President Donald Trump teased an unprecedented move to take federal control of the midterm elections after a MAGA ally planted the idea in his head.
Real America's Voice radio host Wayne Allyn Root and other right-wing election deniers have been shopping a fringe legal theory to give the president king-like powers over the November elections to ensure Republican control of Congress, and ran it past Trump during an appearance Tuesday on his program.
"So let me put an idea in your head, okay, because it's so hard to get the Senate to do anything," Root said. "Now they're on recess; they don't get anything done. If they never get the SAVE America Act done, you have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections, and the Supreme Court ruled in 1983 under Reagan, in INS v. Chadha, if you declare a national security emergency as the president of the United States, they can't challenge it. It can only be overturned by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress."
"So if you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship and a limit to mail-in ballots," Root added.
Trump sounded intrigued by the scheme.
"Let me just say stranger things have happened," Trump said. "I'll leave it at that."
Trump has reportedly rejected the scheme floated by allies in the past, but he has been unsuccessfully pushing the GOP-controlled Senate to approve the House-passed SAVE America Act that would place new restrictions on voting, largely seen as an advantage for Republicans.
