Transcript: Trump Lets Slip Dark Truth About His Plot to Rig Midterms

Daley: Here we go again, right? This is all of Donald Trump’s favorite lines about election fraud, about vote by mail, about how the 2020 election was stolen from him. And once again, all of these lines have no basis in reality. There is no truth to any of it. Whenever Republicans are asked to put up any proof whatsoever about voter fraud, they can’t do it. You can’t find actual examples of this. It is a technique to intimidate and to scare voters. I’m certain that we will see much more of it, but it comes from a place of weakness, of fear, and we have to stand up and fight this.

Sargent: Well, he certainly can’t legally end vote by mail by fiat. The Constitution assigns the authority to set the time, places, and manner of elections to the states and says Congress can alter those regulations. But in another part of his rant, Trump says that “the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes.” That’s nonsense. He also says that states “must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.” I’m wondering, Dave, if Trump is going to try to make some sweeping argument about national security and vote by mail undermining it to assert some very broad presidential powers here. What do you expect him to argue in legal terms to try to assert the power to do this?

Daley: I expect Trump to argue exactly that: that this is a national security question, that this is about voter fraud, that there are non-Americans voting in elections, that there are dead people voting in elections, immigrants—all of which we know to be not true. You can’t actually find documented examples of this from American elections. It simply does not happen. What we are seeing though, I think, is going to be a real effort to militarize the nation ahead of the 2026 elections. This might be done in the name of purportedly stopping voter fraud, but really it will be done in the name of trying to intimidate Democratic voters and keep them away from the polls. We’re seeing what’s happening right now in Washington, D.C., with National Guard troops on the ground. We see red state governors sending National Guardsmen from their states. And if we think that this is going to stop in Washington, D.C., it’s not. And if we think that this is not likely to happen in Detroit, in Milwaukee, in Atlanta, in Philadelphia, in all of the places that Donald Trump already blames for costing him the 2020 election.… I do expect that we will see ICE enforcement on the ground, National Guard troops in these cities, and that there will be a full-on effort to intimidate and suppress Democratic voters.