Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaking of politics. It's always a pleasure to welcome Sarah Westwood,
investigative reporter for The Washington Examiner, to the show. Sarah,
how are you. I'm great, Thanks for having me. It's
it's our pleasure. Thanks. I've read a couple of pieces
that you've written, uh lately. In one in particular, really,
we around here think it's one of the great under
(00:21):
discussed stories in America, and that is, uh, people's trust
in the voting system, people's belief in the fidelity of
the ballot. And you've written a piece recently about various
states moving in different directions in terms of who votes.
How can you give us kind of an overview of
what's happening? Sure, you know, I think that this was
(00:42):
a much bigger deal at the federal level last year
and early this year in January, you know, President Biden
gave a big speech about voting rights. Kamala Harris was
focusing intently on this, and it's lost a lot of theme.
At the national level, there was not enough traction to
get any sort of meaningful voting reforms through Congress. So
now you're seeing these fights play out state by states,
(01:05):
and New York and California in particular, have taken elements
of what was then the HR one for the People
Acts with John Lewis Voting Rights Access of legislation that
had a lot of very um significant structural changes to
voting laws and tried to implement them on the state level.
And so you could see a lot of changes in
(01:27):
this midterm election come November. A lot of states have
tried and some have even succeeded, in making permanent the
type of temporary solutions that were put in place to
accommodate public health concerns during the pandemic, like sending absolutee
ballots to every voter, which is something that is going
to be now a permanent feature of California voting right.
I saw in your article that the Wisconsin Supreme Court
(01:50):
went in the other direction. Can you tell us about that? Yeah,
this was a significant blow to the left wing agenda
when it comes to voting. But the wiscon In Supreme
Court looked out the way the state's law is currently
written and said that the law as as it send
does not allow for unattended ballot boxes, which means that
(02:11):
if precincts want to have ballot drop boxes where someone
can fill out their absentee ballot at home. Maybe they
don't want to drop it in the mail for whatever reason,
they feel more comfortable leaving it at the box. They
have to have a physical person they're monitoring the drop
box if they want to have this option for voters.
And that's a really expensive, logistically challenging way to to
(02:33):
do drop boxes, while you typically see them being unmanned,
because that that sort of manpower, full time manpower, Uh,
it's hard to come by in elections. You also have
in with constant um a band now from the State
Supreme Court on what critics call ballot harvesting, which is
basically where any third party sometimes political operatives can collect
(02:55):
absentee ballots ostensibly to help people who can't necessarily get
to the polls. I dropped them off in bulk, you know,
county clerk's offices or at these drop boxes. That also
is not compatible with Wisconsin law as it stands. Now.
Voting rights advocates will say, you know this, this hurts
elderly people, are disabled people who might not be able
(03:15):
to get out of the house to submit their absentee ballot.
But that's why the vote by mail system exists in
the first place. It existed for people like you know,
the disabled and the elderly who can't necessarily get to
the polls, and so that option voting by mail is
still available to people now that ballot harvesting is banned
in with consin right. I remember it was a couple
(03:36):
of election cycles ago that a Republican was booted out
of Congress and the election had to be reheld in
North Carolina because the various operatives engaged in ballot harvesting,
which is illegal. And roughly half the states I think,
or it's like twenty two to twenty three or something
like that. Do you happen to know that number, off fan,
I don't, but that sounds about or or you know,
(03:58):
give or take a couple of states, right, right, And
this is clearly editorializing, and you can join in or
not depending on your your wishes. But um, what we've
been saying around here is that people ought to be
able to vote, certainly and mail and voting for old
folks are disabled or whatever. That's nobody is against that,
but the idea of one guy showing up with fifteen
ballots is it's damaging to the credibility of the electoral process,
(04:25):
even if there are reasonable safeguards in place to make
sure every one of those votes is legit and and honestly,
I don't find the safeguards uh strong enough, but just
that very idea of a guy with a stack of ballots,
it bothers people, it does. And I think you know
a lot of these the liberalization of the vote by
(04:46):
mail ruled in states like Pennsylvania, New York, and California.
