The Weeknight 7/21/26 | 🅼🆂🅽️🅲 Breaking News Today July 21, 2026

[00:00:00]Week night, I'm Simone Sanders Townson with Michael Steele and Luke Russer.

[00:00:03]Breaking tonight, polls are about to close in Arizona and the Trump administration has placed election monitors across the state. And we are just learning that the Justice Department is now demanding voter data from New Jersey. The details in a moment.

[00:00:18]>> Also breaking, [music] Senate Democrats just finished grilling Pete Hexath on Capitol Hill after he asked for $ 37 billion more for Trump's war of choice with Iran. Senator Tammy Baldwin was in the room and joins us to react. And later, Todd Blanch refuses to say that Donald Trump's nearly $1.8 [music] billion dollar slush fund for loyalists is completely dead, leading some Republicans to second guessess his confirmation to be the next attorney general. But let's start with breaking news tonight. The Trump administration is opening up two new major fronts in the president's war on free and fair elections. first in Arizona. Polls will be closing later tonight in the state's high stakes primaries. On the Republican side, election deniers are up and down the ballot, including in the races for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general. Just today, a top Justice Department official warned that election monitors are quote fanning out across Arizona as a traditional intimidation tactic that Trump's deal DOJ plans to use in at least five other states during the primary season. Also breaking tonight, the Justice Department announced last hour that it's opening an investigation into New Jersey and demanding that state turn over voter data. This follows an announcement from Governor Mikey Cheryl that the state mistakenly registered about 6600 non-citizens to vote between June of 2023 and June of 2024. The governor said about 400 of those non-citizens voted in elections, but did not sway the outcome of any race. That announcement is certain to add fuel to the president's weaponization of our nation's intelligence findings to rehash his 2020 defeat and cast doubt on future elections. You will remember that Trump used a prime time address last week to spread misinformation about US election infrastructure and also frankly to just make a bad faith case about China's effort to influence our elections. And yet just today Trump downplayed his own claims when asked about holding China accountable.

[00:02:23]Well, we're going to talk to him about it. It took place a long time ago. I think China is maybe a little bit different today than it was then. But look, they're they do things and we do things to them. I'll be honest, we do things to them, too. It's not a one-way street, but we'll be talking to them >> tonight. Von Hillyard and Nerra Tanden are with us. But first, honestly, he said that today because he what he said last week when he made these claims, these election claims um in his big prime time speech address, it was all to whip up uncertainty and to manufacture um concern about the upcoming election.

[00:03:00]These weren't good faith arguments the president is making. And I mean, anybody who was shocked today that he said that, like, I got a bridge I want to sell you in the middle of Bermuda, child, get with it.

[00:03:08]>> That's one hell of a bridge, too, right?

[00:03:10]>> That doesn't exist. Look, >> with goddy gold like was in the oval office.

[00:03:13]>> Like look, these tickleheads, y'all just don't fall for this stuff anymore.

[00:03:17]Really? I mean, come on. This at this point, elections have all kinds of things that happen in them. And and I really want to get ahead of this story before the tickleheads that I just referred to from the president on down start to frame this as, see, we told you the system was broken and corrupt.

[00:03:35]>> New Jersey.

[00:03:35]>> New Jersey, right? It is not. It is not.

[00:03:38]Let us be clear. It is not broken nor nor any corruption. This is the process that worked. The system caught the mistake. The system fared it out, right?

[00:03:48]They identified the voters. They did what it was supposed to do. And I think, you know, we cannot take every little bit and turn it in turn it up and to make it more than it actually is. The system is different in every state. You will find mistakes in every state. And every state from the secretarial secretary of state on down has a process to deal with the correction. So I just wanted to put that on the table because we know the stupid is about to enter the ether and we want everyone to be cleareyed and clearhead when it when they're talking about this and understand Luke exactly what we're talking about.

