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Concerns are growing among political observers and critics of US President Donald Trump that his administration is laying the groundwork for meddling in key midterm elections that will determine which party controls Congress.
Fears peaked this week when Trump said in an interview that Republicans in Washington should “take over” elections in at least 15 states, despite the US Constitution giving states the lion’s share of the power to conduct elections.
Despite a subsequent attempt by his press secretary to downplay the comments, Trump went further on Tuesday, saying there had been a “rigged, broken election” in the major swing-state cities of Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta and again called on the federal government to take control of the vote count.
“When you see some of these states run their elections terribly, what a disgrace,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“The federal government should not allow this,” he said. “If they can’t legally and fairly count the votes, then someone else should take over.”
US President Donald Trump doubled down on his proposal 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 cast doubt on his intentions for the voting system, and come after:
David Laufman, a former senior US Justice Department official specializing in national security, described Gabbard’s presence at the Fulton County ballot seizure as “stunning and deeply disturbing.”
“It is unheard of for the director of national intelligence to be personally involved in a domestic criminal investigation, let alone to be at the scene of a search warrant of any kind, let alone a search warrant executed at a state election facility,” Laufman said in an interview.
He said the series of events combined “raises particularly chilling concerns about the administration’s intent to politicize the upcoming November election.”
‘Authoritarianism, spoken aloud’
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 vocal critic of the president.
“If Trump convinces his base that the election is inherently fraudulent unless he wins, then any action he takes to ‘correct’ that alleged fraud can be seen as justified,” Kinzinger wrote Tuesday on Substack.
It warns that these actions could include “pressure on election officials, voter intimidation, list purges (and) refusal to certify results.”
Trump based his complaints about the integrity of the election primarily on two claims that have been repeatedly discredited: that he won the 2020 presidential election against Joe Biden but was denied the victory by fraud, and that the Democratic vote total was dramatically inflated by hordes of noncitizens voting illegally.
He was in the middle of an extended monologue about illegal immigration in a conversation with conservative podcaster Dan Bongino when he made his comments calling for federal Republicans to “take over” elections from certain unnamed states.
‘Countries that are so guilty’
“Republicans should nationalize voting. We have states that are so guilty,” Trump said in a podcast released Monday.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, called the president’s remarks “brazenly unconstitutional and chillingly totalitarian. Americans should be afraid.”
The White House tried to push back on Trump’s comments on Tuesday.
(Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)
Press secretary Caroline Leavitt told reporters that Trump was just referring to The Protecting American Voting Rights Act (SAVE).a bill led by Republicans in Congress that would force everyone voters to personally submit documented proof of citizenship — such as a birth certificate or passport — to register to vote.
Voting rights groups have criticized the bill, saying it could create barriers that would prevent millions of eligible voters from casting a ballot, given that states already have mechanisms in place to verify voter eligibility.
“The president believes in the Constitution of the United States, but he believes that there was clearly a lot of fraud and irregularities that occurred in the American election,” Leavitt said.
However, Trump did not mention SAVE during the podcast, nor did she mention it in her comments in the Oval Office on Tuesday, just hours after Leavitt spoke.
“I want to see the election be fair,” Trump said as he was surrounded by a group of top Republicans in Congress. “And if the country can’t hold elections, I think the people behind me should do something about it.”
Trump also said the US 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 US citizens to register to vote when they apply for or renew their driver’s license and does not require a special voter ID to vote.
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday doubled down on his call for the federal government to take over elections in certain states. He claimed without evidence that there was “horrendous corruption” in elections in the majority Democratic cities of Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta. Trump’s comments have raised concerns among his critics that the White House will try to interfere in key midterm elections this fall.
Rick Pildes, professor of constitutional law at NYU, says the ongoing delegitimization of the US electoral process is “deeply, deeply troubling” because it undermines trust in the system.
“If a large part of the country does not believe that the elections are legitimate, it is a very dangerous situation for democracies,” Pildes said.
While he understands the fears about the potential for undue influence in midterms, he is not convinced that this will actually happen.
“I think the 2026 elections will be properly conducted,” Pildes said. “But I think there is reason to be concerned and cautious about it, and to prepare in advance to defend against improper challenges to that process.”
Election officials in some Democratic-controlled states are preparing for a potential midterm intrusion by the federal government, including considering how to protect voters from interacting with federal police at the polls. CNN reported last week.
