Snapstream Over the last week, the media have continuously ridiculed President Trump’s address to the nation, in which he pointed out major election security concerns. In typical hypocritical fashion, however, they have been actively entertaining Democrats’ conspiracy theories of rigged midterm elections instead. With a history of eagerly entertaining ridiculous theories about a Trumpist takeover, MS NOW reinforced their narrative on this Thursday’s Morning Joe.The segment opened with correspondent Ali Vitali interviewing House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on his “doomsday plans” for if Trump made a move against free elections. Vitali summarized Schumer’s concerns:Schumer feels there is enough information to go off of from the president's own statements, not just in recent weeks, but in recent years, casting doubt on elections that Republicans lose. To Schumer's mind, it says that Democrats have not just an edge going into the midterms, but that they need to be able to have some reflexes to draw upon if there are attempts to sow disinformation or send federal troops to polling places. Those are just some of the fears that he has.Not long after Vitali aired Schumer’s doubts about 2026, fill-in host Jonathan Lemire would attack Trump’s:But at the same time, I think it's necessary to be out there and saying, “look, this is coming,” because President Trump is doing that! He had an oval office address last week with sort of ridiculous claims about 2020. But really, it's clear the goal of that was to sow doubt for 2026. Today's MS NOW Morning Joe, Ali Vitali entertains Senator Chuck Schumer's paranoid conspiracies about Trump rigging the elections. This is the same network that laughed off Trump's warnings about vulnerabilities in the election system just a week ago! It's all just fearmongering. pic.twitter.com/Py6lAu6r5O— James Waterman (@jwatermaniv) July 23, 2026 Lemire might have been upset about Trump sowing doubt around elections, but he’d have done better to look at his side’s own conduct! Mere minutes earlier, Vitali and Schumer were doing the exact same thing, but against the right.As the show went on, MS NOW’s hypocrisy only grew. Terrified of Trump possibly being right, Lemire and national affairs analyst John Heilemann downplayed massive new evidence of voter fraud:LEMIRE: He [Trump] got his single best headline on any topic in months when the state of New Jersey had to acknowledge-HEILEMANN: Yes, Yes.LEMIRE: -that a few hundred voters were noncitizens, were mistakenly added to the voting rolls, and some did. And it was a mix of Republican and independents-HEILEMANN: And statistically insignificant. Like not to diminish it and defend it, if anything it breaks the law, and we should be serious and vigilant about making sure that there's no voter fraud. But-LEMIRE: It was a mistake.HEILEMANN: -400 votes were cast in, you know, against, against- given the raw vote totals, it's a statistically insignificant number. And that's been the case, we've seen voter fraud in the history of America, but just not on a scale that's ever been enough to tip an election.LEMIRE: But for his campaign?HEILEMANN: Incredible! Incredible, especially in a blue state. Then, when actual voter fraud occurs in Democrat New Jersey, John Heilemann brushes it off as "statistically insignificant", downplaying the severity of the breach. They seem more concerned with how the story will help Trump than the dangers in the election system it exposes! pic.twitter.com/qQyGJgTIsM— James Waterman (@jwatermaniv) July 23, 2026 Trying to trivialize the breach in electoral security, Lemire claimed that only a few hundred noncitizens were involved in New Jersey. According to the governor’s actual admission, however, that number was actually in the thousands. The implications of this bombshell report for the American election system are massive, but MS NOW didn’t focus on that. Skimming over the consequences of the scandal, they were more concerned about how Trump would benefit from the news.The transcript is below. Click "expand" to view.MS NOW’s Morning JoeJuly 23, 202606:20:32 a.m. Eastern(…)ALI VITALI: The exercise that you just did, I imagine in all of your years here in the Senate, you've never prepared for a midterm election that way, right?SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): That is exactly right.VITALI: So why is this moment different?SCHUMER: We've never had a president like Donald Trump, whose ambition, whose sole focus and desire, it seems, is to overturn the election and cheat in the election.[Cuts to live]JONATHAN LEMIRE: So behind closed doors this week, Democratic senators were running through what Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called “doomsday scenarios” surrounding this November's midterms. The simulations are part of a broader effort in anticipation of threats that Democrats believe could emerge from President Trump and his allies, from misinformation campaigns to potential disruptions at polling places. Republicans, however, argue that Democrats are exaggerating the risks. Let's bring in MS NOW senior Capitol Hill reporter and the host of Way Too Early, Ali Vitali. You just saw her there with Senator Schumer. Ali, good to see you. Talk to us, if you will, about what the minority leader says they're preparing for.ALI VITALI: I mean, look, this is happening just steps away from the Senate floor yesterday, in a room where almost a dozen senators gathered with