In recent months, the leftist media have been fearmongering about the possibility of Donald Trump rigging the 2026 midterms. At the same time, however, they have found themselves opposing election security measures like the SAVE America Act. Not wanting to be left out of this hypocrisy-fest, MS NOW continued their trend of attacking election monitoring on this Friday’s Money, Power, Politics with Stephanie Ruhle.
Following a discussion on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, senior national security reporter David Rohde gave his two cents’ worth on the issue. He seemed terrified that election monitors were trying to prevent illegal voting:
The Justice Department sent election observers to Michigan for the primary last week. And before that happened, they informed election clerks across the country that they would be arrested and prosecuted federally if they allowed non-citizens to vote. That is an astonishingly rare thing that happens in the U.S.
It's a giant, frankly, Trumpian conspiracy theory that there's all these people voting. So whether he's acting or not, it's just not acceptable that that's how, you know, and nothing happened, they sort of watched. But there's tremendous worry about what will the FBI do on election day? What will the Attorney General do?
MS NOW senior national security reporter David Rohde fearmongers about the DOJ sending election monitors to Michigan. Then, he quietly admits that they didn't do anything but observe.
Why are the media so scared of people keeping an eye on these allegedly secure elections? pic.twitter.com/CjFLrmaAgM— James Waterman (@jwatermaniv) August 7, 2026
Rohde claimed that this was a rare and unreasonable thing for the DOJ to do, clearly trying to make the election overseers seem like threats. (MS NOW seems blind to the idea that floating the word of monitors at the polls acts as a deterrent.)
He torpedoed his own argument, however, when he admitted that the election monitors really did nothing but monitor. Despite that, he continued to cry wolf about Blanche’s allegedly inevitable election interference. His arguments flew in the face of his own facts!
Rohde also claimed that illegal aliens voting was a “Trumpian conspiracy theory” in an attempt to discredit the administration’s concerns.
Once again, the facts contradict Rodhe’s arguments. Just last month, the New Jersey governor disclosed that over 6,600 illegals had been on state voter rolls, with many of them voting! So much for the conspiracy theory narrative.
Ignoring the gaping holes in his fearmongering arguments, Rohde would later comment on Senator Bill Cassidy’s (R-LA) support for Blanche’s confirmation as Attorney General, saying, “I think this vote puts our midterm elections in danger and our democracy in danger.”
The only people threatened by this are illegal aliens trying to vote illegally. If MS NOW thinks that policing illegal voting is a danger to “our midterms,” what does he mean by ‘our’? And if they don’t want the midterms endangered by rigging attempts, why oppose the SAVE Act designed to defend elections from fraud?
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to view.
MS NOW’s Money, Power, Politics with Stephanie Ruhle
August 7, 2026
10:12:44 a.m. Eastern
(...)
MARY HARRIS: I'm just curious how you think the Department of Justice would change if he [Blanche] remained in an acting capacity, because I've heard from other people who were inside the Department of Justice who basically said, this is a huge thing to lug around with you if you're just acting, and you will be basically, like, disrespected in meetings-
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Sidelined.
HARRIS: Yeah, sidelined. Exactly. But how would that operate? How would that actually, you know, impact the rest of us?
DAVID ROHDE: More pe- He would not bring- well, the midterm elections are coming. The Justice Department-
RUHLE: This has been your big thing.
ROHDE: -the Justice Department sent election observers to Michigan for the primary last week. And before that happened, they informed election clerks across the country that they would be arrested and prosecuted federally if they allowed non-citizens to vote.
That is an astonishingly rare thing that happens in the U.S. It's a giant, frankly, Trumpian conspiracy theory that there's all these people voting. So whether he's acting or not, it's just not acceptable that that's how, you know, and nothing happened, they sort of watched.
But there's tremendous worry about what will the FBI do on election day? What will the Attorney General do? What will the Director of National Intelligence- given President Trump's- We just had four judges testifying the other day, and they were asked - judges, federal judges! - who won the 2020 election. They're afraid to say it was Joe Biden. This is a huge alarm for our democracy.
(...)
10:53:40 a.m.
MYCHAEL SCHNELL: And for all of those considerations, Bill Cassidy said that he will indeed support Todd Blanche to become the permanent Attorney General.
RUHLE: Mychael Schnell, thank you so much for recapping that. Very quick around the horn, here, David. Very emotional Bill Cassidy.
ROHDE: Very emotional, but the bottom line is: this is a referendum on Donald Trump’s second term, which has unprecedented corruption, unprecedented seizures of power, by the president, and the only president in American history who will not accept the fact that he lost the 2020 election. I think this vote puts our midterm elections in danger and our democracy in danger.
(...)
