MSNBC "Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell - Transcript Interview with Stacey Abrams

Interview

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Joining us now is Stacey Abrams.

She is the founder of the voter protection PAC Fair Fight Action. She is

also the author of the new book "Our Time is Now": Power, Purpose and the

Fight for a Fair America" Stacey Abrams is the Former Democratic leader of

the Georgia House of Representatives. Thank you very much for joining us

again tonight. We really appreciate it.

STACEY ABRAMS, FOUNDER, FAIR FIGHT ACTION: Thank you for having me.

O`DONNELL: I wanted to get your view of what we have learned about mail-in

voting this week and the surge in voter turn-out that some states

experienced with it.

ABRAMS: One, we know it works. Despite the protestations of the Republican

Party and the paranoia of Donald Trump, we know that mail-in voting works.

We know it is safe. It is accessible. But the challenge we have is that,

number two, it has to be scaled. We are seeing unprecedented participation

in our elections via mail-in ballots. And we know that 34 states allow no

excuses. 16 states require an excuse.

But every state is going to have to have it. We know that the COVID virus

is going to ramp up again in the fall and we haven`t even made it out of

the first wave. And that means we have to be ready as a nation to defend

our democracy by allowing mail-in voting for every voter who chooses to use

it.

O`DONNELL: What is the situation with mail-in voting in the - what we

consider the battleground states, the states that could end up deciding

this election?

ABRAMS: It is a mix. We have - mail-in voting is permitted in the State of

Georgia for example with no excuses. We just unfortunately had a debacle in

terms of actually managing the process and we need to scale it up. We know

that in Wisconsin, Wisconsin is one of a handful of states that requires a

signature or a witness in order to - sorry, requires a witness or notary in

order to turn in your ballots. And so we have flocks like Michael Lies (ph)

are suing to fix those challenges. But what we do know is that voter

participation on the Democratic (inaudible) is up dramatically. And mail-in

voting is not a Democratic or Republican way of voting. But when it is

convenient, we know that more Democrats are participating and that`s

shifting the landscape for the outcome in November.

O`DONNELL: So we have got a lot of battleground state polling released

today by "The New York Times". We have national polls showing Joe Biden

with double digit leads. And one of the interesting points in the states

that have been polled is Georgia which we don`t normally have on the list

of battleground states. But there is Joe Biden in a Fox Poll running ahead

of Donald Trump by two points in Georgia. You know it can be done. You came

as close as you can come to winning the State of Georgia if they didn`t

suppress the vote as successfully as they did in your Governors election.

What does Joe Biden need to know about winning the State of Georgia?

ABRAMS: That we haven`t stopped working since 2018. That we have added

hundreds of thousands of new voters or disproportionately young,

disproportionately people of color, that we live in a state that has

unfortunately had to bury Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks. And that we

are driven. We are motivated and we can deliver 16 Electoral College votes

as well as 2 Senate seats, both of which are going to be necessary to win

our country back and fix our democracy.

O`DONNELL: When you look at the various voter suppression tactics that are

still alive and still working for republicans in this country, how do you

expect that to impact this election? Is it happening in the states that

Democrats need to win?

ABRAMS: It is. Republicans have a battle plan. They are planning to raise

an army of 50,000 whole patrol, people who are going to get in line and try

to scare people out of voting. We know that they have committed $20 million

to a litigation strategy to restrain people and constrict access to the

right to vote. We know that they intend to spend up to $60 million in all

of their voter intimidation platforms including through the vote honest

elections, that they are filing lawsuits to undue and to in fact,

eviscerate the second section two of the voting rights act.

They are desperate because they know they`re losing. But we are meeting

them on the battlefield. We are organized earlier than we ever have been.

We are working in those battleground states including states like Georgia

and North Carolina and Arizona they can tip the ballots in the Sunbelts. We

have got great candidates in Georgia like Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock

who can carry us to victory. But across this country, we are prepared on

our side for the first time to meet them and to win because we are on the

side of democracy.

O`DONNELL: Stacey Abrams, thank you very much for joining us again tonight.

We really appreciate it.

ABRAMS: Thank you for having me.

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