[00:04:23]>> It's a bad unforced air. [clears throat] era that we're in. The president is uh engaged in an allout assault on free and fair elections and this information out of New Jersey that there were 6,000 registrations that shouldn't have been for non-citizens on the voter roles and 400 of them voted. Very minuscule did not alter any election results, but it feeds the beast.

[00:04:44]>> And here's the thing that we know about the GOP. Here's the thing that we know about the right-wing media echo chamber.

[00:04:49]And here's the thing that we know about the Trump administration. They just need a spark to cause an inferno. And that's what's going to happen here. They're going to use this as the reasoning for why you have to have the Save Act. So someone like Simone will be harder for her to vote because she's married and changed her last name. This is why they're going to say we have to send more watchers to polls to make sure the elections are free and fair. And we're especially in in communities where there's more of an immigrant presence because we have to make sure those non-citizens are there. So this is something that I think people need to keep their antennas up for. Uh we have seen these types of scandals that just start as a spark, they become infernos, whether it's Benghazi, Fast and the Furious, the IRS targeting. Yeah.

[00:05:30]Whatever videos come out of the James O'Keefe stuff. I mean, there's always these things that start small and they spread big because the weaponization of the of the media and the administration gets behind it. So, it's uh no need a smarter public, you know. Well, that's what we try to do here by watching our show. Get informed and get educated.

[00:05:47]>> Yeah. I mean, I wonder what you and I mean, you take the with the news coming out of New Jersey and I talked to some people in um Governor Cheryl's office today, and I was just like, why why why is this happening today? What happened?

[00:05:58]Tell me how she how we got here. And I'm told that the governor found out about this on Thursday. The um elections board noted um alerted the AG. The AG alerted the governor and the governor made a plan this weekend and said, "Okay, I I have this investigation, but also on Monday, we're going to talk about this."

[00:06:12]And so she was really being proactive in coming out and saying what is going on, how she plans to fix it, and it's not hiding from something that to to Luke's point, they could we would they the Republicans are going to weaponize this.

[00:06:24]They're doing it right now. Like that's what the investigation saying they want New Jersey's voter data is all about.

[00:06:29]You take that and then these Arizona elections today, this is from Mark Elias um or this from the Democracy Docket today. Tuesday's primaries will decide who moves forward in races for governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. three offices that could shape voting access, defend or weaken state election authority, and determine how Arizona responds to Trump's next move to control elections.

[00:06:51]>> Well, I think the thing that's most interesting to the conspiracy theories around New Jersey is here we have a governor who is telling the country what happened. If it was a conspiracy to keep people who shouldn't be voting um at the polls and voting, no Democrat would say, "Hey, this is a problem." So it seems strikes me as a little odd for the kind of Elon Musk conspiracies out there because Mikey Cheryl found out about something. It happened in a prior administration and she um announced rel like pretty quickly what happened and she knew um exactly what would happen which is this administration would work to weaponize that information at the end of the day. It is really crucial that we know there's 400 vote people who actually voted and it didn't make any difference in the elections. But we should ensure all our elections are fair. What we're seeing in Arizona is essentially a preparation for 2028, the most important elections this cycle.

[00:07:52]It's really important what happens in the in the House. It's really important that what happens in the Senate, but if you are focused on 2028, ensuring free and fair elections, the most important elections are governor, secretary of state, AG, and swing states like Arizona. And the right has an agenda.

[00:08:11]That agenda is to elect people, far right, has an agenda to elect people who will do Donald Trump's bidding in saying elections are unfair when they are fair.

[00:08:23]And Arizona knows that all too well.

[00:08:25]>> Ron, how how does this when you when you take it in consideration u New Jersey and what the governor is now having to deal with. Um and you look at Arizona tonight and and the play, you know, oh, we're we got federal officers. We're going to go monitor like there's some big nasty thing happening. How does do you hear from anybody on the Hill um that aren't Democrats?

