On Wednesday, new reporting revealed that many in President Donald Trump’s orbit believe he will declare “martial law” to seize control of the midterms. This is according to the Atlantic, which spoke with several people close to Trump who asserted he is likely to claim a “national security emergency” to justify efforts to “seize control of the federal elections.”
For example, attorney Peter Ticktin — who went to school with Trump when they were teenagers, helped Trump sue Hillary Clinton, and pushed the president to pardon convicted election equipment tamperer Tina Peters — said there are three possible outcomes in November. As the Atlantic writes, he asserts that, “The first — a smooth election — won’t happen in his view because, he claims without evidence, Democrats already cheated in the primaries. The second is that Trump takes action before the election to prevent cheating. The last option is that Trump tries to declare martial law on or around November 3.” Or in Ticktin’s words, “Either martial law, or step aside.” When the Atlantic raised the possibility of riots if Trump were to overturn the election results, Ticken said he was not concerned, asserting, “Believe me, our armed forces are a lot bigger than they are.”
Trump has not been shy about signaling his intention to meddle in the midterms. As the Atlantic explains, “In August, when the television and radio host Wayne Allyn Root pushed Trump to declare a ‘national-security emergency’ to require proof of citizenship, voter ID, and other measures, Trump played coy: ‘Let me just say that stranger things have happened, okay? I’ll leave it at that.’ Later that month, Trump posted a Root column on the topic, with a headline that described the plan as ‘foolproof.’ Peters announced after meeting with Trump in June that the president ‘basically said to his lead counsel to do what I was asking.’ In a prime-time address at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Trump again repeated the false claim that he had won the 2020 election, and sarcastically encouraged his supporters to ‘cheat like hell’ in the upcoming elections.”
And MAGA literally applauds such plans. Speaking at a recent conference for election deniers, Root described a “nightmare scenario” in which Democrats won, flipped Congress, then impeached the president. He received a standing ovation after assuring attendees that, according to research done by a friend, the election would be upended if Trump were to declare a national-security emergency.”
Trump is so adamant about these efforts that, according to the Atlantic, “Trump’s White House and Cabinet advisers have been working for months to move Trump’s focus away from baseless theories of election fraud peddled by people like Ticktin, Root and Peters … But the prospect of Trump deciding to act on the demands of his most fervent election-denying supporters has remained a constant threat, one that even Trump’s inner circle admits remains possible.”