Is Donald Trump going to cancel the midterm elections?

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1:38He's not exactly saying he's going to cancel them, but what is Donald Trump up to? What is his end game when it comes to the 2026 midterm elections? The president is talking about changing the way elections are run, taking power away from individual states, perhaps having the federal government run them? We can't allow cheating in elections. Now, if we need to put in federal controls as opposed to state controls, remember this, they're really an agent. They're really accumulating the votes for who wins an election. If they can't do it honestly and it can't be done properly and timely, then something else has to happen.

2:15Anthony Zurcher:Will you trust the results of the midterms if Republicans lose control of Congress? I will if the elections are honest. Look. To which many people reply, yikes. If the elections are honest, what exactly does that mean? Should we be taking the president at his word? Is he really going to potentially distrust these elections? What could he do? How could he influence them? What could he do after them? Welcome to AmeriCast.

2:41Anthony Zurcher:AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir. Right away, sir. Happy to lick your boot, sir. We are the sickest country in the world. Oh, dear. Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry? Of course the president supports peaceful protests. What a stupid question. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?

3:08Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London, England.

3:11Anthony Zurcher:And it's Anthony in the American headquarters of AmeriCast in Washington, D.C. Justin, it's just you and me today. Yes, we're going to absolutely, absolutely win this one, though, as Donald Trump would say. We are already winners, and by the end of it, people will be tired of how much winning we are jointly doing. We're going to talk about the entire 2026 set-up for two reasons, really, isn't it, Anthony? Number one, Donald Trump has effectively kicked off the Republican campaign, but number two, he's kicked it off by suggesting pretty strongly, not exactly in any great detail, but suggesting pretty strongly that he has his doubts about this set of elections, to put it mildly.

3:55Anthony Zurcher:And it's something that should be familiar to anyone who's followed Donald Trump in American politics for the last 10 years. Before the 2016 election, Trump refused to say that he would accept the results of those elections. Of course, he won. He still kind of questioned the results, saying he should have won the popular vote as well. In 2020 said the same thing. 2024, he said the same thing. He, before elections, tends to talk about them being honest and fair. And if he loses, that's a good indication that they are not honest and fair. Yeah. And we should say, not only does it matter because this is an election that takes place right around the nation, every seat in the House, of course, and a third of the Senate as well.

4:37But also, and this is a crucial thing, the margins are pretty fine, aren't they? So in the Senate, it's four seats, isn't it, that the Democrats would need to win? Four seats net gain. And in the House, Anthony, I can never, people keep dying or retiring. I never work out what the Republican majority is, but it's tiny, isn't it?

4:57Anthony Zurcher:It is. I think it would be a two-seat switch. Which is nothing, to make it plain. In a midterm, that is absolutely nothing. It's just a couple of seats in the House of Representatives that Democrats have to flip over to their side in order to take control of the chamber. And in a 435 seat chamber with all of those seats up for reelection this year, it wouldn't take much at all. You see in some wave elections like 2018 and 2010, 30, 40, 50 seats flip from one party to the other. I don't think there's any chance that we'll see that big a change, that big a wave this time around. But it is within reach for the Democrats, even if the Senate is a slightly greater reach for them, just because of the seats that are up, most of them lean or heavily or even solidly Republican.

5:48Anthony Zurcher:It would take a kind of a drawing to the inside straight for them to take control of the Senate. Just another point about the number of seats that are genuinely in play, because that always surprises people on this side of the pond that it's actually not very many, is it? So if you look at the house, I mean, what is it, a dozen or so where we genuinely could say they'll change hands? Or is it more than that, do you think? Yeah, I'd say a dozen, 20 maybe, that are within, you know, there are all these different organizations that rate the races and they They compile lists of what are considered to be toss-up races.

6:27Anthony Zurcher:And yeah, a dozen, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, are the ones that are truly, in their view, toss-ups. Now, in a wave election, usually you see everything break one way or the other. And so not just one party winning all the toss-ups, but winning races that maybe no one expected them to win. Surprises. I remember in 1994, that was the first big House wave election that I can remember. Republicans won in places they had no business winning. They won a seat in Washington state that was held by the then Speaker of the House. No one thought that that seat was going to go to the Republicans, but they won it.

