Overview
- President Donald Trump told Reuters that, given his claimed accomplishments and typical midterm losses for a president’s party, “we shouldn’t even have an election.”
- Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the remark was facetious, telling reporters she was in the room for the interview and that the president was “simply joking.”
- Top Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, say they are assembling legal teams and contingency plans to counter any attempts to disrupt voting or counting.
- Federal courts have already invalidated parts of Trump’s March executive order that sought proof of citizenship on the federal voter registration form and restricted when absentee ballots could be counted.
- Trump has backed ongoing deployments of federal agents and threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota after an ICE fatal shooting, intensifying concerns about voter intimidation and the conduct of the midterms.