The following is a transcript of an interview with David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research and election law contributor for CBS News, which aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on February 8, 2026.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re joined now by David Becker. He is the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research and a CBS News election law contributor. It’s always nice to have you here, David.

DAVID BECKER: It’s great to be back with you, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to address a few things that came up in the program. Senator Warner voiced the concerns of some Democrats, arguing that President Trump is laying the groundwork to undermine or interfere in the upcoming election in some way. And, in fact, during the program, the president tweets about an American election that was rigged– rigged, stolen, and ridiculed around the world. What do you think of these statements here? Are both parties destroying confidence in our elections? What do the election officials you talk to feel and think now?

DAVID BECKER: Yeah, it’s very hard to predict where this is going. —

MARGARET BRENNAN: — Yes. —

DAVID BECKER: — But we can look at what has already happened. The president signed an unprecedented election-related executive order attempting to dictate policy to the states. That has now been enjoined, blocked by three different federal courts. His Justice Department is seeking highly sensitive data on hundreds of millions of American voters, suing 24 states and DC. Two federal courts in the past few weeks have blocked it. The rest is yet to be heard. The cyber security apparatus Senator Warner talked about, built under the first Trump administration to help elected officials, has been dismantled. So when I talk to election officials, they are very concerned about this. I think it’s safe to say that this is unprecedented. We have never seen a president try to exercise executive power over state elections like we do here. And of course, this is contrary to the Constitution, which expressly grants the states the power to conduct elections under Article 1, Section 4, the Election Clause. Congress can also act, and if Congress does, of course, those laws will be upheld. But both parties have tried to pass sweeping legislation in the last five or six years and failed.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So the Constitution, as you just pointed out, says that the states —

DAVID BECKER: — Right. —

MARGARET BRENNAN: — who will run this election. But the president — I want to play what he said so the public can hear it — he has said at least three times in the past week that he wants the Republican Party to nationalize voting and take over the voting process in 15 states. Listen.

(Beginning of VT)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Look at Detroit, look at Pennsylvania, look at Philadelphia, go and look at Atlanta, look at some of the places that — horrible election corruption. And the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should get involved. These are the federal government’s vote counting agents. If they cannot legally and fairly count the votes, let someone else do it.

REPORTER: But the Constitution…

(End of VT)

MARGARET BRENNAN: So what would stop the president from doing something that you just told us is unconstitutional?

DAVID BECKER: Well, the president might try to act and that’s why it’s so hard to predict exactly what’s going to happen, but the courts have been very strong in holding the limits of executive power under the Constitution. Just a few days ago, there was a court decision from the state of Oregon, the district court there, denying the DOJ access to this very sensitive voter data that they requested from Oregon. And specifically said, again, that the Constitution is clear. The Founders set up the election specifically to say that the federal government can only act if Congress acts. The states have the power and have expressly excluded the executive from it at all. They were very concerned about the excesses of the executive power, the president, who would seek to consolidate more power than the Constitution granted by usurping electoral mechanisms.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There are two other things I want to go over with you. The White House took down that video that we just talked about with Congressman Gonzales. The focus was on the racist part, which was widely condemned. The video leading up to it, and defended by Congressman Gonzales, was about election software and security. In that, when you listen to him, you hear descriptions of problems with technology and things that the speaker says are anomalies, like the year 2025 key states stopped counting at a certain point. Can you verify some of these facts for us?

DAVID BECKER: Yeah, that’s a very common methodology for those who spread lies about elections, defy, just throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. And the rest of that video, apart from the ending, was also troubling because there was a lot of misinformation, just plain false. In the United States, we have paper ballots. 98% of all Americans vote by paper ballot. The only exception is the state of Louisiana, which is switching to paper ballots. This means that those paper ballots can be checked against what the machines tally, and they are checked. It is known that in Georgia, those paper ballots in 2020 were counted three times, in three different ways, once entirely by hand. More than five million ballots were counted by hand in five days with the campaign and observers watching. There is no getting around the fact that this is the 2020 election that has been the most verifiable election in American history. And every time the courts questioned it, when people who lied about elections came before the court, the work of election officials withstood that scrutiny. It’s really extraordinary. We’re — not only are our elections not rigged, they’re as transparent and verifiable and secure as they’ve ever been, whether you like the result or not. And we see him spreading misinformation, in this case, the president of the United States, aimed at his supporters, at others who may not like the outcome of the election. And, unfortunately, some believe it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, it’s unusual because the president won the election and the Republicans won the last election. So when he says now that the system is suddenly broken, it seemed to work when he got elected, but it didn’t work when he lost in 2020. That’s what’s contradictory in some sort of common sense version.

DAVID BECKER: Exactly.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But on the facts, you’re saying that this has actually been verified over and over again. But those ballots that you just talked about from Fulton County, we have camera footage of these FBI agents going and taking the ballots. Why would the FBI vote now? Why was the Director of National Intelligence there and what would they do with those slips?

DAVID BECKER: This is a great question, but still unanswered. First of all, there were no crimes in 2020. These ballots have been counted and examined so many times. We know exactly what happened in Georgia in 2020. Joe Biden won that state by a relatively small margin of 11,779 votes. In 2024, that state was won by Donald Trump. The Democrats didn’t somehow have the magical ability, while out of the White House, to steal the election in 2020 and then forget to use that power in 2024 when they had the White House. So we know exactly what happened. If there was a real, honest review of those ballots, it will confirm exactly what the result was, just like when the cyber ninjas reviewed Maricopa County, Arizona ballots. They found the same outcome. As for the Director of National Intelligence being in Fulton County, there is no justifiable reason for a person at a high political level to be named during the execution of a search warrant. That search warrant is — it has many flaws, as evidenced by the body camera footage. There was an error in the address when they first appeared. They had to go back and get a corrected search warrant. And there is this, the issue of the statute of limitations. There is a five-year statute of limitations under federal law for any crime they mentioned in the warrant. There were two special statutes. That five-year statute has expired anyway, so I’m not sure why the judge signed it. We are not sure why DNI was in Fulton County inside the local election warehouse. We have heard varying explanations. First, the deputy state attorney said she happened to be in Atlanta. I don’t know if that is particularly credible. —

MARGARET BRENNAN: — Yes. —

DAVID BECKER: — And then the president —

MARGARET BRENNAN: — Right. —

DAVID BECKER: — Then we heard that the President referred her, and then the Attorney General referred her to Bondi. We have no idea what actually happened.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we checked, and at least nine top Trump administration officials, according to CBS’ criteria, have expressed doubts about the validity or integrity of the 2020 election. That number does not include the president of the United States himself. David Becker, thank you. —

DAVID BECKER: — Thank you Margaret. —

MARGARET BRENNAN: — we’ll be back in a moment.