7:10Anthony Zurcher:And so you get sometimes you get surprises. But when we're looking at this, if this is going to be a closely fought, contentious election where we're deciding it on the margins, then, yeah, we could see maybe a dozen, maybe 20 seats that are truly in play here. OK, the big question hanging over them is are they going to take place or is Donald Trump going to find some way of getting them not to take place or at least not to take place fairly? We've had an email. This is, by the way, from Roy, who's emailed us. Would slash could President Trump try to cancel the midterms if it looked like he, the Republicans, were doing badly?

7:45If he did lose, would slash could he try to declare them invalid?

7:51Anthony Zurcher:Well, it's would he cancel the elections? I doubt it. Could he even cancel the elections? That would be really, really hard. There's no provision in the law for suspending elections for any kind of reason, I suppose. if there was a national disaster, some sort of a national emergency, things could change. And, you know, you never you never want to say never with Donald Trump. But for instance, after September 11th in New York City, they were having a primary contest there on September 11th, and they ended up delaying that significantly. But again, that was a local emergency, if not a national emergency.

8:29Anthony Zurcher:Now, could Trump declare the results invalid? Again, And it would be something beyond the routine, although there have been instances where individual races have the results have been challenged in Congress. Congress has refused to seat certain people who won in certain congressional districts because there's questions about the validity of their victory. Now, in theory, Trump and the Republicans could try to do that on a much larger scale to say, well, everyone who won in California is a questionable validity. We're going to challenge that and not seat the entire California delegation. And if they did that, then that would virtually assure that Republicans hold control of the House of Representatives because without California, that's 30 something Democrats who would be coming in.

9:18Anthony Zurcher:So you can imagine scenarios where Trump could say these results are invalid, have allies in Congress who also push that forward and throw all of it into question. But that would be unprecedented in American history. Well, let's hear what the man himself is saying about what potentially concerns him. This is Donald Trump talking to reporters at the White House and then to NBC. I want to see elections be honest. And if a state can't run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it. Because, you know, if you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government and elections.

9:54I don't know why the federal government doesn't do them anyway. But when you see some of these states about how horribly they run their elections, what a disgrace it is. I think the federal government, when you see crooked elections, and we had plenty of them. And by the way, we had them last time, but go to 2020 and look at the facts that are coming out. Rigged, crooked elections. The federal government should get involved. These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can't count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.

10:27Anthony Zurcher:But the Constitution says that should be states that administer elections, Mr. President. That's what the Constitution says. They can administer the election, but they have to do it honestly. Will you trust the results of the midterms if Republicans lose control of Congress? I will if the elections are honest. Look, I want... And then just this morning, Donald Trump appearing at the National Prayer Breakfast, which I think we should say, Anthony, is traditionally a non-partisan event. It's a prayer breakfast. But, well, it wasn't quite that this time round. Here he is with his address. I don't know how a person of faith can vote for a Democrat.

11:02I really don't. And I know we have some here today, And I don't know why they're here, because they certainly don't give us their vote. I certainly know that we're not going to be convincing them to vote for a little thing called voter ID. It polls at 97%. And even the Democrat, the people, the voters, are at 82 % for voter ID. But the leaders don't want to approve it. They said they will strike. They will not allow it to happen. It's polling at over 90%. It's called voter identification. When you go to the polls, you show, yes, my name is so-and-so and I live in the country. I'm here. I can vote.

11:41They say that's not allowed. And everyone's trying to figure it out. And they do something to win. You know what it is? They cheat. But let's get on to another subject.

11:54Anthony Zurcher:Gosh, there's a lot to unpack there, Justin. The first thing I'll say is that that national prayer breakfast speech that Donald Trump gave lasted more than an hour. It practically became a national prayer lunch by the time he was done, but he covered a lot of ground. And yes, it was personal. And yes, it was calling into question the faith of Democrats, the religious faith of Democrats, and then touching on one of his favorite subjects, which is questioning the results of the 2020 election. And I'll add that there is no evidence of any kind of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. The facts that he says have come out haven't supported that.

