COLUMN: Trump Wants to Nationalize Elections, and His Spokesperson Tells Us He Believes in the Constitution

What the Constitution Really Says

Let’s go back to the basics, to the fundamentals of American democracy. Article I of the U.S. Constitution is crystal clear on this specific point. It is the states that organize and oversee elections. Period. Not the federal government. Not the president. The states. This provision is not some obscure technical detail lost in the intricacies of the constitutional text. It is a pillar of American federalism, a deliberate safeguard against the concentration of power, a bulwark against authoritarian tendencies.

Federalism as a Bulwark

The Founding Fathers were not naive. They had lived under British tyranny; they knew the dangers of an overly powerful central government. So they dispersed power, they fragmented it, and they created checks and balances at every level. State-administered elections were their lifeline against a president who might want to rig the system to his advantage. And now, two hundred thirty-seven years later, we have a president who is proposing exactly what they warned us against.

I think back to my civics classes as a teenager. To those teachers who passionately explained to us how the U.S. Constitution was a masterpiece of political engineering, how every article, every amendment, every clause had been designed to protect freedom. And I wonder what they would think today, seeing a president calmly propose to dismantle these protections. Would they be shocked? Resigned? Or would they tell us that they had always known this—that democracy is never a given, that it must be defended by every generation?

Mandatory Voter ID and Proof of Citizenship

Karoline Leavitt explains that Trump was actually referring to the SAVE Act, a Republican bill that would require a photo ID to vote and proof of citizenship to register to vote. On paper, it sounds reasonable. Who could object to verifying that voters are indeed U.S. citizens? The problem is that 21 million Americans do not have easily accessible documents proving their citizenship. 2.6 million do not even have a government-issued ID.

The Targeted Populations

And guess who these Americans without readily accessible documents are? The poor. Minorities. The elderly. Students. Exactly the groups that traditionally vote Democratic. The Brennan Center for Justice and the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland have documented this phenomenon with surgical precision. This is no coincidence. It’s not an unfortunate side effect. It’s the goal.

They’re selling this to us as a common-sense measure, as a democratic given. Of course we need to verify voters’ identities, we’re told. But dig a little deeper, scratch the surface, and you’ll discover that this “given” will prevent millions of legitimate Americans from voting. Citizens who pay their taxes, who obey the law, who have the constitutional right to participate in elections. But who don’t have the right papers, the right profile, or perhaps the right skin color.

Six hundred ninety-seven boxes of ballots seized

A week before Trump’s remarks on the podcast, the FBI raided Fulton County, Georgia, with a search warrant. They seized 697 boxes of ballots and election materials. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, was present. Trump personally called the agents to congratulate them. Fulton County is home to Atlanta. It is a Democratic stronghold. It is a county that Trump has always accused of election fraud without ever being able to prove it.

Intimidation as a Strategy

Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, immediately understood the message. This operation is not a legitimate investigation into hypothetical fraud. It is a warning. It is a show of force. It is Trump telling Democratic election officials: “I can show up at your office whenever I want, with the FBI, with the Director of National Intelligence, and rummage through your records.” ” The threat is clear. The 2026 midterm elections are approaching, and Trump wants everyone to know that he will stop at nothing.

There is something deeply troubling about this scene. The President of the United States personally congratulating FBI agents for seizing ballots in a Democratic county. The Director of National Intelligence traveling to oversee the operation. All of this based on allegations of fraud that have never been proven—allegations that have been rejected by every court, including those presided over by judges appointed by Trump himself. This is no longer normal politics. This is something much darker.

The Rhetoric of Deliberate Contradiction

Let’s return to Karoline Leavitt’s press conference. A reporter asks her if Trump believes that the states should oversee elections, as provided for in the Constitution. Her response is a masterpiece of Orwellian double-speak. “The president believes in the U.S. Constitution,” she begins. Perfect. Reassuring. Then comes the “however.” “However, he believes there was a great deal of fraud and irregularities in the U.S. elections.” And that’s how you strip the Constitution of its meaning in a single sentence.

The Normalization of the Abnormal

What’s terrifying isn’t so much the contradiction itself. It’s the way it’s presented as perfectly normal, as a legitimate political position. Leavitt doesn’t blush, doesn’t stammer, shows no sign of discomfort. She delivers her script with the confidence of a spokesperson who knows exactly what she’s doing. She normalizes the idea that one can believe in the Constitution while proposing to violate it. She makes the unacceptable acceptable.

I remember a time, not so long ago, when such a contradiction would have caused a major scandal. When journalists would have dug deeper, pressed the issue, and refused to let such a blatantly absurd answer slide. But today, we take note, we report it, and we move on to the next question. Because we’re tired. Because there are so many scandals, so many contradictions, so many lies that we can no longer give them all the attention they deserve. Perhaps that is Trump’s true victory: having worn us down to the point where we accept the unacceptable out of sheer weariness.

