The Briefing with Jen Psaki
Trump Cabinet's tone deafness makes election outreach plan ridiculous
19 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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The Trump administration's plan to screw around with the next election is as clear as it has ever been.
Chapter 2: What is the Trump administration's new election outreach strategy?
And right now, Governor Moore is fighting back in a really important way. And today, the Republican led state election board of Georgia also met for the first time since the FBI and Tulsi Gabbard raided the Fulton County election offices. That's also something to watch. They're reconvening tomorrow.
The former mayor of Atlanta and current Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms, is going to join me. I just mentioned that to Jacob, too, to talk about that tonight. And like I said, we have a lot, a lot to get to tonight, a lot of good people to chew it all over with. But I just want to start with something that happened actually last night.
because last night, Trump's top political advisors met for a private meeting. This included his former campaign manager, his pollster, his chief of staff. They all huddled together at the private members-only Capitol Hill Club in D.C. to discuss what they think should be Trump's midterm strategy.
And according to The Wall Street Journal's Josh Dawsey, a big part of that crack team's plan is to encourage Trump's cabinet secretaries to visit competitive districts. I, for one, I think that's a freaking phenomenal idea. I fully endorse it, given that these are the kind of people that they are talking about here.
Surely, as vice president, you'd like to be president.
Would I? Well, look, I think, again, I'm going to try to do as good of a job as I can right now.
I mean, that laugh is so awkward, it's like the stuff of nightmares. But that was, of course, Trump's number one surrogate, his vice president. He may be some sort of Manchurian candidate. I don't know. But at a minimum, the guy is not exactly oozing charm, really ever. I mean, just a few weeks ago, he was booed at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Milan.
And that is actually part of a long history of fans getting booed by crowds really all over the place. Definitely send that guy to competitive districts. That's a bang up strategy you came up there with there. But hey, listen, if Vance is too busy, he's too weird. Who knows?
Trump could always call upon his incredibly relatable and not at all off the wall, bizarre secretary of health and human services, RFK Jr. Here he is. This is a real video. I kid you not. An official HHS video he just put out with right wing musician Kid Rock to, I guess, And this is really a reach here, and I'm not here to get in the heads of their strategy.
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Chapter 3: How is Maryland Governor Wes Moore responding to Trump's attention?
Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who's 94... She wouldn't call and complain. She just wouldn't. She thinks something got messed up and she'll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling, and complaining. We've run over a thousand simulations.
It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, corn tortilla, and one other thing. And so there is a way to do this that actually will save the average American consumer money. What is a mom and pop that someone, maybe your parents for their retirement, about 5, 10, 12 homes. So we don't want to push the mom and pops out. We just want to push everyone else out.
President Trump, if you are watching, if any of your advisors see a clip of this on social media or wherever, definitely send those three to swing districts. Maybe they should do a bus tour. Think of the possibilities. One chicken nugget and broccoli stock for everyone while discussing how to possibly manage those 12 homes your retired parents bought. So many possibilities. People would love...
love to be told that they shouldn't complain if they don't get their social security checks, or that they should just make their meals smaller, like itty bitty tiny, one chicken nugget, or that they should put aside their own interests in favor of those poor, poor landlords who only own a dozen homes. That would go over really well. Could be a bus tour.
Now, to state the obvious, the midterms are really—they're not looking great for Trump and Republicans, as we know. I mean, there's time to go, but none of it's looking great. And it seems like they know that is the case. But rather than changing their policies and trying to win over more voters, as one typically does to win elections at the ballot box—
It looks like they are going, what they're trying to do, what they're doing clearly is trying to steer voters away from the ballot box instead. I mean, for weeks now, Trump has been saying that Republicans should nationalize elections. We've talked about this a lot on this show, that they should do something to put elections under his control, to federalize them, which you cannot do.
They're run by states. Then on Friday, Trump's DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, cryptically said that her agency plans to, quote, make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country. Now, when Noem said that on Friday, we I mean, it was weird. It was kind of a lot of things, but we didn't really know what she was referring to.
