President Donald Trump has urged Republicans to seize control of elections and place voting under federal authority, in one of his most explicit signs yet that he wants to game the system.
In a podcast interview with Dan Bongino, his former FBI deputy director, Trump suggested Republicans should “nationalize” elections around the country by taking over the way ballots are cast and counted.
“The Republicans should say, we want to take over,” he said, claiming without evidence that people were being “brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally.”
“We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
The president’s comments came less than a week after the FBI raided an elections office outside Atlanta, seizing ballots and other voting records from the 2020 election in Georgia.
Earlier, Attorney General Pam Bondi demanded that Minnesota—another state Trump also falsely claims he won “all three times” he ran—hand over its voter rolls in exchange for federal assistance as tensions escalated over ICE.
Both actions outraged local officials and voting rights advocates, particularly after dozens of challenges to the results of the 2020 election yielded no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Despite this, Trump used his softball interview on The Dan Bongino Show to reassert his false claim that Joe Biden “stole” the election that year, and hinted: “You’re going to see something in Georgia.”
“You’re going to see some interesting things come out, but you know, like the 2020 election, I won that election by so much, everybody knows it,” Trump said.
The push to have the GOP seize control of voting under a nationalized system would be hard to achieve given that the U.S. Constitution gives state governments primary authority to determine how elections are conducted—including how votes are cast, counted, and certified.
The Elections Clause of the Constitution does, however, allow Congress to regulate the “times, places, and manner” of federal elections, but this has historically been interpreted as allowing national standards, not a federal takeover of day-to-day election administration.
“Does Donald Trump want a copy of the Constitution?” asked Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer. “What he’s saying is outlandishly illegal.
“Once again, the president is talking no differently than a dictator who wants elections in America to be as legitimate as elections in countries like Venezuela.”
Nonetheless, it is not the only time the emboldened president—who was criminally indicted for trying to subvert the 2020 election—has asserted his desire for another election power grab.
As polls show his approval ratings sinking, Trump on several occasions has spoken about cancelling the midterm elections in November, rather than risk Republicans losing control of the House, Senate, or both.
This would inevitably stall Trump’s agenda and expose him to congressional investigations.
“You’ve got to win the midterms because, if we don’t win the midterms... they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” the president told Republican lawmakers at a retreat in Washington last month. “I’ll get impeached.”
Also last month, after repeatedly threatening to run for a third term, the 79-year-old president questioned an even bigger stay in the Oval Office, writing on social media: “RECORD NUMBERS ALL OVER THE PLACE! SHOULD I TRY FOR A FOURTH TERM?”
Such a move would be virtually impossible, given that the U.S. Constitution bans Americans from being elected as president more than twice.
Even if he found a loophole, Trump—who is increasingly showing signs of decline—would be 86 by the time he could seek a fourth term at the 2032 election. The next presidential election is in 2028.
But Monday’s comments were arguably his most explicit sign yet that the president is pondering, once again, interfering with the workings of democracy.
Trump, however, maintains that the 2020 election was rigged, framed voting as corrupt, and pushed his view that immigrants were voting illegally in elections.
“These people were brought to our country to vote and they vote illegally. Amazing that the Republicans aren’t tougher on it,” he claimed.