California and New York on the front lines

Trump specifically mentions certain states where he wants Republicans to “take control.” California. New York. Democratic strongholds, of course. Leavitt justifies this focus by claiming that these states allow non-citizens to vote. This is technically true for certain very specific local elections, such as school board elections in a few municipalities. But she presents it as if millions of undocumented immigrants were voting in presidential elections, which is completely false and illegal.

The Myth of Mass Fraud

Trump speaks of states that are “so corrupt” that they count votes fraudulently. He claims to have won states where the results show he lost. This is pure and simple delusion. Every investigation, every audit, and every legal challenge has confirmed the results of 2020 and 2024. But Trump continues to build this myth of a stolen election, and now he’s using it to justify federal takeover of the elections. It’s a vicious cycle.

What both fascinates and terrifies me is the coherence of the strategy. Trump isn’t doing this randomly. He is methodically constructing a narrative in which elections are rigged, in which only federal intervention can save them, and in which he alone can protect democracy by… destroying its constitutional foundations. It’s evil genius. It’s Authoritarianism 101. And it’s working. His supporters believe him. They’re demanding this nationalization of the elections. They sincerely believe they’re defending democracy by calling for its destruction.

The House Votes, the Senate Blocks

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is set to vote on the SAVE Act next week. The outcome is predictable: it will pass. But in the Senate, it’s a different story. Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has already announced that the bill would be “dead on arrival.” He compared it to “Jim Crow 2.0,” a reference to the segregationist laws in the South that prevented Black people from voting after the Civil War. It’s a strong comparison, but not an unjustified one.

The Call to Abolish the Filibuster

Faced with this predictable impasse, some hard-line Republicans are calling for the abolition of the filibuster, the Senate procedural rule that requires sixty votes to move most bills forward. Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna and Texas Senator Ted Cruz are leading the charge. They want to return to the “standing filibuster”—the kind seen in movies, where a senator must physically occupy the floor to block a vote. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune remains skeptical. He knows that tampering with the filibuster is like opening Pandora’s box.

The filibuster is one of those odd rules of American democracy that protects minorities from the tyranny of the majority. It’s frustrating when your party is in power and wants to pass laws. But it’s reassuring when you’re in the opposition and want to block dangerous laws. The Republicans who want to abolish it today to pass the SAVE Act will bitterly regret it when the Democrats return to power. But maybe that’s the calculation. Maybe they think that with the SAVE Act and the nationalization of elections, the Democrats will never return to power.

Polls That Reassure Republicans

A Pew poll from August 2025 shows that ninety-five percent of Republicans and seventy-one percent of Democrats support the idea of requiring voter ID. A 2024 Gallup poll reveals that 84 percent of Americans approve of voter ID and 83 percent approve of proof of citizenship for voter registration. These figures are the favorite rhetorical weapon of SAVE Act supporters. “The American people are clear,” declares Representative Chip Roy. “They support voter ID.”

The Devil Is in the Details

But as Nicole Hansen of the Campaign Legal Center points out, the devil is in the details. Asking people if they support “voter ID” in general is one thing. Explaining to them that it will prevent twenty-one million Americans from voting because they don’t have the right documents is quite another. Polls don’t capture this nuance. They don’t show that people support an abstract idea, not necessarily its concrete implementation with all its consequences.

That is where the true perversity of this strategy lies. Taking an idea that seems reasonable on the surface—verifying voters’ identities—and using it to justify measures that will effectively deprive millions of citizens of their right to vote. And when we protest, we’re accused of being against “common sense” and against “electoral security.” It’s brilliant. It’s cynical. It’s profoundly anti-democratic. But it works.

The Midterm Elections as a Decisive Test

The November 2026 midterm elections are looming on the horizon. Trump is unpopular, and Republicans are bracing for defeat. And it is precisely against this backdrop that he is launching his offensive against the integrity of the electoral system. This is no coincidence. It is a deliberate strategy to lay the groundwork, so he can contest the results if they do not suit him, and to have ready-made arguments about “massive fraud” and “rigged elections.”

American Democracy at a Crossroads

We are at a pivotal moment in American history. Either the institutions hold firm, the courts stand their ground, and election officials do their jobs despite pressure and threats—or Trump succeeds in his scheme, effectively nationalizing the elections in key states, and fundamentally transforming the nature of American democracy. There is no middle ground. There is no possible compromise between upholding the Constitution and violating it.

I don’t know how this story will end. I’d like to be optimistic, to believe that the safeguards will hold, that the Constitution will survive this assault. But when I watch Karoline Leavitt spout her contradictions with a serene smile, when I see Trump openly calling for the nationalization of elections, and when I observe his supporters applauding this proposal, I wonder if we haven’t already passed a point of no return. Perhaps in ten years, we’ll look back and say that was the moment. February 2026. When a president proposed destroying American electoral federalism and his spokesperson assured us that he believed in the Constitution. However.

Signed, Jacques Provost