MS NOW Fearmongers About Trump DOJ Election Monitors

Siena Do
August 6th, 2026 9:52 AM

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Amid Tuesday’s primaries in several swing states, MS NOW aired a four-hour-long live coverage led by Rachel Maddow and featuring most of their main anchors. Despite all that brainpower in the room, they still made several extremely dumb claims and speculations. Maddow and company brought up the DOJ election monitors sent to Michigan several times over the course of the night. By Maddow’s own admission, the monitors weren’t anything new, but she and the panel still did their best to fearmonger about rigged elections, including attempting to drag an unwilling election official into their conspiracy theory.

“Now, usually that is a fairly uncontroversial Justice Department tactic to make sure that everybody's civil rights are being respected,” Maddow said, regarding federal election monitors, but “with this DOJ and this administration, any presumption of regularity in these matters is long gone.”

 

 

Election monitors were authorized by the 1965 Voting Rights Act to ensure civil liberties are protected. Their job is “to enter and attend at any place for holding an election in such subdivision for the purpose of observing whether persons who are entitled to vote are being permitted to vote, and to enter and attend at any place for tabulating the votes cast at any election held in such subdivision for the purpose of observing whether votes cast by persons entitled to vote are being properly tabulated.”

But, according to Nicolle Wallace, the DOJ officials weren’t there to make the “experience of voting easier or more pleasant or more secure. It's about disincentivizing all people from voting in Democratic strongholds.”

 

 

Later, the panel called up Jacob Soboroff, who was at the polls in Michigan, where Abdul el-Sayed and Haley Stevens ran a hotly contested Senate race. Soboroff spoke to Daniel Baxter, Detroit Department of Election's chief operating officer. Towards the end of the interview, Soboroff and Maddow gave Baxter some very leading questions about DOJ officials potentially interfering with the elections.

SOBOROFF: What do you know about the Department of Justice that's been sent by the Trump administration this year? What are they doing? What are they saying? What do you know about the people that are here monitoring elections? 

MADDOW: Can you ask him for me, Jacob, did those monitors from DOJ interact with voters in any way? Did they make themselves known properly in the way they're supposed to?

SOBOROFF: Do you believe that they were here to uphold the integrity of the election, or was there another reason? 

Baxter, though he expressed no love for Trump or Republicans, refused to play that game:

Real simple. We got a letter from the Department of Justice about a couple of months ago, saying that they were going to be here at the Department of Elections during the August 4th election. . . They signed in, in accordance to the agreement that we made with the Department of Justice. . . So there weren't any issues. There were no controversies or confrontations. They did their job, we did our job.

 

 

But the panel, even with no evidence from Baxter, went ahead and assumed that the election monitors were one of Trump’s tools to rig the elections in Republicans’ favor:

CHRIS HAYES: Are these, like, essentially, apparatchiks who have been, you know, plucked by the White House to go do - get up to mischief? . . . you know, there's this weird tension I think we all hold, which is, Donald Trump is going to try to subvert and sabotage this election. He is trying now. Will he be able to do it is another question. 

 

 

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Donald Trump said - sent four teams of two to the giant state of Michigan, he sent eight people. Eight people who apparently behaved very politely and did nothing. And so is that the precursor of what we're going to have in the general election, or is there something else up the sleeve that we don't see tonight? 

 

 

MADDOW: Those polite, well-behaved DOJ monitors and wondering, okay, imagine this is Texas and those polite DOJ monitors are there and they don't seem to be doing anything. But then when it becomes clear that Talarico might win this thing, then all of those - all of a sudden those monitors are filing affidavits that justify the FBI going in and taking all the ballots from Houston. I mean, that's - we have to defeat our own lack of imagination about the perfidy here. And I think that's why we're putting so much scrutiny on these things that right now actually seem pretty vanilla.

 

 

No, MS NOW is not putting “scrutiny” on the monitors for the sake of democracy. They’re scrutinizing them because they are related to the big, bad, orange fascist boogeyman; and because they may stand in the way of Democrats' mad grab for power.

The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:

MS NOW's We The People 2026: Primary Night
8/4/26
8:03:40 p.m. Eastern

(...)