And today we kind of found out we did find out. I mean, today, MSNOW reported that the White House has directed DHS to hunt for voter fraud committed by naturalized U.S. citizens. Now, to put that in perspective, last year, the state of Utah conducted a review of the 2.1 million people who've registered to vote in that state.
Out of 2.1 million people, it's a lot of people, they only found one, one instance of an ineligible person registering to vote. And that one person did not actually vote. They just registered. The Conservative Heritage Foundation found just 23 instances of non-citizens voting in U.S. elections between 2003 and 2023, a 20-year span there.
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Chapter 4: What concerns does Keisha Lance Bottoms raise about voting corruption in Georgia?
It also seems predictable in some ways, too, because they've been clear about wanting to be able to send law enforcement of some version to the polling places. What can you do as the governor to prevent them from moving forward with this in this insane level of voter suppression?
Well, it's important for people to know that that one, this is part of a larger play. Right. Whether we're talking about redistricting and going out to the Voting Rights Act, whether we are talking about trying to end mail in balloting or whether we're talking about deploying armed armed armed military in the streets.
This is about a much larger play about how they are trying to manipulate and take and steal. the election in 2026. The second piece is important for people to remember is this, is our elections are not run by the federal government. They're run by states. And so the guarantees that we have that I can give to the people of Maryland is that there is an independent body
that focus on making sure that our elections are safe and our elections are transparent. Those are the instructions that people should be listening to. And frankly, any violations of the guidelines that they have laid out to include making sure that you are putting armed personnel anywhere near voting booths is a violation of the law and will be treated as such.
As part of the pattern, and I definitely want to get to redistricting, part of the pattern here is them also putting in place or trying to put in place more voter restrictions. And one of the arguments that Kristi Noem recently made about the SAVE Act is that she said they want to have the right people voting. Now, when she said that, it seemed just kind of a bizarre thing to say.
Now it kind of hits differently. How do you hear that, knowing what we know now?
Oh, well, they're very clear that the right people means people that vote for them. The right people means people that look and think like them. The right people are people who they know does not actually represent what our democracy is supposed to look like. You know, we need to make sure that people know that this is the line that we will hold.
that if we are going to continue being a democracy, that part of that foundation means having free and fair and safe elections. And that has to be something that our state leaders and our state governments have got to take seriously. Thank God that the founding fathers, when they laid this out, they took it out of the hands. of the federal government. And they did it for this exact reason.
And so us as chief executives of our states and as other lawmakers and legislators within our states, we have to make sure that that responsibility, that heirloom of responsibility that we have is one that we take seriously and is one that we will protect.
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Chapter 5: What shocking claims did Les Wexner make during his congressional deposition?
It is bigger. ICE is bigger than the FBI. ICE is bigger than the ATF. ICE is bigger than the DEA. And they are now the 13th largest military force in the world by funding, and they're arresting five-year-olds.
They're arresting mothers in the Eastern Shore who simply asked to go see their son because their son was sick when they did not let her go see her son, that the woman in the Eastern Shore, her son died of cancer while she was detained. This is not making any of us safer.
And so the legislation that I signed is basically saying that we will still work with federal authorities on dealing with violent criminals, people who are murderers and rapists and pedophiles. We will work with them to make sure those people have accountability. But we're not going to allow ICE to deputize our local law enforcement who are trained and who are accountable.
I have too much respect for local law enforcement to ask them to be deputized by an agency that is now putting people in our streets who are untrained, unqualified, and unaccountable.
Chapter 6: How did Annie Farmer react to Wexner's statements regarding Epstein?
One of the other steps you've taken or tried to take, you're trying to take, I should say, is really pushing forward on redistricting. It's on everyone's minds. Maryland's new map has been a bit of an impasse in the state Senate. Leader Hakeem Jeffries was in Maryland today. The two of you were meeting with the Senate president, Bill Ferguson.
