President Donald Trump is openly hinting at taking over the midterm elections by declaring a national emergency.

Newsmax’s Wayne Allen Root interviewed Trump just after midnight Tuesday morning, and said that Trump had the right to declare a national security emergency next month, forcing through photo identification, proof of citizenship, limits on mail-in ballots, and other heavy voting restrictions. Trump seemed to like that suggestion, but didn’t want to tip his hand.

“Let me just say stranger things have happened, okay? I’ll leave it at that,” Trump said.

Trump is afraid of massive Republican losses in November’s midterms, and has been unsuccessfully pushing his allies in Congress to pass the draconian SAVE Act. With that appearing more unlikely each day, Democrats and other Trump critics are raising concerns that he may take drastic action, such as declaring a national emergency and maybe deploying legions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the polls.

In fact, Democrats have been trying for close to a year to get documents from the Department of Homeland Security regarding its policies and memos on sending ICE agents to polls. Agents were seen at polling places in Texas during its May primaries and in California in June, but when Democrats used the Freedom of Information Act to investigate, they were sent useless press clippings.

If Trump tries to invoke national security to take over federal elections, it would shatter precedent and could set off lawsuits and protests across the country. His repeated, disproven claims about voter fraud and rigged elections suggest that he’ll make the same excuses in November. The question is how to ensure a fair and accurate result that can stand up to his attacks.

  • 7101334@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    2 hours ago

    Yes, Trump has mentioned many things he hasn’t done. Hypotheticals about GOP governors are just that: hypotheticals. And what are the National Guard going to do anyway? People can just show up and vote. If anything, it would probably motivate the “we should be at brunch and ignoring genocide” Kamala crowd even more.

    Far fewer illegal immigrants? At least that’s what DHS says, so yes.

    Well if they say so! And good thing they took all those vicious terrorists weaponizing their cars off the streets, too! Everyone knows DHS would never tell a lie.

    They kidnapped plenty of people. Then they got run off.

    protests haven’t done anything effective in the last 20+ years in the US

    lmao you think by “in the streets” I mean No Kings protests? Privileged liberal for sure.

    So either buckle up and prepare for something bigger or shut up

    Seeing as you’re clearly incapable of the latter despite having no idea what you’re talking about, does “buckling up” solely entail whining about how powerless I am on Lemmy or is there more to it? Just want to be sure I’m following your instructions to the letter.