Breaking — Trump Says Republicans Should "Nationalize" Elections

Five days after his FBI raided Georgia's election office, the president openly called for unconstitutional federal takeover of voting in at least 15 states.

While others stenograph, grift, or chase the next distraction
this is the news that matters and how it’s connected.

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“The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

That’s the President of the United States, today, on a podcast—calling for federal takeover of state elections.¹ ² ³

Not hinting. Not suggesting. Saying it out loud.

We’ve been tracking this escalation. Last week, Trump’s FBI raided Fulton County’s election office and seized 700 boxes of 2020 ballots—breaking chain of custody, refusing to leave copies, keeping the warrant sealed. Robb Pitts demanded to know if federal agents were tampering with the evidence. Now we know what comes next.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places,’” Trump told former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino.¹ He didn’t specify which states. He didn’t need to. “We have states that are so crooked and they’re counting votes. We have states that I won that show I didn’t win.”²

He lost those states. Every court said so. His own attorney general said so. He wants to seize the elections anyway.

What the Constitution Actually Says

This isn’t a gray area. It’s black-letter constitutional law.

Article I, Section 4 is explicit: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” Congress can pass federal regulations. The President cannot.¹ ²

The Tenth Amendment is equally clear: powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states. Elections are one of them. The Founders designed it that way deliberately—to prevent exactly what Trump is proposing.

A federal judge said so last week. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly blocked portions of Trump’s election executive order and wrote: “They assigned no role at all to the President. Put simply, our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures.”²

Trump’s response to that ruling? Call for nationalization anyway.

The Pattern

This isn’t rhetoric. It’s a plan.

The Justice Department has sued more than twenty states to force them to turn over voter rolls—including Social Security numbers and driver’s license data.² ³ Attorney General Pam Bondi sent Minnesota a letter offering to reduce ICE enforcement in exchange for voter data—what Minnesota’s lawyers called “a ransom note.” The FBI seized Georgia’s ballots with the Director of National Intelligence present. Trump spoke with the FBI agents by cellphone the day after the raid.¹

And now: “nationalize the voting.”

The White House response? Spokesperson Abigail Jackson didn’t defend the “nationalize” comment. She pivoted to the SAVE Act and “election security.”² ³ Because there is no defense. The Constitution doesn’t allow what Trump is demanding.

What This Is

The man who tried to overturn the 2020 election is now—openly, on a podcast, five days after raiding a county election office—calling for his party to seize control of state elections before the midterms.

He’s not hiding it. He’s not even pretending it’s legal. He’s daring anyone to stop him.

Fine. Let’s Talk Federal Election Standards.

You want to nationalize elections? Here’s a proposal:

Any party that passes voter suppression laws—purging rolls, closing polling places, eliminating early voting, restricting mail ballots—without first proving beyond a reasonable doubt that substantial fraud is occurring should be banned from federal elections nationwide for a decade. Every officeholder removed. Every candidate barred. For a decade.

That’s what “election integrity” would look like if it meant protecting the right to vote instead of suppressing it.

Republicans have spent twenty years making it harder to vote while claiming, without evidence, that fraud is rampant. They’ve closed at least 1,688 polling places since 2012—a purge that accelerated after Shelby County gutted the Voting Rights Act.⁴ They’ve gerrymandered themselves into permanent minorities ruling over majorities.

And they’ve purged millions from voter rolls—16 million between 2014 and 2016 alone, with rates spiking in states freed from federal oversight.⁵ In Georgia, True the Vote challenged 364,000 voter registrations during the January 2021 runoffs.⁶ Last July, the state purged another 477,883 “inactive” voters—people who committed the crime of not voting in two elections.⁷

And now they want federal control of elections? In states they claim are “crooked” because they lost? The party of states’ rights wants a federal takeover.

The Founders wrote the Elections Clause and the Tenth Amendment specifically to prevent this. Federal courts have already blocked his power grabs. He’s doing it anyway. The law is an obstacle, not a boundary.

Raid the offices. Seize the ballots. Demand the voter rolls. Nationalize the elections.

That’s not governance. That’s a coup in slow motion.

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The Call

This isn’t an isolated incident. We track stories like this using the fascism syndrome—ten indicators that a democracy is sliding into fascism—so you don’t lose the thread in the daily chaos:

• Capture of the state: The president openly calls for his party to seize control of state election machinery—violating Article I, the Tenth Amendment, and two centuries of constitutional precedent.

• War on reality: “We have states that I won that show I didn’t win.” Every court rejected this. Every recount confirmed it. He’s demanding federal takeover based on lies.

• Erosion of due process: Federal courts ruled last week that the president has no authority over election procedures. His response: call for nationalization anyway.

