Trump signals openness to unconstitutional plot to take over elections

President Donald Trump signaled Tuesday he’s willing to declare a national security emergency in an attempt to take over American elections.

“Let me just say stranger things have happened,” Trump said, after a far-right media host implored him to exert sweeping control over the upcoming midterms during a post-midnight interview.

“I’ll leave it at that,” the president added.

The comments are just the latest in a string of alarming remarks Trump has made about U.S. elections. He previously said he wanted to “nationalize” voting and regretted not ordering the military to seize ballots and election machines after his loss in the 2020 presidential election.

The president has no power to control elections. Instead, the U.S. Constitution exclusively grants states and Congress the authority over election administration.

But despite those constitutional limitations, Wayne Allyn Root, a host on the Real America’s Voice TV network and one of Trump’s favorite right-wing media figures, urged the president to subvert democratic elections through executive fiat.

Root, who is known for spreading conspiracy theories, claimed Trump was entitled to do that because Senate Republicans do not have the votes to pass the SAVE America Act. If it became law, the bill would restrict the freedom to vote for millions of eligible Americans.

“Let me put an idea in your head, okay? You have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections,” Root said. “If you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship and a limit to mail-in ballots. You don’t even need to have the Senate’s vote.”

The host further claimed that, because of Supreme Court precedent, such an emergency couldn’t be challenged in court and could only be ended by a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate. 

Though Root’s nonsensical and unconstitutional proposal would amount to an unparalleled assault on U.S. democracy, Trump didn’t disavow it. In fact, his claim that “stranger things have happened” could be an attempt to normalize such a declaration.

No president has ever declared a national emergency or used wartime powers to run, alter, or cancel elections. 

However, Trump has tried to unilaterally change elections twice, first through an executive order last year and second through a separate order earlier this year. Courts have blocked both orders.

Perhaps laying the groundwork for an emergency declaration or mass challenges to races this November, the White House has ramped up its efforts to traffic election conspiracy theories. 

Last month, Trump pushed several false claims about the 2020 election in a primetime address. Despite promising new revelations of election fraud in the heavily promoted speech, the president essentially rehashed old conspiracy theories that had long been debunked.