12:29Anthony Zurcher:Now, He says that there's more facts that are going to come out soon and we'll look at them when he presents them. But at least at the moment, Joe Biden won that election. It's just Donald Trump who can't seem to let it go. Yeah. To the enormous annoyance, at least behind the scenes, of a lot of Republicans, who even if they kind of vaguely think that he might have a point, actually just think that that's not the way that they're going to win the next set of elections, either this set this year or indeed the next presidential one either. Plus, that stuff about, I don't know why the federal government doesn't run elections.

13:02Well, it's not just that it's in the Constitution, is it, Anthony? It's an absolute, I mean, if you're a conservative Republican, at least until recently, you hugely believed in states' rights. The idea of the federal government, frankly, running anything, really, other than defending the country occasionally, was anathema to you. It is a complete turning on its head, isn't it, of so much that you traditionally think Republicans believe.

13:24Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, it's in the Constitution. States administer the election. Now, I will say that there have been times when the federal government has stepped in to provide guidelines or provide rules for how the states could run these elections. In the 1990s, for instance, they passed what was called the Motor Voter Law, which required that departments of motor vehicles also provide voter registration, that you get a voter registration when you get a driver's license. You just check a box and you're automatically registered. That was one way the federal government stepped in. Another one was after the mess that was the 2000 presidential election with the butterfly ballots in Florida and the questions about whether people knew they were voting the right way and just the disorganization.

14:12Anthony Zurcher:but to step in, as Donald Trump seems to be implying here, to just step in and take over wholesale the administration, the running of elections would be unconstitutional, at least in the way it's been traditionally interpreted. You never know with the Supreme Court, they might see it a different way, but also would, as you rightly say, infringe on state rights, which is something that conservatives, traditional conservatives, have generally fought to uphold. The other thing is postal votes, isn't it, Anthony? For several cycles now, there's been a real fuss, well, really, I suppose, since COVID, about who gains from postal votes and who loses and whether they're secure, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

14:58And that's become another great row, hasn't it? In fact, we should listen to the speakers. This is a speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a big backer, of course, of Donald Trump, saying that he wants to take action on postal votes. Let's listen.

15:12Anthony Zurcher:In some of the states, like in California, for example, I mean, they hold the elections open for weeks after Election Day. That's just one thing that bothers so many people. We had three House Republican candidates who were ahead on Election Day in the last election cycle. And every time a new tranche of ballots came in, they just magically whittled away until their leads were lost. and no series of ballots that were counted after election day were our candidates ahead on any of those counts. It just, it looks on its face to be fraudulent. Can I prove that? No, because it happened so far upstream, but we need more confidence in the American people.

15:48I mean, does it look fraudulent, Anthony? I would have thought that is perfectly easily explained, isn't it?

15:54Anthony Zurcher:Well, I think what you're seeing here is that Democrats tend to vote more by mail than Republicans. And part of that is because Donald Trump for the past six years or so has been criticizing mail voting and encouraging Republicans to vote in person. So then you get this split between Democrats and Republicans as far as how they vote. And in places like California, where they count any ballot that is postmarked on Election Day, you do get instances where Republicans who voted in person may have been doing better on Election Day. But then as more and more ballots come in, Democrats slowly move ahead.

16:29Anthony Zurcher:And that creates, as Johnson mentioned there, the perception that something's wrong. But the reality is that this is just that dynamic playing out. And there are other instances like in Florida that has a very robust early voting process and absentee voting process where Republicans actually do better. And they vote a lot early and they vote. And so you see a surge of Republican votes when those early ballots are counted. So it really is a reflection of kind of the voting patterns and the habits of the two different parties. And also plenty of Republicans saying, at least behind the scenes, maybe not saying to Donald Trump's face, for goodness sake, our people need to be voting early or voting by post or whatever it is, not going to the ballot box because our people tend to be less frequent voters.