Those were done under the pretext of the pandemic, and
they were all builled as temporary measures. And now any
effort to go back to what the pre pandemic stand
neard was is being decried as voter suppression. And so
you know, this is sort of a bait and switch
that a lot of these Democrats did. When it comes
(05:08):
to the voting law in Texas, for example, a lot
of the changes that Texas made in their voting reforms
that they passed last year was just stripping away some
of those pandemic policies like twenty four hour voting or
like drive through voting which occurred in sub prefings in
urban areas. That was attacked by Democrats, as you know,
(05:28):
taking away people's right to vote, even though at the
time Democrats insisted that those measures were never meant to
be temporary. So there is a lot of sort of
rhetorical deception around this voting issue that's no longer you know,
in the national spotlight, because again, this is playing out
in the States, but you know, those fights are still happening.
(05:49):
Sarah Westwood, investigative reporter for the Washington Examiner, on the
line in the a couple of minutes we have left,
you did another piece on the House Republicans indeed take
the I'm sorry. If Puplicans take the House, which is expected,
that they are going to launch their own bunch of
investigations into the Biden administration. I'm not sure how much
I love this government by investigation that seems to be
(06:11):
popular these days. But what will they be investigating and
who's going to do it? Yeah, so we are seeing
outs Republicans start to lay the groundwork for what those
investigations are going to look like and what committees are
going to be the venue for those probes. Even though
they're not in the majority, they don't have subpoena power
necessarily the power to set the agenda and call witnesses
(06:33):
they can't send letters and requests and inquiries, and so
we're starting to see that. For example, the House Oversight
Committee uh Congress, and James Cohmer is the ranking member,
largely expected to be the chairman if Republicans take the
House in November. He's already started sending request to the
Treasury Department for what's known as suspicious activity reports, or
(06:54):
reports that are automatically generated when business transaction internationally. The
potentially raise red flags all the suspicious activity reports related
to Hunter Biden. So he's sort of starting to lay
the groundwork there for what will probably be a pretty
robust investigation of Hunter Biden's business dealings. The House Administration Committee,
which you know resees the sort of administrative staff associated
(07:17):
with Congress, is already sort of gearing up to investigate
why Capital police didn't have more security on January six,
why were they caught so flat footed? And you have
Republicans sending request to the January six Committee asking them
to preserve all their emails and documents because Republicans are
gearing up to do a pretty aggressive investigation of the
(07:38):
investigators of January six to see, you know, was any
witness coerced or threatened with financial ruin, you know, if
they didn't testify where people's rights trampled on by this aggressive,
you know, made for TV investigations. The Republicans really positioning
themselves to do some some aggressive investigating if they do
win in November. Well, and I understand the House Judicial
(08:00):
Theory Committee might be looking at Anthony Fauci. That's right,
as Congressman Jim Jordan's really interested in the Anthony Fauci
sort of the space of this unpopular COVID response, the
Republicans are interested in how and why he shifted so
dramatically his position on the lab leak theory. This theory
(08:20):
that COVID nineteen escaped from a virology lab at Wuhan
and that's how it starts spreading in China, which is
a pretty now publicly accepted likely possibility for how the
pandemic began. But Sauci hasn't not really explained why he
went from totally dismissing this theory too reluctantly embracing it.
