Overview
- In a Feb. 2 podcast interview with Dan Bongino, President Trump said Republicans should "take over" voting in at least 15 places and repeated unfounded claims of widespread fraud and illegal voting by noncitizens.
- The White House later said Trump was referring to the SAVE Act, a Republican proposal to require voter ID and documentary proof of citizenship for registration in federal elections.
- Trump reiterated Tuesday in the Oval Office that the federal government should "get involved" if states cannot run elections, even as he offered no specifics on how a takeover would occur.
- Democrats and several Republicans rejected the idea of federalizing elections, with Sen. Chuck Schumer calling it "outlandishly illegal" and GOP figures such as Rep. Don Bacon and Sen. John Thune opposing a takeover while backing stricter ID rules.
- The debate follows an FBI search of Fulton County, Georgia’s elections office for 2020 records and comes as the administration pursues voter‑roll data through DOJ lawsuits and defends a citizenship‑proof executive order that courts have largely blocked.