White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was called out after she addressed President Donald Trump's recent remarks about having Republicans "take over the voting" in at least 15 states.
During a Monday interview with former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, "Trump said Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over—we should take over the voting—the voting in at least many, 15 places," stressing that "Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
Trump repeated his false claims that he lost the 2020 general election due to fraud and said that “we have states that I won that show I didn’t win.”
In response to concerns about Trump's remarks, Leavitt said:
"The president believes in the United States Constitution, 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 common sense policy that the president wants to pursue, and he wants to pass legislation to make that happen for all states across the country.”
You can hear what she said in the video below.
The Trump administration has moved to nationalize parts of the electoral system, pressing states to surrender voter rolls to the Justice Department.
When roughly two dozen states refused, the department sued, seeking access to records that include Social Security and driver’s license numbers, claiming the data is needed to ensure voter roll compliance. Most states have resisted turning over sensitive personal information, though some have complied.
These moves have already alarmed Democrats who've warned the Trump administration is planning to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections and violate the Constitution.
Leavitt's use of the word "however" isn't boosting confidence, signaling that as far as she and the administration are concerned, abiding by the Constitution is not a requirement.
She was swiftly criticized.
Trump has attacked voting rights multiple times and previously suggested he might try to stay in office indefinitely.
During a November 2024 meeting with House Republicans, he hinted that he might seek their support in attempting to bypass the Constitution to run for a third term in the future, a remark that drew laughter from the supportive audience.
He said:
“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out.'"
In December 2023, Trump alarmed his critics when he told Fox News personality Sean Hannity that he plans to be a "dictator" on "day one" should he return to the White House.
Over the summer, he told attendees at a conservative Christian event that they "won’t have to vote anymore" if he were elected, stating, "It’ll be fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote."
And these claims go back further still: In 2020, Trump suggested at a rally that he deserved an additional term after his potential second due to how he had been treated, saying "we are probably entitled to another four after that.”
Earlier this year, Trump's former chief strategist-turned-MAGA-influencer Steve Bannon was criticized after revealing that Trump has a "plan" to get a third term as president.
Bannon, speaking with The Economist, said "Trump is gonna be president in '28, and people just sort of [need to] get accommodated with that." Bannon also referred to Trump as "an instrument of divine will" and "a vehicle of divine providence," suggesting that God meant for Trump to have another term.
He also denied that giving Trump a third term would turn the U.S. into a quasi-dictatorship, insisting—despite previously saying that there is "a plan" to circumvent constitutional norms—that he will have won a third term with the support of the American people, which he said "is what the Constitution embodies."
@EdwardLawrence/X