[00:08:52]uh their concern about um these elections uh in the hands of Donald Trump. Is there any quiet expression of concern? Because all of these Republicans are on the same ballots that these Democrats are on. So when the when they start cherrypicking these races and saying that oh well I'm sorry near tandon in the seventh district of X you [laughter] know that that that was a bad but I'm I was in on the same ballot with her within that same district running for the state legislature as a Republican running for county exe county county executive in that in that in that district. So when she got a vote, I got a vote. Particularly if our votes are very close together cuz people do a crazy thing, Simone, they actually split, you know, split their vote. I'll vote for a Democrat for county executive and a Republican for the state legislature. So what are they planning to do when when the Democrats are saying, "Time out. Your race is messed up, too."

[00:09:53]>> I think it's a good question, Michael.

[00:09:54]And I think that what you're looking at is you mentioned Republicans on the Hill. And actually, I'm going to name drop one person who is no longer on the hill, a Republican. Her name is Debbie Leco. She was MAGA. She was right there with Donald Trump in 2020. She actually decided to leave Congress and she ran for the Maropa County Board of Supervisors and she won. and she is actually a major defender right now of the security of elections on not on the side of the election deniers but somebody who is at an operational level taking on this guy Justin Heapsol this matters because operationally there's 8,000 jurisdictions around the country that are going to be running elections this November 8,000. And so it's folks like Debbie Leco, a one-time election denier that now has seen the insides of Maricopa County's voting systems and is telling her constituents, they are accurate, they are fair, and they are legitimate. There's a guy Justin Heap. He is the county reporter.

[00:10:55]Our audience probably remembers Steven Richer. Steven Richer, who is the Republican. He's been on the front lines of defending the integrity of elections.

[00:11:02]He got primar enough and he was an election denier.

[00:11:06]Now it's Debbie Leco vers Justin Heap inside of the Maricopa County county recorder who is going to be the one overseeing the early vote in voter registration and wants to turn over the voter roles to the DOJ versus Debbie Lecoet one-time election denier who is now saying hey guys actually these elections are fair and that it's those voices that most of the country doesn't know out if you unless you live in Maropa County but it's those voices that we are going to be talking about this November and in 2028 because those names they used to be people like Bill Gates.

[00:11:38]They used to be people like Rusty Bowers. They used to be people like Kerry Lake. People didn't know those names six years ago. They should be paying attention locally now because the members of Congress up on Capitol Hill, to your point, they are. And they knows that those are the people with the power to ensure the security of the election in November.

[00:11:55]>> Yeah. Near Von makes a very good point there about how all politics is local.

[00:12:00]And one of the things that we're hearing from sources is that there are about 3,000 plus counties in America. A lot of these county boards as opposed to the last time around are being stocked with more election deniers or people who could make decisions on the fly uh that are frankly undemocratic. Do you think that the Democratic party is building up enough of a bull work right now against election malfeasants and is aware of the threat? We had Senator Padilla on our air who said everyone has to sort of war game the scenario. But it's not just the voting this time around. It really will be if the election can go forward in a free and fair manner.

[00:12:38]>> Yeah. I mean, I think there really two issues. One you've identified, which is the election deniers at the local level.

[00:12:45]And then on top of that, you have a weaponized DOJ that is looking for voting roles. I mean, the thing that's um among many outrages over the last week is the fact that the Trump administration, the Trump DOJ is looking at New Jersey as an example of why they need access to voting roles. And I think what we should be concerned about is not voter fraud at the local level. We should be worried about voter fraud that's created by election deniers or DOJ sources or working together to create that is what's happened in other countries. a very that's what's happened in other countries. Now, I will say there are lots of organizations and lots of Democratic leaders who are preparing and as Senator Padilla said, it's really important for secretaries of state, AGs to prepare themselves for an FBI who's going to try and come in and take over ballots and close elections and and really make the case to the courts that that is unprecedented. I just want to follow up on that really quickly because I think it's a very important point that you mentioned which is that you could have a scenario where you have a local board at a county and you have a weaponized DOJ and they create some sort of chaos some sort of pretext. And I think what people should understand about that is obviously that's dangerous but the biggest danger there is this running out the clock. this idea that we don't know really what happened with this election.