17:17They're less involved. I mean, that's the whole Trump victory has been based on getting people to the polls who didn't normally go or who infrequently go. And that's why the polling was a bit off repeatedly with Trump because it's quite difficult to catch these people. But the one way you do catch them, seems to me, Anthony, is you make it easy for them to vote. And if you don't, they won't turn up. You shoot yourself in the foot.

17:43Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, that is something that you do hear from Republicans. And one of the really powerful tools that parties can use when dealing with these early voting opportunities is they can look and see who voted and they know who their voters are and they can see if their voters, Joe Schmo on Block X, cast a ballot or not. And if they voted early, they can not waste any time trying to convince them anymore. They know they've got that vote in the bag. Now, if they haven't voted yet, they can focus all their effort on getting those folks who haven't showed up, who haven't voted early, who haven't voted by mail to cast their ballots.

18:19Anthony Zurcher:So that is something that I think has frustrated a lot of Republicans. And you actually in 2024, when I went to Trump rallies, you would see a video play before Trump spoke talking about how people had to start voting early and getting your ballots cast. And this is the system as it is constructed now and and go ahead and get out there and get your vote counted before anything happens. So I think there was an awareness that they were hurting themselves there. OK, let's say we get to Election Day and the election is taking place. And there are people, of course, who are going to go to the polls themselves.

18:53Here is where it potentially gets quite dark. Let's listen to Steve Bannon. So Steve Bannon, former Trump adviser, got his own podcast now, still a very big figure on the on the MAGA right. Let's listen to what he says should happen in those circumstances with people turning up at the polls to vote in a free election. We're going to have ice surround the polls come November. We're not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want. But we will never again allow an election to be stolen. And that's why I'm so proud of what President Trump is doing and people are doing.

19:33Anthony Zurcher:Throwing your toys out of the pram. He's he's been spending time in England. He's speaking your language, Justin. Is that is that not an American phrase? Not as far as I've ever heard. It sounds very British to me. But what he is saying is is definitely something that Democrats are afraid of. And that is that ICE, Border Patrol, National Guard could do a show of force around polling places, particularly polling places in immigrant communities that vote heavily for Democrats, and depress the vote. And I think Republicans will say we're only looking for people who are undocumented who vote. But we've already seen instances over the past month in Minneapolis where American citizens have been detained, that they've been profiled just because they look like someone from a different country.

20:21Anthony Zurcher:And that could happen on election day. And that might keep American citizens from showing up and having their constitutional rights infringed on. Yeah. And American citizens who look a particular way, wouldn't it? It's basically people with non-white skins. I mean, to be brutal about it, that would be the potential impact. Anyone who thought that ICE might think that they could be an illegal immigrant, and thus, as we know, they could be hauled off the streets. And you were kind of in two minds about whether to vote. I mean, it's pretty obvious the decision you make, isn't it? You'd do something else that day.

20:59Anthony Zurcher:You hear stories about people in Minneapolis, immigrants in Minneapolis, even American citizens there, not leaving the house, not going to the grocery store, not going to schools, because they're afraid of what might happen when they're on the street. So if you can imagine that same sort of scenario playing out on election day. I think it is something that Democrats are very concerned about. And while you haven't heard Donald Trump float that idea at all, Steve Bannon obviously is kind of in Trump's head, and often he's a trial balloon floating ideas before Donald Trump picks them up. So it is something that could be a very real issue when we get closer to November.

21:44OK, so to the Democrats and what they're saying, not just about Steve Bannon, but also about the president and his plans, the minority leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, really calling on his fellow Republicans. The Senate still a relatively chummy place, a place where they kind of believe that people of goodwill can come together and all the rest of it, calling on them to speak out themselves. Let's listen. This president clearly doesn't believe in democracy at all. Never in American history have we had a president so hostile to democratic traditions. Even worse, never have we had a president who breaks the norms that have made this country strong and held them together for centuries.