Political observers and critics of US President Donald Trump are increasingly concerned that his administration is laying the groundwork for a crucial midterm election that will determine which party controls Congress.
Fears peaked this week when Trump said in an interview that Republicans in Washington would “take over” elections in at least 15 states, even though the US Constitution mandates the lion’s share of them.
The press secretary later tried to play down those comments, but Trump went even further on Tuesday, saying there were “rigged, rigged elections” in swing state capitals Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta and calling again for the federal government to oversee the vote count.
“It’s a shame when you see how horribly they run their elections in some of these states,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“The federal government should not allow this,” he said. If they cannot legally and honestly count the votes, someone else must take over.
US President Donald Trump has doubled down on a proposal to allow federal Republicans to vote in some states, a proposal that has sparked outrage from Democrats as they call it ‘unconstitutional’.
Trump’s comments are the latest to cast doubt on the voting system’s intentions:
David Laufman, a former senior official at the US Department of Justice, described Gabbard’s presence at the Fulton County ballot raid as “remarkable and deeply troubling.”
“It’s unprecedented for the director of national intelligence to be involved in a domestic criminal investigation, let alone be at the scene of any search warrant,” Laufman said in an interview.
He said the series of events “raise chilling concerns, particularly about the administration’s desire to politicize the November election.”
‘Power,’ he said aloud.
Former House Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a staunch critic of the president, said Trump’s comments calling for control of federal elections were “authority, spoken out loud.”
“Unless Trump wins, if they believe that elections are inherently rigged, then any action to correct the fraud is likely to be justified,” Kinzinger said. Substack wrote on Tuesday.
He warned that those measures could include “pressuring election officials, intimidating voters, clearing ballots (and) refusing to certify results.”
Trump’s complaints about election integrity are based primarily on two claims that have been repeatedly rejected: He won the 2020 presidential election against Joe Biden, but the victory was rigged and the Democrat vote totals were greatly inflated by the number of non-citizens voting illegally.
He was in the middle of an extended monologue about illegal immigration in his speech. Conservative podcaster Dan Bongino suggested that federal Republicans may “take over” elections from certain unspecified states.
‘Governments so crooked’
“Republicans need to nationalize the election. We have very crooked states,” Trump said in a podcast released Monday.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, called the president’s comments “horribly unconstitutional and brutal tyranny. Americans should be afraid.”
The White House tried to walk back Trump’s comments on Tuesday.
(Evan Vucci/Associated Press)
Press secretary Caroline Levitt told reporters that was all Trump would say. Protect the American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Acta bill proposed by the Republican-led Congress that obliges all Voters must present proof of citizenship — such as a birth certificate or passport — in person to register to vote.
Voting rights groups have accused the law of creating barriers that prevent millions of eligible voters from voting.
“The president believes in the Constitution of the United States, but he believes that there was a lot of fraud and illegality in the American election,” Levitt said.
However, Trump did not mention SAVE during the podcast, hours after Levitt spoke about it in comments he made in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
Surrounded by a group of top congressional Republicans, Trump said: “I want to see the election be fair. And if a state can’t hold an election, I think the people behind me have to do something.”
Trump also said America should ask for what he described as voter ID.
“We don’t have voter ID and the Democrats don’t want it. And the reason they don’t want it is because they want fraud.” he said.
The current National Voter Registration Act allows US citizens to register to vote when they apply for or renew their driver’s license and does not mandate a specific voter ID card.
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday doubled down on his call for the federal government to take over elections from certain states. He said without evidence that elections in the Democratic-dominated cities of Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta were ‘horribly corrupt’. Trump’s comments are raising fears among his critics that the White House will try to intervene in crucial midterms this fall.
Rick Pils, A professor of constitutional law at NYU, he says that delegitimizing the electoral process in the US is “very, very troubling” because it undermines trust in the system.
“If a large part of the country does not believe that the election is legitimate, it is a very dangerous situation for democracy,” Pildes said.
While he understands the potential for undue influence in middlemen, he doesn’t believe it will actually happen.
“I think the 2026 election will go well,” Pildes said. But I think there’s reason to be concerned and cautious about that, and I think there’s a need to try to prepare in advance to prevent inappropriate challenges to that process.
Election officials in some Democratic-led states are preparing for midterm federal intervention, including considering how to protect voters from contact with federal law enforcement at the polls. CNN reported last week.