On February 2, 2026, on Dan Bongino's podcast, Trump said, “The Republicans should say, we want to take over, we should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places,” and “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
In an NBC News interview with Tom Llamas on February 4, he denied having used the word, saying instead, “I said there are some areas in our country that are extremely corrupt. They have very corrupt elections. Take a look at Detroit. Take a look at Philadelphia. Take a look at Atlanta.” He offered no evidence. Of the states that run elections, he said, “If they can't do it honestly and it can't be done properly and timely, then something else has to happen.” Asked next whether he would trust the results of the midterms if Republicans lost control of Congress, he said, “I will if the elections are honest.”
Asked whether he saw any scenario in which he would still be president on January 21, 2029, he said, “wouldn't it be terrible if I agreed with, you know, if I gave you the answer that you're looking for? It would make life so much less exciting, right?” The Constitution bars a third term, and it assigns the running of elections to the states, not the president. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the proposal “outlandishly illegal.”
Correction (October 5, 2026): This entry previously ran two of Trump's NBC remarks together as one answer, quoting him as saying he would accept the midterm results “if the elections are honest” and, if not, that “something else has to happen.” NBC's transcript shows the second remark came first, about states that cannot count votes honestly, and was not part of his answer about accepting the results. The entry also dated the interview to February 5 and placed the Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta remark on the February 2 podcast; both come from the NBC interview, which aired February 4.
Update (October 28, 2026): Asked on October 27 at Joint Base Andrews, before leaving for two rallies in Texas, whether he would accept the midterm results, Trump said, “I will — if they're honest elections,” the Washington Post reported; the Hill reported the same remark. The Post noted that he has used such formulas before: in 2016 he said he would accept the result if he won, in 2020 he said, “We're going to have to see what happens,” and in 2024 he said he would accept it if the election was “fair and legal and good.” The Post also reported that the administration “has filed lawsuits laying the groundwork to challenge election results” and that noncitizen voting, the current focus of such allegations, is rare.
The same day, House Speaker Mike Johnson, asked by MS NOW about concerns that Trump and congressional Republicans could contest the results if Democrats win, said, “We're going to follow the Constitution,” and, “for anybody to suggest otherwise is absurd,” CNBC reported. He was answering that general question, not responding to Trump's remark.
BBC Verify reported on October 27 that Trump has been alleging rampant cheating in postal voting and noncitizen voting, and that the evidence shows such fraud is extremely rare. A Brookings Institution study of the 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections found an average of about four fraud cases per 10 million postal votes; BBC Verify's review of the Heritage Foundation's database found 325 postal-ballot fraud convictions over 20 years and 24 noncitizen-voting convictions from 2005 to 2025; and a 2026 Reuters analysis found that 129 people had been charged in federal court over noncitizen voting in 30 years, 73 of them convicted.