00:00Well, just days before the midterm elections in the United States, President Donald Trump is stoking the fire of distrust
00:06in an echo of his ongoing conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
00:11He promised, with unclear legal authority, to pay $1 million to anyone who exposes election fraud that leads to a
00:20criminal conviction.
00:22It's a series of tactics that experts say is less about law enforcement than about messaging, pre-spinning likely Republican
00:30losses and driving up public doubts about the results.
00:34Should America be prepared for an avalanche of lawsuits attacking Democratic victories, as Trump has promised?
00:41Earlier, I put this question to Alan Lichtman, historian and one of the country's best-known political analysts from American
00:48University in Washington.
00:50Here's what he said.
00:52Americans should be very much prepared for Trump, if, as expected, his party loses this midterm election, to try to
01:00overturn the results by any means at his disposal, including lawsuits and avalanche.
01:06But remember, he lost every significant lawsuit, more than 60 of them, last time after the 2020 election, including some
01:16before judges appointed by Trump himself.
01:19So Trump's approval ratings have hit record lows and Democratic enthusiasm levels are off the charts.
01:29Do you expect a really big night for Democrats?
01:31Well, it's always perilous to predict midterm elections.
01:35I have a system for presidential elections, not midterms.
01:38But you're right.
01:39When an approval rating for a president is this low, historically, they lose about 40 House seats and six Senate
01:47seats.
01:48That's an average, not a prediction.
01:50How much of the current Democratic polling lead is due to the unpopularity of Trump and how much to Democratic
01:58policies?
01:59I think it's mostly due to the unpopularity of Trump, the Democratic lead in polling.
02:07Midterm elections are the one chance voters have to register approval or disapproval of a sitting president and his administration.
02:17And the truth is, for candidates of the president's party, no matter how hard you try, you can't run away
02:25from the president.
02:26And Democrats, you know, I've been criticizing them for years.
02:30They really have not developed and they could and should a compelling message for their policies and ideas.
02:38And what would be Trump's political agenda for his remaining two years in office following the midterms?
02:45Well, you know, Trump never really has had a legislative agenda.
02:50He governs, you know, as an aspiring authoritarian, he governs by executive order, essentially bypassing the legislature.
03:00He only had one big legislative victory, his tax and spending bill.
03:05So I expect he will govern once again by executive order, perhaps even more aggressively if, in fact, the House
03:14and the Senate or either one of them turns democratic.
03:16So when I talk to the pundits, the strategists, the observers, they tell me that Trump, over the last two
03:25years of his term, will be occupied by, you know, subpoenas and lawsuits, et cetera, and the Iran war.
03:34Do you share that?
03:35No question Democrats will investigate, investigate, investigate the Iran war, the corruption, the grifting, the revenge tours.
03:44But none of that is going to stop Trump because he doesn't care.
03:49You can't shame Donald Trump.
03:52You can try impeaching him.
03:53That hasn't worked before in the Senate.
03:55He's been acquitted.
03:57It won't work again.
03:58It won't work again.