This is what it looks like: ballot seizures, ransom notes for voter data, and now open calls for nationalization. That’s not protecting democracy. That’s fascism.

But we’re not here just to tell you the house is on fire.

We built this publication to equip you with the tools to fight back—the frameworks, the messaging, the strategies that actually work. See the links below. But we can only keep doing this with your help. If this matters to you, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. You keep the fight alive.

• Fighting Fascism: How We Push Back and Win — The strategic playbook for reclaiming power

• The Trump Regime Messaging Guide — How to talk to people who’ve been captured by the machine

• The Freedom Illusion — How we got here, and the counter-ideology that gets us out

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Article Sources:

1. Katharine Jackson, “Trump says Republicans should ‘nationalize’ voting in at least 15 places“, Reuters, February 2, 2026.

Breaking coverage of Trump’s call for Republicans to “nationalize” and “take over” voting in at least 15 unspecified locations. Documents that Trump made the comments on Dan Bongino’s podcast, that he continues to falsely claim he won states he lost, and that Trump spoke with FBI agents by cellphone the day after the Fulton County raid during a meeting with DNI Tulsi Gabbard. Notes that under the Constitution, states and local jurisdictions conduct elections.

2. Jane C. Timm, “Trump says Republicans should ‘nationalize’ elections“, NBC News, February 2, 2026.

Comprehensive analysis establishing that Trump’s statement marks “a dramatic escalation” of his stance on election administration. Includes critical constitutional context: Article I assigns election authority to states, and the Supreme Court has interpreted this to mean states control voter registration, election supervision, fraud prevention, and ballot counting. Features Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling from last week explicitly stating the Constitution “assigned no role at all to the President” and does not allow presidential changes to federal election procedures.

3. Caroline Vakil, “Trump suggests GOP should ‘take over’ voting process in multiple states ahead of midterms“, The Hill, February 2, 2026.

Coverage noting this comes as the Justice Department has sued approximately two dozen states for refusing to turn over voter rolls containing Social Security numbers and driver’s license data. Includes Senator Chris Murphy’s warning that Trump “intends to try to interfere in the upcoming 2026 election” and that Trump’s “one regret from 2020 was that he didn’t take the voting machines.” Documents the White House’s non-defense of the “nationalize” comment.

4. Jessica Campisi, “Southern states have closed hundreds of polling places since Supreme Court decision: civil rights group“, The Hill, September 10, 2019.

Documents the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights report finding that at least 1,688 polling places closed since 2012, with 1,173 closing after the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision gutted the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance requirement. Texas, Arizona, and Georgia saw the most closures; seven Georgia counties now have only one polling location. The closures disproportionately affect communities of color in jurisdictions that were previously required to get federal approval before changing voting rules.

5. Kevin Morris, Myrna Pérez, Jonathan Brater, and Christopher Deluzio, “Purges: A Growing Threat to the Right to Vote“, Brennan Center for Justice, July 20, 2018.

Comprehensive analysis of voter purge data from more than 6,600 jurisdictions finding that states removed almost 16 million voters from the rolls between 2014 and 2016—nearly 4 million more than between 2006 and 2008. Documents that the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County decision had a “profound and negative impact”: jurisdictions no longer subject to federal preclearance had purge rates significantly higher than other jurisdictions. Georgia purged twice as many voters—1.5 million—between 2012 and 2016 as it did between 2008 and 2012. Texas purged approximately 363,000 more voters in the first cycle after Shelby County than in the comparable preceding cycle.

6. Brennan Center for Justice, “Mass Voter Challenges and Voter List Maintenance in Georgia“, Brennan Center for Justice, June 18, 2024.

Documents True the Vote’s coordinated challenges to over 364,000 voters across all 159 Georgia counties in December 2020, during early voting for the January Senate runoffs. The Brennan Center advised all Georgia counties that these challenges—based on “unreliable, unverifiable, and incomplete information”—would likely violate state and federal law and constituted “a blatant attempt to disenfranchise Georgia voters by seeking constructive voter roll purges.” Most counties rejected the challenges.

7. Thomas Wheatley, “Georgia to cut nearly 480,000 names from voter rolls“, Axios, July 11, 2025.

Reports that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger sent cancellation mailers to 477,883 registered “inactive” voters—those who did not cast a ballot in both the 2022 and 2024 general elections. Critics of Georgia’s “use it or lose it” policy, upheld 5-4 by the Supreme Court before the 2018 midterms, note that then-Secretary Brian Kemp’s previous 500,000+ purge “booted tens of thousands of eligible voters.” The Brennan Center warns these purges “too often remove eligible voters—particularly young and minority voters or people who move frequently.”