‘We want to take over’: All the (recent) times Trump has talked about controlling elections

President Donald Trump isn’t exactly known for his restraint. But recently the mask has fully slipped off.

Over the past month, Trump has gone on the attack against democratic elections, denying yet again that he lost the 2020 presidential race and expressing his desire to seize ballots, cancel votes, and strip the states of control over elections.

It’s not just words. 

Trump’s cabinet officials and allies both inside and outside of the federal government are beginning to translate his anti-democratic statements into actions — a potential prelude to even worse attacks on voting as the 2026 midterms approach.

It’s enough to keep a supporter of democracy up at night. And it probably should.

These are just some of Trump’s most recent alarming comments:

Jan. 7: In an Oval Office interview with the New York Times, the president expressed remorse about not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states in an attempt to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.

• “Well, I should have,” he said, when asked about the possibility of using the armed forces to affect the outcome of the election.
• “I don’t know that they [the National Guard] are sophisticated enough,” Trump said. “You know, they’re good warriors. I’m not sure that they’re sophisticated enough in the ways of crooked Democrats and the way they cheat, to figure that out.”

Jan. 14: In another Oval Office interview with Reuters, Trump suggested that the U.S. shouldn’t hold midterm elections this year as required by the Constitution because Republicans risk losing their majorities in the House and Senate.

• “It’s some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms,” Trump said. He then boasted that he had accomplished so much that, “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”
• The White House later claimed that Trump was “simply joking” when he said the country should not hold midterms.

Jan. 21: During his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump digressed into complaining about his “rigged” 2020 election loss. 

• “It was a rigged election,” he said. “Everybody now knows that. They found out. People will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”
• “That’s probably breaking news,” he added.

Feb. 2: Trump urged Republicans to “take over” voting across the country in one of the president’s most explicit comments yet about his desire to interfere with the upcoming midterms. He did this while advancing the Great Replacement Theory, a once-fringe racist conspiracy that has now become mainstream in the Republican Party. 

• “These people were brought to our country to vote and they vote illegally,” Trump said in a radio interview on “The Dan Bongino Show.” “Amazing that the Republicans aren’t tougher on it. The Republicans should say, we want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Feb. 3: The president reiterated his call for elections to be “nationalized” while surrounded by congressional Republicans in the Oval Office this week. He said that the lawmakers should specifically “take a look at” Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta  — all of which are cities with large Black populations in swing states. 

• “If a state can’t run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it,” he said before repeating his false claim that states are “an agent for the federal government in elections.”
• In reality, the Constitution gives states the primary authority over election administration.

Feb. 4: Trump reiterated his takeover call a third time in an interview with NBC News, saying that “federal controls” should be put in place in certain parts of the country.

• Asked if he would accept the outcome of the upcoming midterms if Republicans lose control of the House, the president said he would only accept them “if the elections are honest.” He then proceeded to preemptively declare that Democrats would cheat.

Feb. 5: The president also repeated his election lies and grievances about losing to former President Joe Biden at the National Prayer Breakfast, a traditionally nonpartisan event.

• “They rigged the second election,” he said. “I had to win. Had to win it. I needed it for my own ego. I would have had a bad ego for the rest of my life. Now I really have a big ego though.”

Alongside these statements, Trump has incessantly promoted dozens of different lies about American elections on Truth Social. 

One of his recent posts repeated a laundry list of debunked claims concerning the 2020 election before showing former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama depicted as apes.

The blatantly racist post was later removed from Trump’s social media account after it drew backlash from both Democrats and Republicans. However, the White House initially defended it, saying the president was indulging in an “internet meme video” and that any criticism of it was “fake outrage.”

Trump’s recent firehose of misinformation and alarming calls to take control of or cancel elections have again shown that he does not view elections as the foundation of the U.S.’ representative democracy. 

Instead, they are the primary hindrance to his desire for power.

Of course, Trump’s statements do not exist in a vacuum. When he speaks, his supporters, his congressional allies and — most importantly — the loyalists he’s installed across the federal government listen and act accordingly. 

Congressional Republicans have latched on to Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud by noncitizens to fast-track one of the most restrictive anti-voting bills in U.S. history. Called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility America (SAVE) Act, it would instantly disenfranchise millions of eligible voters.

Late last month, the FBI also seized 2020 ballots and election materials in Fulton County, Georgia — the top target of Trump’s multi-year, conspiracy theory-fueled campaign against the 2020 presidential election.

Lurking in the shadows of the operation was Tulsi Gabbard, the U.S.’ top intelligence official who is leading the Trump administration’s effort to re-examine the 2020 election based on claims it was stolen from Trump due to foreign government interference.

Trump’s allies outside of government have used the president’s comments as a springboard for even more extreme proposals.

Just a day after Trump said Republicans should “nationalize voting,” Steve Bannon, his former White House Chief Strategist, called on the federal government to post Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers outside polling stations during the midterms.

Asked about Bannon’s comments Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the question before refusing to rule out the presence of immigration enforcement at voting locations.