Democracy Wire

In a tale of two meetings, President Trump met recently with Vladimir Putin for two hours with no one but a translator and still has provided no read-out of the meeting to his top national security advisors. By contrast he met with those top advisors today for thirty minutes about protecting our elections from Russian interference. Whose side is he on?

Hedrick Smith is an award-winning journalist whose documentary, The People vs. The Politicians, will air on MSNBC this fall helping to tell the good news of the growing people's movement to preserve our voices and votes in our democracy.

The Atlantic noted it immediately, the rest of the media world is catching up after Rachel Maddow raised concerns last night that one week later the White House has not corrected the official transcript of the Putin-Trump news conference in Helsinki to include Jeff Mason's full question.

On January 21, 2017, Donald John Trump raised his right hand and, with just the hint of a smile of self-vindication, took an oath “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.” “We the People,” the Constitution begins, and its foundation stone is the right of the People to elect our leaders through the free exercise of elections without the interference of any foreign power.

Twenty-one state attorneys general, both Democrats and Republicans, wrote a letter asking for more money for voting infrastructure and election integrity efforts.

Democracy Download is an every-other-weekly round-up of democracy-related events from across the ideological spectrum. These events are based in Washington, D.C., but many can be seen on C-Span or live-streamed on Facebook Live or other online venues. Check links for more information.