trip we go on. He remembers shit from it that I forget easily. Geez, I want that. I will, whatever that is. And he’s still just, is that energy. He feeds off of like a mission and purpose in life.

Alex Wagner: [laughter] The rage powers him.

Faiz Shakir: It’s true. It keeps him ticking.

Alex Wagner: All right, well, like, I guess word to the wise, be bullish, but don’t lose the rage. And maybe we can all be as lucid as Bernie—

Faiz Shakir: Justice and a vision for the world. It does keep them going. Like a sense of. I tend to think I couch it in optimism. I know some people look at them and sometimes say it’s curmudgeonly and angry, but I’m like, no, it’s fundamentally an optimism and a belief in America, in the power of people. And I share that with them. I learned it from them. I’m an apprentice of his. But I share it with all of you. Just carry that of a belief that the country can and will be better than it is today.

Alex Wagner: Faiz Shakir, you are the best. Faiz, thank you for your time, buddy.

Faiz Shakir: Thank you. It’s good to see you as always.

Alex Wagner: You too. [music plays] That is our show for this week. As always, if you have been impacted directly by the Trump administration and its policies, send us an email or a one minute voice note at runawaycountry@crooked.com and we may be in touch to feature your story. A huge thank you to everyone who has written in already. You guys are the best. Last but not least, please do not forget to check out the show and our rapid response videos, uncut gems on our YouTube channel, Runaway Country with Alex Wagner. Thanks for listening. Runaway Country is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Alyona Minkovski. Our producer is Emma Illick-Frank. Production support from Megan Larson and Lacy Roberts. The show is mixed and edited by Charlotte Landes. Ben Hethcoat is our video producer and Matt DeGroot is our head of production. Audio support comes from Kyle Seglin. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Adriene Hill is our Head of News and Politics. Katie Long is our Executive Producer of Development. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writer’s Guild of America East.