Concern is mounting among political observers and critics of U.S. President Donald Trump that his administration is laying the groundwork to meddle in crucial midterm elections that will determine which party controls Congress.
The fears peaked this week with Trump saying in an interview that Republicans in Washington should “take over” elections in at least 15 states, despite the U.S. Constitution giving states the lion’s share of authority over conducting elections.
Despite his press secretary’s subsequent attempt to downplay those comments, Trump went even farther on Tuesday, alleging there were “rigged, crooked elections” in the swing-state major cities of Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta and calling again for a federal government takeover of vote counting.
“When you see some of these states about how horribly they run their elections, what a disgrace it is,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“The federal government should not allow that,” he said. “If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has doubled down on his suggestion that federal Republicans should take over voting in some states, sparking outrage from Democrats who called the idea ‘unconstitutional.’
Trump’s comments are just the latest development to trigger suspicion about his intentions for the voting system, coming after:
David Laufman, a former senior official at the U.S. Department of Justice specializing in national security, describes Gabbard’s presence at the Fulton County ballot seizure as “astonishing and deeply disturbing.”
It’s “unprecedented for the director of national intelligence to be personally involved in a domestic criminal investigation, let alone to be on the scene of the execution of a search warrant of any kind, let alone a search warrant carried out against a state electoral facility,” Laufman said in an interview.
He said the string of events combine to “raise particularly chilling concerns about the administration’s intent for politicizing the upcoming elections in November.”
‘Authoritarianism, said out loud’
Trump’s comments calling for a federal takeover of elections are “authoritarianism, said out loud,” according to Adam Kinzinger, a former House Republican who has become a staunch critic of the president.
“If Trump convinces his base that elections are inherently fraudulent unless he wins, then any action he takes to ‘correct’ that supposed fraud can be framed as justified,” Kinzinger wrote Tuesday on Substack.
He warns those actions could include “pressuring election officials, intimidating voters, purging rolls [and] refusing to certify results.”
Trump has based his complaints about election integrity primarily on two claims that have been repeatedly discredited: that he won the 2020 presidential election against Joe Biden but was robbed of his victory through fraud, and that Democrat vote totals are dramatically boosted by droves of non-citizens voting illegally.
He was in the midst of an extended monologue about illegal immigration in conversation with conservative podcaster Dan Bongino when he made his comments urging federal Republicans to “take over” elections from certain unnamed states.
‘States that are so crooked’
“The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that are so crooked,” Trump said on the podcast, which was released on Monday.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, called the president’s remarks “brazenly unconstitutional and chillingly totalitarian. Americans should be afraid.”
The White House tried to walk back Trump’s comments on Tuesday.
(Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump was merely referring to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a proposed bill spearheaded by Republicans in Congress that would force all voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship — such as a birth certificate or passport — in person to register to vote.
Voting rights advocacy groups have criticized the bill, saying it could create barriers that stop millions of eligible voters from casting their ballots, given that states already have mechanisms in place to verify voter eligibility.
“The president believes in the United States Constitution, however he believes there has obviously been a lot of fraud and irregularities that have taken place in American elections,” Leavitt said.
However Trump did not mention SAVE during the podcast, nor did her refer to it in his comments in the Oval Office on Tuesday, mere hours after Leavitt spoke.
“I want to see elections be honest,” Trump said while surrounded by a group of top congressional Republicans. “And if a state can’t run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it.”
Trump also said the U.S. should require 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 to cheat.” he said.
The current National Voter Registration Act allows American citizens to register to vote when they apply for or renew their driver’s licence and does not mandate a specific voter ID card to cast a ballot.
U.S. President Donald Trump doubled down Tuesday on his call for the federal government to take over elections from certain states. He claimed without evidence that there has been ‘horrible corruption’ in elections in the predominantly Democrat cities of Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta. Trump’s statements are raising concerns among his critics that the White House will try to interfere with crucial midterms this fall.
Rick Pildes, a professor of constitutional law at NYU, says the continuing delegitimization of the election process in the U.S. is “deeply, deeply troubling” because it undermines confidence in the system.
“If a large portion of the country doesn’t believe elections are legitimate, that’s a very dangerous situation for democracies,” Pildes said.
While he understands the fears about the potential for undue influence in the midterms, he’s not convinced it will actually happen.
“I think the 2026 elections will be properly run,” Pildes said. “But I think there’s reason to have some concern and cautiousness about that, and a need to sort of try to prepare in advance to fend off inappropriate challenges to that process.”
Election officials in some Democrat-run states are preparing for potential federal government intrusion in the midterms, including considering how to protect voters from interactions with federal law enforcement at polling places, CNN reported last week.