Matthew Sanderson Appears on MSNBC Speaking About Election Lawsuits

Matthew Sanderson spoke to MSNBC's Ari Melber concerning Trump Campaign's election lawsuits. Matthew Sanderson is a Member of the Political Law Group at Caplin & Drysdale. During the 2020 General Election Matthew Sanderson is serving as an Election Law Analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.

Below is an excerpt of the interview. To listen to the full interview, please visit MSNBC's website. (click and drag the radial to minute 10:40 AM)

MELBER: Absolutely.

I want to turn right now to NBC`s Pete Williams and Matt Sanderson, a former attorney for the McCain and Romney campaigns who`s also an NBC News election law analyst.

. . .

I want to bring back in Pete and Matt who have been discussing some of the local issues here legally.

Matt, I`m going to go to you first because I actually want to ask the intersection of politics and law, and then I`m going to go to Pete on the law, but on the political side of this statement, I`m going to reread a little ending of it, quote, "We will pursue this process through every aspect of the law to guarantee the American people have confidence in our government."

It does sound politically less strident and certainly less misleading than the president`s rather unusual remarks at least by the standards of history and an incumbent president last night. And so, Matt, your first reaction to this?

MATT SANDERSON, NBC NEWS LEGAL ANALYST: Well, hopefully this represents turning the page. The president has obviously talked a lot about law and order this year. He should embrace it here as well. We have laws. We have state laws that dictate how the process should unfold, how these votes should be counted, and frankly, up until now, the main -- the main cause for uncertainty in this whole post-election process has really been the president`s remarks. So hopefully that represents him taking a step back from the brink.

. . .

MELBER: Yes, and to your suggestion we`ll turn it back to Matt for one final thought. Pete has weaved together as he often does the legal intricacies into the bottom line, which is, we`re not saying it doesn`t matter at all how you resolve some of these questions, and there are more novel legal questions because of pandemic voting this year, which we all expected. There is not as of Tuesday night or through the week or now with a new statement from the president, I mean, the deadlines are here.

They`re approaching. If you want to do something big and legal, there is not, Matt, a kind of legal actual cases and controversies that would widen out and overturn the margins we`re seeing in several states, best as Pete and I and others can track it.

SANDERSON: Yes, that`s right, and it should be noted that I think they`ve spent a lot of time in these first few days filing a lot of lawsuits that allege some form of impropriety by election officials, and I keep hearing this idea that the Trump legal strategy is to throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. But I don`t think that`s quite right. This isn`t throwing spaghetti at the wall. This is slinging mud at the election system with the intent to leave a stain, and that`s matching the president`s rhetoric over the last few days for the moment, the legal strategy and the rhetoric are coming together. That`s what`s happening.

MELBER: Right, Matt, to extend that allegory, the question is whether that tomato sauce stain on the legitimacy of our democracy will stick to the country or to Donald Trump, and that remains to be seen.