Steve Cortes, Donald Trump surrogate, didn't know what hit him.

The topic was Donald Trump's race-baiting claim that there will be voter fraud in "certain neighborhoods" that should be "watched."

Cortes tried his damnedest to make the conversation about anything else. It's about the media, it's about Washington, it's about "cronyism"

No it isn't.

And Joy Reid brought a hammer that Cortes did not expect.

JOY REID: Why is he [Trump] specifically telling reporters to go to certain communities and watch polls?

STEVE CORTES: Polls should be watched everywhere.

REID: Not by the Republican Party. They're under a consent decree because they'd already been caught in acts of voter intimidation. As part of a 1982 settlement...I'll read a little bit about this. A lawsuit brought by Democrats [against] the RNC curbed their efforts to monitor and challenge the eligibility "especially in the districts where the racial and ethnic composition of the electorate could be a factor in the outcome."

BOOM. You can read more about this consent decree here. Republicans asked the Supreme Court to lift the decree in 2013 and the Supreme Court said no. Ahem.

Then Cortes tries to make this ridiculous argument that Republicans are outsiders in the race. No, really.

Joy Reid asks the one question that matters in this whole stupid "rigged vote" argument:

REID: Republicans are not the outsiders in the race. They control the House and the United States Senate and about 26 governorships. How can Republicans simultaneously argue ...there's widespread voter fraud, so we need to clamp down and make it harder for people to vote, and the system is rigged, but you should also trust the system if we win?

Exactly.