RACHEL MADDOW: That same Trump Justice Department that has been trying, for some reason, to get states' voter rolls today, they have also deployed election monitors to the state of Michigan. Now, usually that is a fairly uncontroversial Justice Department tactic to make sure that everybody's civil rights are being respected.

With this DOJ and this administration, any presumption of regularity in these matters is long gone.

These Trump administration monitors were spotted today watching primaries in four majority Democratic cities in Michigan, including Detroit. As of this afternoon, Detroit's city clerk says that her office has not received any reports from the Justice Department that they have spotted any supposed issues. But we'll be taking a closer look at that over the course of our special coverage tonight. 

(...)

8:10:11 p.m.

MADDOW: So, he's heading over to as he said, Jacob [Soboroff] said, to talk to officials who have been managing these DOJ monitors. 

I mean, it's - this is an unusual thing. Like, we're heading into the first national elections, the first midterm elections, control of Congress at stake, where the federal government is really an unknown quantity in terms of what they may try to do with these elections.

Detroit and these other districts tonight in Michigan that have had visits from DOJ monitors, it's really important for us to learn how they're behaving and what they've been up to. We'll get our first reporting on that, we think within the hour.

NICHOLLE WALLACE: You know, I think for all of our shows, right, we put together shows, and we sometimes cover threats to democracy separate from where we cover elections, right? 

We sometimes have different experts on, people that talk about election integrity and threats to our democracy, people like Heather Cox Richardson or Ian Basson. And then we have people on talking about local elections. Tonight those two stories come together--

MADDOW: Yeah.

WALLACE: --and I think every one of us has covered those stories every night for years and years and years and years now. 

And tonight we see not just how they come together, but how voters deal with them. I mean, these are people following all the rules. These are people. This is someone - and this is a typical voting experience, I went to the wrong place and I actually ended up going to three different places. You know, people, it takes a lot of time. You do a lot of planning and you go and you vote. 

And the DOJ involvement isn't about making Donna's experience of voting easier or more pleasant or more secure. It's about disincentivizing all people from voting in Democratic strongholds.

(...)

9:26:32 p.m.

JACOB SOBOROFF: Just before we go very quickly, the Department of Justice is here. They have said - you tell me, what do you know about the Department of Justice that's been sent by the Trump administration this year? What are they doing? What are they saying? What do you know about the people that are here monitoring elections?

DANIEL BAXTER: Real simple. We got a letter from the Department of Justice about a couple of months ago, saying that they were going to be here at the Department of Elections during the August 4th election. 

We met with them. They said they were sending four teams of two. They were here today. They visited about five sites and there were no issues. There were no issues in terms of provisional voting, or there were no issues in voter assisted terminals.

SOBOROFF: And that's the key right here, Rachel, no issues. You heard it from Mr. Baxter, the chief operating officer of elections in the city of Detroit.

MADDOW: Can you ask him for me, Jacob, did those monitors from DOJ interact with voters in any way? 

SOBOROFF: That's a great question.

MADDOW: Did they make themselves known properly in the way they're supposed to?

SOBOROFF: Mr. Baxter, Rachel Maddow is wondering, did the - did those folks from the Department of Justice, the monitors - I don't even know if we know if they're lawyers or not. Did they interact with voters in any way? Did they interact with your staff in any way? Were there any questions, allegations about what was happening here? What did they do?

BAXTER: No interactions whatsoever. They monitored, they observed, they did not interact with any of our voters. 

They introduced themselves to our poll workers. They signed in, in accordance to the agreement that we made with the Department of Justice a couple of days ago when we met them via Zoom. 

So there weren't any issues. There were no controversies or confrontations. They did their job, we did our job, and we're moving forward.

SOBOROFF: Do you believe that they were here to uphold the integrity of the election, or was there another reason?

BAXTER: I don't know why they were here. All I know is that we had a job to do, and we did that in the spirit of integrity and transparency.

SOBOROFF: Mr. Baxter, thank you so much. Couldn't be more transparent in here. It's an amazing thing to see. 

BAXTER: Thank you. 

SOBOROFF: Rachel?

MADDOW: Jacob, that was really, really helpful. Thank you. And thanks, Mr. Baxter, for helping us understand that. 

SOBOROFF: You got it.

MADDOW: Yeah, I mean, there's a - it is not unusual for the Justice Department to send election monitors to any number of jurisdictions for any number of elections at any one time.