[00:14:09]So, let's let's kick it up to a friendly court or let's kick it up into somewhere where there's a friendly governor or some friendly way and then it ends up in where we don't really know who won and they that the people in charge decide who they want to win. Well, that's why that is why the litigation aspect of this is very [clears throat] important and outside litigators and the work that um like Mark Elias and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law and all of y'all all y'all out there, y'all know who y'all are. I read I get the emails.

[00:14:38]I see what y'all are doing. The NAACP. I think that's why it's so important because that's what made the difference in 2020. That and then aggressively walking down the narrative. the campaigns have to be aggressive about walking down the narrative. What we did in 2020 when you know we knew Trump was going to go and claim victory. So every single day for a week while those votes were being counted, we were having briefings for reporters on camera. So describing what our process was, what the numbers are, why we believe, what why we believe what we believe and why they need to wait. Um, I'm wondering if the campaigns across the board are prepared to do that for these midterm elections cuz for presidential is very easy to do, frankly, because you have the resources and you're large. I'm thinking about these Senate races and these House races to the points that Luke made.

[00:15:24]>> They've got to be very forward on the front end [snorts] of saying, look, there are state laws that are at play.

[00:15:30]We I know we keep talking about, right, what is the federal law? Well, you know, the DOJ, the FBI can say, okay, well, screw federal law. we're going to send in federal agents, we're going to go and send in troops to the polling locations anyway. So, it's incumbent upon these states to say, make very clear, the attorneys general and local prosecutors to make very clear that under state law, if you were to intimidate voters, that is against the law and you could face state prosecution. not just the people in Washington that are giving the orders but also the men and women who would be the ones that would be called upon on the ground in a very precarious potentially dangerous uncomfortable situation. I think that is where we are looking at that. If you look at Arizona, election deniers are leading the ticket on the gubernatorial race, the secretary of state race, the attorneys general race. This is about power. And in races and states that come down to thousands of votes, >> you're looking at the potential of understanding that early votes would be coming in. You'll have a pretty good idea on election day just how close it's going to be. That they've got to be really out front of that on the front end.

[00:16:35]>> Warnings do not elect people. Being right does not elect people. Well, the only thing that elects people is winning the votes and that's how you get the power to do what needs to be done. This is great. Um, we could do this all hour, but we are [laughter] not bombardier.

[00:16:47]Thank you.

[00:16:49]Y'all will continue. Thank you.

[00:16:51]>> Stay with us. When we come back, more breaking news. Senators [music] just confronted Pete Hegathth after the defense secretary asked for billions with a bee more to fight Donald Trump's war that he refuses to admit is actually a war. Senator Tammy Baldwin, who questioned [music] Hegath, is here. And later, Todd Blanch refusing yet again to say that the president's slush fund [music] is officially dead. It's a move that could threaten his nomination to be attorney general. You're watching the Weeknet.

[00:17:18]Dissatisfaction. Defense Secretary Pete Hegath went to Capitol Hill to request even more taxpayer dollars for Donald Trump's war of choice with Iran. In addition to Trump's addition, okay, how many addition folks? In addition to Trump's $ 1.5 trillion initial military budget request, guess what? The administration is now asking for another $67 billion for the Pentagon as part of a larger supplemental bill. Well, Hegathth, he crumbled when pressed for answers on these funds and frankly the war itself.

[00:17:51]>> You, sir, are the failure, not the men and women who are on that front line.

[00:17:55]you won't show any political courage to actually fund our department because you have Trump derangement syndrome and can't actually commit to anything meaningful. So I put this on you, Senator >> Sergeant Hzov, you have trillions. You have over a trillion dollars. You're asking for $1.5 trillion. It's not a question of money. It's a question of leadership and understanding what it takes to actually win >> political cowardice of Democrats who won't fund the troops.

