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Senate Democrats are accusing President Donald Trump of trying to meddle in the upcoming election cycle, and Senate Republicans are calling them out.
The topic of election integrity was again thrust back into the forefront by House Republicans last week, who demanded that voter ID legislation be included in a deal struck by Trump and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to fund the government.
While that ultimately never came to fruition, the talking point and legislative push has remained.
THUNE REJECTS TRUMP’S CALL TO NATIONALIZE ELECTIONS, WARNS DEMS TRIED THE SAME
Trump has called on Republicans to nationalize elections throughout the week; the FBI conducted a raid on an election hub in Fulton County, Ga.; and a cohort from the Senate GOP are pushing for the SAVE America Act to get a shot in the upper chamber.
Senate Democrats see the moves as laying the groundwork for election interference during the 2026 midterm election cycle — a point that they railed against Trump and Republicans for years.
“I think as Trump gets more desperate, he’s looking at ways that he can rig the election anytime a Republican doesn’t win,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital. “He thinks it’s unfair, and so he wants to tilt the rules to make sure the Democrats don’t win.”
“So yeah, I think we ultimately have to be really vigilant about this,” he continued. “The Constitution is crystal clear, the federal government can’t run state elections, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try.”
REPUBLICANS, TRUMP RUN INTO SENATE ROADBLOCK ON VOTER ID BILL
The accusation has made Senate Republicans balk, particularly after congressional Democrats raged against the GOP for questions of election integrity following the 2020 election and after Democrats pushed for their own, sweeping election reform packages under former President Joe Biden.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., told Fox News Digital that Democrats’ charge was “ridiculous.”
“Sounds like a conspiracy theory,” Schmitt said.
“I think President Trump cares very deeply about the integrity of our elections,” he continued. “If you ask the American people, they support voter ID by overwhelming numbers. So look, they’ve got some outrage of the week every week.”
Trump’s comments to nationalize elections came first during an interview with former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino on his podcast, where the president said, “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over, we should take over the voting in at least many — 15 places.’”
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., shot back that a Democratic politician didn’t need to weigh in on the issue because Trump “said it with his own mouth.”
“You can take the president at his own words and believe what he says,” Slotkin told Fox News Digital. “And he’s had an obsession with this issue, certainly an obsession with Fulton County, since he lost the 2020 election, and he’s now weaponizing the federal government because of his obsession.”
SCHUMER NUKES GOP PUSH FOR ‘JIM CROW-ERA’ VOTER ID LAWS IN TRUMP-BACKED SHUTDOWN PACKAGE
But some Senate Republicans have pushed back on Trump’s desire to implement more federal control over elections.
They argue that it’s a request that runs headfirst into the Constitution, which dictates that elections are run at the state and local levels with little impact from the federal government. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has also thrown cold water on the notion.
“Distributed, decentralized elections held at state-level, in my view, are a protection against hacking and other things, so it’s a lot harder to hack 50 systems than it is one,” Thune said. “So, if that’s the issue, I’m a believer in keeping most of those administered — most issues, at least administered by the state. The issue of citizenship, when it comes to voting, would be an exception to that.”
And while there is a push to pass the SAVE America Act, which would include voter ID, proof of citizenship to register to vote, and other reforms, it’s unlikely to survive in the Senate.
That’s because of the 60-vote filibuster threshold and Senate Democrats’ near-unanimous disdain of the legislation, which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has called “Jim Crow 2.0.”
Still, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., the three most vocal supporters of the bill, met with Trump to discuss a path forward on Thursday.
“It is Democrats bending over backwards to prevent voter ID and proof of citizenship for American elections,” Lee told Fox News Digital in a statement. “It is Democrats demanding that nobody ask questions about election security and irregularities. The projection is jaw-dropping.”
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