In this moment, with this federal government's attitude and this President's attitude and this Justice Department's, sort of, angle toward elections and elections results, it's a black box that we have to think about in a way that we haven't before.

CHRIS HAYES: Yeah, and I mean, the two thoughts that came to mind as he was describing that, and what a great interview--

MADDOW: Yeah. 

HAYES: --fascinating dude, is, who are these folks? Are these just, like, civil servants in the Justice Department who've been there for 12 years? And if the answer to that is yes, then more or less, I would trust them to do their job. 

Are these, like, essentially, apparatchiks who have been, you know, plucked by the White House to go do get up to mischief, then I would feel differently. 

MADDOW: Yeah. 

HAYES: The second thing is, you know, there's this weird tension I think we all hold, which is, Donald Trump is going to try to subvert and sabotage this election. 

MADDOW: Yeah.

HAYES: He is trying now. Will he be able to do it is another question. 

MADDOW: Totally.

HAYES: And so these two things are always, kind of, laying here because the intent is there. He's going to try to do it. 

But someone once described the Jan. six plot as walking down a hotel hallway and just trying every door to see if it was unlocked.

MADDOW: Yeah.

HAYES: And like, he's gonna try every door. 

MADDOW: Yeah. 

MICHAEL STEELE: Right, I like that. 

HAYES: Like, you gotta lock every door. And basically, if it's locked, maybe you just try the next one, right? So at each of these points, it's like they're trying it all. They're going to try for everything. It doesn't mean they're going to succeed, and partly to the extent they don't succeed is, there are a lot of civil servants, a tremendous integrity across the ideological and political spectrum, and geographic spectrum in our country, who I really do think like, genuinely take their job seriously.

(...)

9:31:20 p.m.

LAWRENCE O'DONELL: I keep asking people - you know, it's not something I've been able to really cover on my show because I find it so speculative, you know, this interference with the election. And also because I personally cannot actually imagine, specifically what it is we're talking about. 

Now, let me say, Donald Trump's done a bunch of things as President that I could not imagine. So I'm not - I don't mean to be - I'm not taking any kind of position of authority here when I say I can't imagine it. 

But when you really drill down on it, I keep saying to people, you know, outside of the show about this, 'okay, tell me exactly what you think he's going to do.' Okay. 

And this is the example of what - where my mind comes from, which is I know who's out there. He's out there. This man we just interviewed is out there, and I know there's nothing you can do. 

Donald Trump said - sent four teams of two to the giant state of Michigan, he sent eight people. Eight people who apparently behaved very politely and did nothing. And so is that the precursor of what we're going to have in the general election, or is there something else up the sleeve that we don't see tonight?

(...)

9:34:28 p.m.

HAYES: To synthesize this, I mean, the thing that I think about, and again, this is speculative, is like, in a world in which James Talarico beats Ken Paxton by 3,000 votes, you think they're just going to be like, 'you got us? Yeah, you know what? We lost.'

No! They're gonna do everything they can to try to stop James Talarico from being sworn in as a U.S. senator. 

WALLACE: At least all the things they did last time. 

HAYES: Exactly. Like now, will that be successful? I don't think so, and I hope not. 

But if he ekes out that win in Texas, I have zero confidence that they will be like, 'you know what? We lost this one. Bummer.' 

MADDOW: Yeah--

[crosstalk]

MADDOW: Those polite, well-behaved DOJ monitors and wondering, okay, imagine this is Texas and those polite DOJ monitors are there and they don't seem to be doing anything. 

But then when it becomes clear that Talarico might win this thing, then all of those - all of a sudden those monitors are filing affidavits that justify the FBI going in and taking all the ballots from Houston. 

I mean, that's - we have to defeat our own lack of imagination about the perfidy here. And I think that's why we're putting so much scrutiny on these things that right now actually seem pretty vanilla.

HAYES: That didn't seem copacetic, which was nice to hear. 

WALLACE: Yeah, but it's recording the history of what happened tonight, which is, according to Mr. Baxter, nothing.

MADDOW: Exactly. And having the free press there and able to see stuff-- 

WALLACE: Right. 

MADDOW: --as - see the process as it's happening--

WALLACE: Right.

MADDOW: --is us doing our best to make sure this democracy is still democratic with a small d. 

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