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00:00 In a new article for The Atlantic, senior editor Ron Brownstein writes, "Trump's threat to democracy is now systemic. Each time GOP leaders have had the opportunity to move away from Trump, the party has sped past the off-ramp."
00:13 CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein joins us now. Ron, why do you say that indicting Trump could be a necessary step toward containing this threat to American democracy?
00:24 It seems that perhaps convicting him might also be a necessary step.
00:30 Necessary but not sufficient. I mean, the threat that Trump has created and poses to American democracy is probably the most serious we have seen since the Civil War, since the years particularly before the Civil War.
00:44 But it's gone way beyond him, you know. I mean, we certainly saw in 2020 Republicans in the key state who are closest to administering the election, by and large, defended the integrity of their own state elections.
00:57 We saw that there were people immediately around Trump who are now raising alarms, certainly more visibly than they did back in 2020, people like Bill Barr or Mark Esper.
01:06 But in between, the vast majority of both elected officials and rank-and-file Republican voters have lined up behind Trump.
01:15 I mean, we forget that the vast majority of House Republicans in 2020 voted to overturn the election, to reject the election results.
01:22 Something like two-thirds of the Republican attorneys general joined a spurious lawsuit to overturn the election results.
01:29 We see in the CNN polling 70% of Republicans, voters, still say that Joe Biden was illegitimately elected.
01:36 And now 60% say they describe January 6th as legitimate protest.
01:41 This is a broad strain now in the party, and it really does cause you to question whether if Trump is the nominee and loses in November, whether there would be any more resistance in the Republican Party than there was in 2020 to him trying to overturn the election in anything short of another full-scale physical assault on the Capitol itself.
02:02 And you write that the germ of election denialism has spread so far throughout the Republican Party.
02:08 You were just laying that out a few moments ago. Will it ever go away?
02:13 Well, look, I think the election denialism is rooted in the core -- tied to the core divide in American politics.
02:32 And I believe since really for the last 15 years or so, the fundamental fissure between the two parties is between those who are comfortable with the way the country is changing demographically, culturally, and economically, and those who are alienated or fearful of it.
02:38 And Trump has solidified the Republican identity and solidified the Republican reliance on the voters who are most uneasy about the way the country is changing.
02:48 And I think that's a fundamental issue that we need to address.
03:08 And I think that's a fundamental issue that we need to address.
03:33 And I think that's a fundamental issue that we need to address.
03:43 And I think that's a fundamental issue that we need to address.
04:03 And I think that's a fundamental issue that we need to address.
04:23 And I think that's a fundamental issue that we need to address.
04:43 And I think that's a fundamental issue that we need to address.
05:03 And I think that's a fundamental issue that we need to address.
05:23 And I think that's a fundamental issue that we need to address.
05:43 And I think that's a fundamental issue that we need to address.