MARTÍNEZ: “Congressman, you wrote an op-ed for The New York Times before the speech titled “Trump’s Election Denial Has Never Been More Dangerous.” So did he deliver the speech you expected?”

HIMES: “His delivery was actually a great deal more brazen than I thought….”

[Me: Except that the President never denied the results of any election, only pointing out our elections’ lack of sufficient safeguards…]

MARTÍNEZ: “Congressman, you said more brazen than you thought. What was the most brazen part?”

HIMES: “Well, probably the most – well, again, you know, our elections are not corrupt. They are fair and free, and that is sort of an undebatable fact based on the evidence that is out there….”

[Me: Gee, Ms. Kwan, how do you square your anchor accepting a statement like that with your telling me that NPR is independent, and dedicated to my right to “know the facts”? ]

MARTÍNEZ: “Now, we just heard from our reporter Tamara Keith, who mentioned that Trump is possibly setting up a reaction if Republicans lose in November, that the election was not fair. Do Democrats have a plan to make sure that people can trust the results in November?”

“[Me: KABOOM! My head exploded when I read that. “Trump is possibly…”—pure, unadulterated fake news. How is that “trusted journalism,” unless by trusted Ms. Kwan means “trusted to sow fear and hatred of the elected President”?

HIMES: “Yeah. Look, all we can do is point people to the facts, and the facts are there for all to see, including, by the way, on the documents that the President touted last night. But I will also tell you that we are participating in much broader efforts to make sure that at the most local level, which is where elections are administered, that those administrators know the law….”

[Me: Here’s a fact: NPR headquarters are just across the river from Virginia, where the Democratic Governor and its legislature violated the law in multiple ways and lied on its referendum ballot to disenfranchise Republicans and conservatives in the upcoming mid-terms, while stating that doing so would “restore fairness.” A competent, independent interviewer who is dedicated to making sure listeners know “all the facts” would task Himes with explaining how his party’s conduct in Virginia and elsewhere is consistent with “making sure that voters can trust the results in November.”]

MARTÍNEZ: “Congressman, what do you say to voters who, no matter what is presented in terms of evidence, are dug in, are dug in with the belief that elections are somehow rigged or not on the up and up?”

[Me: I like the Newsbusters translation of that question: ” Tell us, oh champion of the Undebatable Facts, how do we deal with idiots who vote Republican?”]

HIMES: “Well, you ask a question that has been exceedingly painful in both of Trump’s presidencies. He has supporters who, if he tells them that the moon is made of green cheese, there is no fact, there is no evidence that will cause them to disbelieve whatever it is that the president says. The good news is that’s a relatively small percentage of people. But I’m trying to remind everybody, you know, again, just look at the evidence and consider what I said before. Apparently, the two elections that he won were fine, but the one that everybody knows he lost was not fine. It’s just sort of absurd. Now, here’s the key point. America will get the democracy that its citizenry deserves. And if we have become a citizenry that is so obsessed with social media and willing to make conclusions based on no evidence, we’ll lose our democracy. And quite frankly, that’s what Donald Trump is counting on.”

Now, I know I’m no trained journalist dedicated to independent, objective journalism that gives the public all the facts, but I would have asked,

“Congressman, can you explain to our listeners why you and your party believe that requiring proof of citizenship and identity for voters, and restricting mail-in ballots, with their obvious vulnerability to chain of custody problems and ballot harvesting, represent a threat to democracy? And after that, will you concede that episodes like the last minute avalanche of voted that eliminated the sole Republican from the mayoral ballot in LA is at least circumstantial evidence that election integrity and trustworthiness can be improved?”

Until I can trust NPR to ask such questions, and I can’t, I’m not contributing a bottle cap to the hacks, and neither should anyone else.