[00:18:24]Joining us now is Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. She is a member of the appropriations committee and attended today's hearing and apparently she's part of the political cowardice that won't fund troops according to secretary. I >> I just want to just before we start into this just make it very clear that Pete Hexth is full of himself and full of it.

[00:18:44]You've mismanaged the money in the budget that the Congress is already giving you. the fact that you're coming back and asking for another $67 billion and proposing a $1 plus trillion budget for next year. You are full of it. Full of We'll talk a little bit later what can be done with some of that money. But the reality of it is, Senator, he can't answer the question because he has mismanaged the budget. There's 17 plus troops who are dead on his watch. That's not accounted for. the the the the use of munitions, the use of strategy, the lack of strategy. How how does he come before the committee justify this? What was your take today? What's how do you see this playing out? Because I can't see any Republicans that I once knew sitting there thinking that this fool actually made sense in this request today given the money that's already been spent to what? To what end? What what are we seeing?

[00:19:38]>> What do we see for this money?

[00:19:39]>> So So two things. First of all, just the context. This is a war of choice. We were not under any threat from Iran and it has been an unmititigated disaster in terms of loss of life, in terms of who's bearing the costs.

[00:19:58]>> Uh my farmers, my constituents who can't afford to fill their fuel tanks and farmers can't afford to buy fertilizer.

[00:20:08]Um the straight of Hormuse now choked up. It was open before we went in. All of the political goals they've expressed, they've made no progress on.

[00:20:18]We're in worse shape now that this war has been commenced uh than we were before it began. But on the question that I asked Secretary Hegsth, which was about the deadliest day in this war so far, March 1st, when we lost six service members and dozens more were significantly and severely injured.

[00:20:41]>> We were unprepared. And there's been recent reporting from many of the troops that survived that attack about the fact that they asked for additional air defense that they asked for medical preparedness in case and were denied those requests and he either wasn't briefed on that and didn't know that they were denied >> a form of mismanagement, >> right? Uh unprepared or worse yet is covering it up. And all in this context, they're asking for tens of billions of dollars more for this war of choice.

[00:21:17]Americans want it to come to an end.

[00:21:20]>> Senator, I think the way you characterize it is very important because it is a war of choice and this is not a war that has been authorized by Congress at all. There is no authorization for the use of military force. This is being done unilaterally by the executive branch. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was asked about that today. I want to play what he said, please.

[00:21:40]The >> administration is working very hard, the commander-in-chief and the and the whole uh department of war, they're working very hard to bring this to a resolution.

[00:21:48]There's a lot of discussions about how that will be done. We're we're all uh closely watching those developments. Of course, I don't think an AUMF is in order right now. I think we need to bring this to uh to a resolution.

[00:22:00]>> We need to bring this to a resolution without congressional involvement, essentially neutering the legislative branch. We do have some reporting though from notice that Senate Republicans are now pushing for more of a say in their Iran war. Several lawmakers said Monday that Congress should no longer remain on the sidelines. The White House needs to explain where the conflict is headed.

[00:22:17]Quote, "I think it is clear that it's time for Congress to act," Senator Curtis said. And that doesn't mean it's necessarily acting constraining the president, but in fact defining what this looks like.

[00:22:26]17 service members dead, billions upon billions upon billions of dollars in a country, frankly, is hurting this economy. A lot of people can't make ends meet. Do you think that your Republican colleagues have the fortitude to actually have a real honest debate about this war?

[00:22:43]>> Well, let me point out a couple of obvious things. One is they have not come to Capitol Hill until today and one other appearance to be to take questions in public, >> the administration about this war.

[00:23:00]That's outrageous. uh given um uh the loss of life, given the expenditures related. I I I also want to get to one point you made that obviously this war is not authorized by Congress, but both houses have now gone on record.

[00:23:17]>> Yes.

