President Donald Trump doubled down on his calls for federal control of U.S. elections during a wide-ranging NBC interview on Wednesday, but he said he meant the government should look at “some areas” where it should intervene.
In a sit-down in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump was pressed to explain comments he made earlier this week on a podcast pushing Republicans to “take over” election administration in parts of the country — a proposal that has drawn bipartisan alarm and legal scrutiny.
Trump denied using the word “nationalize” in describing his earlier remarks and instead suggested that there are areas in the country that require federal intervention. He cited without evidence some major cities as examples of places where elections are rigged.
“When, and I didn’t say national — I said there are some areas in our country that are extremely corrupt. They have very corrupt elections,” Trump told NBC anchor Tom Llamas. “Take a look at Detroit. Take a look at Philadelphia. Take a look at Atlanta. There are some areas that are unbelievably corrupt. I could give you plenty of more too. I say that we cannot have corrupt elections.”
Joe Biden won all of those cities in the 2020 election.
But Trump did in fact suggest Monday that the GOP should nationalize elections as he was speaking on a podcast with Dan Bongino, who was Trump’s deputy director of the FBI until last month.
“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,” Trump said.
The president also warned on Wednesday that if he believes elections aren’t conducted fairly, then alternatives need to be implemented.
“We can’t allow cheating in elections. Now, if we need to put in federal controls as opposed to state controls, remember this, they’re really an agent,” he said. “They’re really accumulating the votes for who wins an election. If they can’t do it honestly and it can’t be done properly and timely, then something else has to happen.”
Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist, publicly urged the Trump administration to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling sites for the November midterms.
“We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again,” Bannon said Tuesday on his “War Room” podcast. “And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.”