top election officials, or rather, experts to game-play some scenarios that they're thinking could happen in the lead up, on the day of, and after election day in November of 2026. And I think the fact that Senator Chuck Schumer is involved - this is not an effort of rank and file senators - this is led from the top, because Schumer feels there is enough information to go off of from the president's own statements, not just in recent weeks, but in recent years, casting doubt on elections that Republicans lose. To Schumer's mind, it says that Democrats have not just an edge going into the midterms, but that they need to be able to have some reflexes to draw upon if there are attempts to sow disinformation or send federal troops to polling places. Those are just some of the fears that he has. And so they're doing these closed door scenarios to try to mock what it might look like and what the response should be. (...)06:26:52 a.m. EasternLEMIRE: John Heilemann, Ali makes a good point about the delicate balance the Democrats are trying to strike here, where they do have to put out these public warnings, and they do have to do some game planning, because it certainly seems as if some efforts may be underway. You know, and I think that you don't want to depress your voters about it.But at the same time, I think it's necessary to be out there and saying, “look, this is coming,” because President Trump is doing that! He had an oval office address last week with sort of ridiculous claims about 2020. But really, it's clear the goal of that was to sow doubt for 2026.JOHN HEILEMANN: Well, and to lay down a pretext for if the elections go the way the polls suggest they are going to go for Donald Trump, to be able to stand up and say: “see, remember that that you all made fun of that Oval Office address I gave back over the summer. But I told you that China could infiltrate our voting systems. And although we don't have evidence of that yet, we know there's a good chance- they're all very vulnerable, and they have all those voter files that you can publicly obtain. So we got to investigate it. This election is in doubt. We must- you know, we're not going to certify the results of this election.” I think, Jonathan, you know, you've been covering the big lie since the beginning, right? And one of the really consistent patterns of Donald Trump is that he obsessively, compulsively, delusionally does not want to accept the results of any election that he is seen as a loser in, or that he's actually lost, right? And everything he's done over the course since he came back into office has been telling people as clearly as he can through his actions, through his words, through his deeds, and through his history, that Democrats should be worried about this. And the message to voters that “we need to turn out in large numbers,” Democrats to their voters, “we need to turn out large numbers, make this too big to rig,” is a good message to try to keep people motivated. But until yesterday, what I had seen was a lot of Democrats talking about this problem rather than doing anything about getting ready for it. It's kind of like “we must come up with a really sophisticated policy on dealing with the economic impacts of A.I.” Well, what's your policy, senator? “Well, we haven't- we have to- we're-” talking about the thing without actually coming up with the thing you're talking about. Democrats have been warning about this now for the past 15, 16 months. This is the first time you've seen some kind of an actual “let's go to a war- let's get together and do a war-gamed out scenario of what we would actually have to do if specific things take place in November.” And I think if Democrats don't do a lot more of that, not necessarily on a big public stage, but behind closed doors as they did yesterday, they'd be nuts not to be taking this that seriously.LEMIRE: Yeah, we've heard some governors issue similar warnings. Also, I mean, you're right. I remember, I mean, the opening scene in my book titled The Big Lie was Donald Trump in an August rally in Ohio, warning that the general election could be rigged. That’s the first time we had ever heard a presidential candidate say something like that. He, of course, has been sort of repeating that theme for a decade now. And I mean, again, for his purposes, earlier this week, he got his single best headline on any topic in months when the state of New Jersey had to acknowledge-HEILEMANN: Yes, Yes.LEMIRE: -that a few hundred voters were noncitizens, were mistakenly added to the voting rolls, and some did. And it was a mix of Republican and independents-HEILEMANN: And statistically insignificant. Like not to diminish it and defend it, if anything it breaks the law, and we should be serious and vigilant about making sure that there's no voter fraud. But-LEMIRE: It was a mistake.HEILEMANN: -400 votes were cast in, you know, against, against- given the raw vote totals, it's a statistically insignificant number. And that's been the case, we've seen voter fraud in the history of America, but just not on a scale that's ever been enough to tip an election.LEMIRE: But for his campaign?HEILEMANN: Incredible! Incredible, especially in a blue state. And I'll just say, you know, Donald Trump doesn't throw every punch he telegraphs, but every punch he throws, he does telegraph. And he's been telegraphing this one for a pretty long time. So, you better get ready for it.LEMIRE: Yeah, this one's coming. Agree.