Leave it up to a former White House press secretary to give decent advice about effective communication — even if she worked for someone who speaks out of both sides of his mouth.
Sarah Matthews, a critic of President Donald Trump who formerly worked as his White House deputy press secretary, joined the panel on MSNBC’s “The Weeknight” Monday for a conversation about voter suppression, which the panel clearly seemed to think isn’t the most captivating subject for the average American.
“How do you make people care about this?” co-host Alicia Menendez asked, referring to the Department of Justice’s announcement last week that it will monitor polls in six heavily Latino counties in New Jersey and California on Election Day, potentially intimidating would-be voters.
Co-host and former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele suggested Democrats should follow suit and send election monitors into red states.
But Matthews had a simpler and possibly more impactful idea: Call out what Trump is doing in everyday language.
“If I were the Democratic Party, I’d be talking about how Trump is raging on his Truth Social all about the 2020 election still,” she said.
“I would be pointing out: It is 2025. You are the current sitting president. All of your legal challenges failed over and over and over again,” Matthews said. “You’ve never proven that there was any significant fraud in the 2020 election.”
“Grow up. It is time to govern. Reopen the government. Do your job,” she added. “There are Americans out there who are struggling right now who are waiting in food lines because they can’t pay their bills and put food on the table for their families.”
“And so I would reframe it all in that context right now — that he is not doing his job; he is a narcissist who is living in the past, who can’t get over the fact that Joe Biden beat him fair and square,” Matthews concluded.
On Monday, Trump falsely claimed on his social media platform that he won the last three elections and that his polling numbers are “the best” he’s ever received.
“After winning THREE Elections, BY A LOT, I am now getting the best Polling Numbers that I have ever received,” he wrote, in part.
Aside from Trump’s incessant and baseless claims about the 2020 election being “rigged” against him, he has been doing a whole lot of his own shady maneuvering to ensure Republican victories in 2026 and 2028. Sending monitors to the polls in 2025 could be viewed as a “test run for 2026,” Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said on Bluesky.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) agreed with that sentiment, telling California’s KQED News Friday that “this is a preview of 2026.”
“They’re rigging the election,” Newsom said plainly.
He added that the Trump administration is trying to create a pretext for contesting election results that he dislikes. “They can suggest somehow these were fraudulent,” Newsom said.
“Wake up, everybody,” he added. “I mean, what more? They’re just doing it in the open.”