In a new interview, US President Donald Trump called on the Republican Party to "nationalize" voting in the United States — an "aggressive" rhetorical move that will likely raise new concerns about his administration's attempts to interfere in electoral matters, as he and his allies continue to make false claims about his 2020 defeat, The New York Times reports, writes UNN.
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During a lengthy monologue on immigration in a podcast released Monday by Dan Bongino, his former deputy FBI director, Trump called on Republican officials to "take control" of voting procedures in 15 states, though he did not name them.
"Republicans have to say, 'We want to take everything over,'" Trump said. "We have to take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. Republicans have to nationalize the voting."
According to the US Constitution, the publication writes, American elections are primarily governed by state laws, leading to a decentralized process in which voting is organized by county and municipal officials in thousands of polling places across the country. However, Trump, the publication notes, "has long been fixated on false claims that US elections are rife with fraud and that Democrats are orchestrating a massive conspiracy to get undocumented immigrants to vote and boost voter turnout for the party."
Trump's notable call for a political party to "seize the voting mechanisms" followed a series of moves by his administration aimed at tightening control over American elections, the publication writes.
Last week, FBI agents seized ballots and other documents related to the 2020 election from a polling center in Fulton County, Georgia, "where his allies have for years made false accusations of election fraud."
The US Department of Justice, which "became politicized under Trump," is demanding full voter lists from many states, including Minnesota, as the Trump administration attempts to create a national voter database.
In March, Trump signed an executive order that sought to make significant changes to the election process, including requiring documentary proof of citizenship and requiring all mail-in ballots to be received by the time polls close on Election Day. But these efforts were largely rejected by the courts.
On social media, Trump has pushed for even more radical changes. In August, he wrote that he wanted to end the use of mail-in voting and possibly the use of voting machines.
The US President's statements about election fraud have been repeatedly refuted by both independent investigations and Republican Party representatives. As The Times reported, an audit of the 2024 election conducted by the Trump administration last year found little evidence of widespread election fraud by non-citizens as of last month.
Trump's intensified statements about elections come at a time when Democrats have outperformed Republicans in a number of election campaigns. In November, Democratic governors won convincing victories in New Jersey and Virginia, and on Saturday, a Democrat won a special election for the Texas State Senate by 14 percentage points in a district where Trump won by 17 points in 2024, which is a huge margin.
Understanding that Republicans are vulnerable to the traditional backlash against the ruling party in midterm elections, Trump last year launched an unprecedented campaign to redraw electoral districts to give his party an advantage, the publication writes. This campaign, which began in Texas but has since spread to both Democrat-controlled and Republican-controlled states, has become a central part of the US president's strategy ahead of the midterm elections, the publication notes.
Trump makes no secret of his interest in expanding the federal government's role in conducting American elections. Last month, he told The Times that he regretted not sending the National Guard to seize polling places after the 2020 election, the publication writes.
During his interview with Bongino, Trump linked his desire for partisan control over election mechanisms to his administration's program of finding and deporting undocumented immigrants from American cities.
"If Republicans don't get them out, you'll never win another election as a Republican," he said, referring to undocumented immigrants. "It's crazy how you can get these people to vote. If we don't get them out, look, Republicans will never win another election."
There is no evidence that a significant number of non-citizens voted in any American election, the publication notes. An audit conducted by the Georgia Secretary of State in 2024 found that only 20 of the 8.2 million people registered to vote in Georgia were not citizens, and only nine had ever voted.