Donald Trump is trying to chip away at the integrity of the voting process ahead of the November midterms because he knows Republicans will not fare well, Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf says.
Rothkopf told The Daily Beast Podcast that the Trump administration’s actions and the president’s words should be taken “very seriously.”
“The reality is that they realize they’re going to lose, and so they are using every conceivable tool in order to put their thumb on the scale, right?” Rothkopf told host Joanna Coles.
Rothkopf gave two examples: the FBI’s controversial raid of a Fulton County, Georgia, election office for 2020 voter rolls and other materials, and Attorney General Pam Bondi offering to scale back Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis only if Governor Tim Walz provided voters’ unredacted personal data.
“Why do they want the voter rolls? So they can disqualify people. Why do they want to pursue the conspiracy theories about Fulton County? So they can say, ‘Well, we need to impound these machines. There’s a potential problem’,” he said. “You will never see the votes again. You will never see what comes out of that.”
Rothkopf also cited the GOP-favoring redistricting effort that Texas began, and which other red-leaning states like Florida, Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina followed. He also mentioned the SAVE America Act. That legislation, which has passed the House, would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and government-issued photo ID to vote in federal elections. It would also limit mail-in voting and end ballot harvesting. Critics have argued that eligible voters without passports or birth certificates would be disenfranchised.
Additionally, Trump’s Department of Justice has been seeking unredacted copies of voter registration databases, with critics arguing this is a federal intrusion into state matters.
Comments by Trump are also cause for alarm. The president has not only called on Republicans to “nationalize the voting,” but has also floated canceling the midterms.
MAGA stalwart Steve Bannon has said Trump is bent on proving that the 2020 election was stolen from him in order to then prevent Democratic wins in 2026 and 2028.
If any of Trump’s actions targeting the 2026 midterms end up being prosecutable, and if Republicans can “put their thumb on the scale” again in 2028, Rothkopf said, Trump will support a successor who will “cover his a--.” In that case, the ticket would be Bondi and Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff.
Bondi “has completely debased herself—taken the entire Department of Justice, turned it into a Department of Obstruction of Justice and Retribution,” Rothkopf said. “And in [Trump’s] book, that’s a winner.”
In a statement to the Daily Beast, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson repeated the administration’s line that “anything said on the Daily Beast podcast is equivalent to screaming into the void. No one listens to this Trump Derangement Syndrome therapy session.”
Trump “is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters,” Jackson added. “The President has also urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting to ensure the safety and security of our elections.”
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