President Donald Trump undercut his own White House’s attempts to downplay comments he made about nationalizing election law earlier this week, when he reiterated his suggestion in front of reporters on Tuesday.
Taking questions from the press at a bill signing in the Oval Office with congressional lawmakers behind him, Trump said he wanted to see elections be “honest.”
“If a state can’t run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it,” Trump said. “Because, you know, if you think about it, the state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway, but when you see some of these states, about how horribly they run their elections, what a disgrace it is.”
“The federal government should not allow that — the federal government should get involved,” the president added.
The White House had spent the day trying to downplay concerns about Trump’s plans to reform election law after he told former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino on Monday that the federal government “should take over the voting in at least 15 places” as part of a wider attempt to “nationalize” elections.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, for example, earlier said Trump was speaking about the SAVE Act, which has not progressed past the Senate because of Democratic opposition.
“The president believes in the United States Constitution,” Leavitt said Tuesday afternoon. “However, he believes there has obviously been a lot of fraud and irregularities that have taken place in American elections. And again, voter ID is a highly popular and commonsense policy that the president wants to pursue, and he wants to pass legislation to make that happen for all states across the country.”
A second White House official told the Washington Examiner that Trump “cares deeply about the safety and security of our elections,” in part, because “more than a dozen states do not require a photo ID to vote” and “while some states maintain accurate and up-to-date voter rolls, other states do not.”
“That’s why he’s urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Washington Examiner Tuesday morning.
At the same time, Republicans have expressed their own concerns, particularly because of the Constitution’s Elections Clause. That constitutional clause provides states with the power to determine the “Times, Places and Manner” of federal congressional elections.
“I’m a big believer in decentralized and distributed power, and I think, you know, it’s harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack one,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
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Regardless, others, including the Republican National Committee, endorsed Trump’s proposal, contending “Trump has been clear: election integrity is non-negotiable.”
“The American people support commonsense safeguards like voter ID, accurate voter rolls, and only citizens voting in our elections,” RNC spokeswoman Kiersten Pels told the Washington Examiner. “The RNC is fighting every day to protect every legal vote and restore confidence in our elections.”