Jeffries came out of that meeting, expressed confidence about things moving forward. Bill Ferguson had a bit of a different take on it. I'm guessing you're going to say it went well and you have confidence, but share with us a little bit of any progress made or where do things stand at this point in time?
Well, I think Leader Jeffries came to Maryland just with the same ask that I have had, which is if you say the votes are not there in the Senate, that's fine. But, you know, the best way to prove that that's true, call for a vote. do the democratic process.
We have now seen how this assault on our democracy that we were just talking about, that we're seeing from the federal administration, is in full effect. And its impacts we are seeing every single day. They are impacts like we're watching with the largest gain in unemployment of black women in the past year than we have seen in our nation's history.
It's impacts like seeing how Maryland alone is at 25,000 federal workers fired. Because we have an unchecked executive. And so when Donald Trump is now calling on Texas and Florida and Ohio and Missouri and North Carolina and saying, I need you to find me seats. This is literally him trying to rig an election to make this pain that we are seeing in our states, making it permanent.
And so the thing that we are simply asking. And I think Leader Jeffrey shared that with the Senate president, is the House and Maryland have already, they've debated, they discussed, they made some adjustments, but then they voted. That's democracy. And no matter how this turns out, I'll be okay because that's democracy in action.
So we're simply asking the Maryland Senate and the chamber leader to be able to defend democracy as ferociously as you're defending the status quo.
Did you get any agreement from him?
No, I think there are enough senators right now who understand not just the call, but who understand the assignment. And so I am optimistic that the Maryland Senate is going to do the right thing because it's not just that we're paying attention, frankly, their constituents are paying attention.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of Trump's election strategy on voter suppression?
Keisha Lance Bottoms, a very powerful message for people to hear when a lot of people out there are really scared. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Thank you for having me. OK, coming up, we got some stunning new details out of the House Oversight Committee's deposition with Les Wexner today. And the Democrat who led that deposition said there is one specific thing he can't get over.
And Annie Farmer is a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse. You've seen her. We've talked to her before. Many people have talked to her before. She's been very outspoken. And we're going to get her reaction to all of this when we come back.
Earlier today, the House Oversight Committee wrapped up their deposition with longtime Victoria's Secret boss and Jeffrey Epstein funder Les Wexner on his estate in New Albany, Ohio. Only Democratic members participated. No Republican lawmakers joined. And Wexner's spokesperson told MSNOW that he, quote, has no knowledge of and did not participate in Epstein's illegal conduct.
But this is the same man whose name appears in the Epstein files on multiple occasions. And while appearing in the files doesn't necessarily mean knowledge of Epstein's crimes, this is the same man whose survivors have long said provided Epstein with vast sums of money.
The same man who Virginia Dufresne testified in a deposition that Epstein trafficked her to and who she said she had sex with multiple times. Wexner, we should note, denies that. He's also the same man whose name has become part of the very first Epstein accusation reported to law enforcement. Both Maria and Annie Farmer suffered abuse at the hands of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Maria testified that she was assaulted in the same town where Wexner lives. And today's deposition occurred in the same town where she said that she was prevented from leaving to tell her story by the sheriff and by others tied to Les Wexner. Now, House Oversight Democrats say that Wexner claimed today to have little knowledge or no knowledge of these allegations.
Given all that, it's pretty jaw-dropping that Congressman Robert Garcia shared this detail from today's deposition. Wexner told the members that the FBI and the Justice Department never reached out to him. Never. That's crazy. Joining me now is Annie Farmer, survivor of abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Annie, thank you, as always, for being here with me.
I just have to start. This is something I think I and our team hasn't really been able to get over. I mean, Congressman Garcia said Wexner told the oversight members that the FBI and DOJ never reached out to him. And we may just know the service. I mean, I just outlined some of the public accusations that are out there. Obviously, he's also been a big funder of Epstein's.
What does that say to you, especially given how they handled your own reports of this kind of abuse?
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