(08:41):
And there are a lot of questions about, you know,
in i h's funding of grants that contributed to research
at that virology lab in Wuhan, and so those are
the sorts of things that Republicans are going to be
looking into, and you know, that could be pretty uncomfortable
for for Dr Fauci. Sarah Westwood of the Washington and
Exam her follow her on Twitter, read her at the
(09:02):
Washington Examiner dot com. Sarah, Hey, thanks very much for
the time. Thanks for having me. Armstrong and Jetty
Speaking of politics. It's always a pleasure to welcome Sarah Westwood,
investigative reporter for The Washington Examiner, to the show. Sarah,
how are you. I'm great, Thanks for having me. It's
it's our pleasure. Thanks. I've read a couple of pieces
that you've written, uh lately. In one in particular, really,
we around here think it's one of the great under
(00:21):
discussed stories in America, and that is, uh, people's trust
in the voting system, people's belief in the fidelity of
the ballot. And you've written a piece recently about various
states moving in different directions in terms of who votes.
How can you give us kind of an overview of
what's happening? Sure, you know, I think that this was
(00:42):
a much bigger deal at the federal level last year
and early this year in January, you know, President Biden
gave a big speech about voting rights. Kamala Harris was
focusing intently on this, and it's lost a lot of theme.
At the national level, there was not enough traction to
get any sort of meaningful voting reforms through Congress. So
now you're seeing these fights play out state by states,
(01:05):
and New York and California in particular, have taken elements
of what was then the HR one for the People
Acts with John Lewis Voting Rights Access of legislation that
had a lot of very um significant structural changes to
voting laws and tried to implement them on the state level.
And so you could see a lot of changes in
(01:27):
this midterm election come November. A lot of states have
tried and some have even succeeded, in making permanent the
type of temporary solutions that were put in place to
accommodate public health concerns during the pandemic, like sending absolutee
ballots to every voter, which is something that is going
to be now a permanent feature of California voting right.
I saw in your article that the Wisconsin Supreme Court
(01:50):
went in the other direction. Can you tell us about that? Yeah,
this was a significant blow to the left wing agenda
when it comes to voting. But the wiscon In Supreme
Court looked out the way the state's law is currently
written and said that the law as as it send
does not allow for unattended ballot boxes, which means that
(02:11):
if precincts want to have ballot drop boxes where someone
can fill out their absentee ballot at home. Maybe they
don't want to drop it in the mail for whatever reason,
they feel more comfortable leaving it at the box. They
have to have a physical person they're monitoring the drop
box if they want to have this option for voters.
And that's a really expensive, logistically challenging way to to
(02:33):
do drop boxes, while you typically see them being unmanned,
because that that sort of manpower, full time manpower, Uh,
it's hard to come by in elections. You also have
in with constant um a band now from the State
Supreme Court on what critics call ballot harvesting, which is
basically where any third party sometimes political operatives can collect
(02:55):
absentee ballots ostensibly to help people who can't necessarily get
to the polls. I dropped them off in bulk, you know,
county clerk's offices or at these drop boxes. That also
is not compatible with Wisconsin law as it stands. Now.
Voting rights advocates will say, you know this, this hurts
elderly people, are disabled people who might not be able
(03:15):
to get out of the house to submit their absentee ballot.
But that's why the vote by mail system exists in
the first place. It existed for people like you know,
the disabled and the elderly who can't necessarily get to
the polls, and so that option voting by mail is
still available to people now that ballot harvesting is banned
in with consin right. I remember it was a couple
(03:36):
of election cycles ago that a Republican was booted out
of Congress and the election had to be reheld in
North Carolina because the various operatives engaged in ballot harvesting,
which is illegal. And roughly half the states I think,
or it's like twenty two to twenty three or something
like that. Do you happen to know that number, off fan,
I don't, but that sounds about or or you know,
(03:58):
give or take a couple of states, right, right, And
this is clearly editorializing, and you can join in or
not depending on your your wishes. But um, what we've
been saying around here is that people ought to be
able to vote, certainly and mail and voting for old
folks are disabled or whatever. That's nobody is against that,
but the idea of one guy showing up with fifteen
ballots is it's damaging to the credibility of the electoral process,
(04:25):
even if there are reasonable safeguards in place to make
sure every one of those votes is legit and and honestly,
I don't find the safeguards uh strong enough, but just
that very idea of a guy with a stack of ballots,
it bothers people, it does. And I think you know
a lot of these the liberalization of the vote by
(04:46):
mail ruled in states like Pennsylvania, New York, and California.
