Morning Joe panelists aghast at Trump's 'worrisome' new lies: 'Really sucks for democracy'

Panelists on MS NOW's "Morning Joe" sounded the alarm over President Donald Trump's latest election fraud lies.

The president had proclaimed that GOP candidates in the Los Angeles mayoral race, including former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, have been "cheated" after losing last week's primary election, and "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski was aghast that House Speaker Mike Johnson and other high-ranking Republicans are going along with his claims.

"It's diabolical," Brzezinski said. "Unlessyou are waiting to becomespeaker of the House, and thenyou patiently wait for California to come in, that ishypocrisy at the highestextreme, performative hypocrisy ... Explain for us how California's slow vote-countingprocess, which Mike Johnson isfine with when it benefits him,is now diabolical, even thoughit's driven by the state'sheavy reliance on mail voting,and it delays the final resultsfor 30 days. I don't get it."

California is a large and populous state that relies heavily on mail-in voting that can take longer to count, and The Dispatch's David Drucker said Trump was exploiting that laborious process and the conservative social media bubble for his own political purposes.

"The city of LA isseven points more democraticthan the state of California, so you tell me how a Spencer Pratt is supposed to win thisrace," Drucker said. "It's just exceedinglyunlikely, and even though hemastered the attention economyof this campaign and had peopleall over the country andparticularly in Washingtonthinking, 'How can this guy lose?Look at his ads.'"

Trump's false claims about California's election have also been echoed by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), and the panelists lamented that Republicans are too afraid to challenge the president even when he's clearly lying.

"It really sucks fordemocracy," said Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei. "This is the stuffyou see happen in a brokencountry, in a third-worldcountry where they've not beenable to govern effectively.Every time you call intoquestion whether or not ourelections are valid, you weakenthe soul of the country, andthat's why this is damaging."

If the president or his GOP allies had evidence of fraud, VandeHei said they should present it, but he warned they appeared to be laying the groundwork to challenge potential election losses this fall – just as Trump attempted to overturn his own election loss in 2020.

"This isthe 250th year of this country," said veteran diplomat Richard Haas. "Here we are, we're meant to behonoring celebrating the Declaration [of Independence], and we probablyright now are facing, in someways, the most concertedassault, potentially, hopefullyit won't happen. But theserumblings, this is reallyworrisome stuff. This ispreparing the ground, as yousay, for serious pushbackagainst, I think, the a freeand fair election this November. So people ought to take thisseriously."

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