[00:23:18]>> With a majority saying that this conflict must end absent >> congressional authorization. A majority of both houses passed a concurrent resolution saying that. And so we we've got to bear that in mind.

[00:23:35]Do I trust my Republican colleagues to act responsibility act responsibly and to uh do what Congress is called upon to do at this moment? Well, I've been very disappointed that they haven't in large number thus far, but I always have hope that they will understand that we are a branch of government that is the one that declares war. We're the ones with the power of the purse strings. We need to use those powers to hold this administration to account.

[00:24:09]>> So, keep hope alive. Well, someone [laughter] as the great as the late great Reverend Jesse Jackson would say, >> well, to the point you just made then, I mean, coming out of coming into this segment, we played that sound from uh the secretary who was underscoring that like Democrats don't want to fund the military. And I think previously, which I don't think is true to be very clear, but I think previously a claim like that would have grown legs, but we can all see with our own eyes. We have heard the right we've heard the mischaracterizations from I mean Pete he says four months ago a couple months ago didn't we obliterate Iran's nuclear capability and then we still went to war with Iran and now we done obliterated again and again but yet they are still bombing us. I don't I don't it's not making sense and so the people can see that.

[00:24:53]>> Are are Democrats and some Republicans though prepared to say we aren't funding any of this because we need a full accounting of what's going on in this war. We still haven't even spoken about the war crimes allegedly that this administration is committing in Iran by bombing civilian infrastructure. Are are folks prepared to really hold firm on this?

[00:25:13]>> Yes. And let me just remind some conversations we've had before on this.

[00:25:18]There's a group of us in the Senate who have come repeatedly to the floor of the Senate weekly to say uh to present a war powers resolution and to say go on record, do you support this or not? Then last week we took the nearly unprecedented move of saying we are not moving the National Defense Authorization Act forward. We will at some point but not right now while this war is going on. And so there's a lot of folks drawing a line in the sand. But back to your point about do Democrats uh support funding our troops, funding defense. Right now in our current fiscal year, the defense department reached nearly a trillion dollars in funding.

[00:26:04]That was a significant increase last for this current.

[00:26:08]>> I mean, the claim is a lie. We just all I mean, THE CLAIM IS ABOUT BS. IT'S A LOT, RIGHT?

[00:26:14]>> That's right. That's right.

[00:26:16]>> So, where where does that leave us then?

[00:26:18]because we we're always seemingly at the same kind of standstill um that you have a party in power that doesn't give a damn about the deaths of soldiers and the cost of the war despite how the American people feel to both Luke and Simone's point. Um you have Democrats who are frustrated by the process because you don't have the power uh in hand uh the gavl as they say to really kind of move the Congress and the agenda. So, are we just in this, you know, countdown to November, countdown to when the there's a change in power?

[00:26:53]Um h how how do Democrats see this side of it given the frustrations of the American people?

[00:26:58]>> Well, we were talking about the calculus that some of my Republican colleagues will have. This is a deeply unpopular war in blue states, in purple states, and in red states. This is a president who campaigned when he ran in 2024 on bringing foreign conflicts to an end on day one.

[00:27:19]Bringing costs down on day one. So my Republican colleagues are seeing their constituents sorely disappointed by the broken promises. Do they want to uh support those broken promises or do they want to stand up? and we're going to give them those choices as frequently as we can on the Senate floor.

[00:27:43]>> Well, we will we'll see where they stand. I have a feeling I know where that will be, but we'll see. Senator Tammy Duckworth, thank you so much.

[00:27:52]Baldwin Duckworth. [laughter] >> The Tammy Caucus The Tammy Caucus. Tammy Baldwin, thank you so much. In just a moment, two Republican senators are fed up with Todd Blanch evading their questions on the Trump slush fund. And maybe, just maybe, is putting his confirmation as attorney general in trouble? [music] Maybe. We'll see.

[00:28:13]You're watching The Week Night.