Those were done under the pretext of the pandemic, and
they were all builled as temporary measures. And now any
effort to go back to what the pre pandemic stand
neard was is being decried as voter suppression. And so
you know, this is sort of a bait and switch
that a lot of these Democrats did. When it comes
(05:08):
to the voting law in Texas, for example, a lot
of the changes that Texas made in their voting reforms
that they passed last year was just stripping away some
of those pandemic policies like twenty four hour voting or
like drive through voting which occurred in sub prefings in
urban areas. That was attacked by Democrats, as you know,
(05:28):
taking away people's right to vote, even though at the
time Democrats insisted that those measures were never meant to
be temporary. So there is a lot of sort of
rhetorical deception around this voting issue that's no longer you know,
in the national spotlight, because again, this is playing out
in the States, but you know, those fights are still happening.
(05:49):
Sarah Westwood, investigative reporter for the Washington Examiner, on the
line in the a couple of minutes we have left,
you did another piece on the House Republicans indeed take
the I'm sorry. If Puplicans take the House, which is expected,
that they are going to launch their own bunch of
investigations into the Biden administration. I'm not sure how much
I love this government by investigation that seems to be
(06:11):
popular these days. But what will they be investigating and
who's going to do it? Yeah, so we are seeing
outs Republicans start to lay the groundwork for what those
investigations are going to look like and what committees are
going to be the venue for those probes. Even though
they're not in the majority, they don't have subpoena power
necessarily the power to set the agenda and call witnesses
(06:33):
they can't send letters and requests and inquiries, and so
we're starting to see that. For example, the House Oversight
Committee uh Congress, and James Cohmer is the ranking member,
largely expected to be the chairman if Republicans take the
House in November. He's already started sending request to the
Treasury Department for what's known as suspicious activity reports, or
(06:54):
reports that are automatically generated when business transaction internationally. The
potentially raise red flags all the suspicious activity reports related
to Hunter Biden. So he's sort of starting to lay
the groundwork there for what will probably be a pretty
robust investigation of Hunter Biden's business dealings. The House Administration Committee,
which you know resees the sort of administrative staff associated
(07:17):
with Congress, is already sort of gearing up to investigate
why Capital police didn't have more security on January six,
why were they caught so flat footed? And you have
Republicans sending request to the January six Committee asking them
to preserve all their emails and documents because Republicans are
gearing up to do a pretty aggressive investigation of the
(07:38):
investigators of January six to see, you know, was any
witness coerced or threatened with financial ruin, you know, if
they didn't testify where people's rights trampled on by this aggressive,
you know, made for TV investigations. The Republicans really positioning
themselves to do some some aggressive investigating if they do
win in November. Well, and I understand the House Judicial
(08:00):
Theory Committee might be looking at Anthony Fauci. That's right,
as Congressman Jim Jordan's really interested in the Anthony Fauci
sort of the space of this unpopular COVID response, the
Republicans are interested in how and why he shifted so
dramatically his position on the lab leak theory. This theory
(08:20):
that COVID nineteen escaped from a virology lab at Wuhan
and that's how it starts spreading in China, which is
a pretty now publicly accepted likely possibility for how the
pandemic began. But Sauci hasn't not really explained why he
went from totally dismissing this theory too reluctantly embracing it.
(08:41):
And there are a lot of questions about, you know,
in i h's funding of grants that contributed to research
at that virology lab in Wuhan, and so those are
the sorts of things that Republicans are going to be
looking into, and you know, that could be pretty uncomfortable
for for Dr Fauci. Sarah Westwood of the Washington and
Exam her follow her on Twitter, read her at the
(09:02):
Washington Examiner dot com. Sarah, Hey, thanks very much for
the time. Thanks for having me. Armstrong and Jetty
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