Treasury Secretary Scott Besant’s testimony on financial stability kicks off Washington Journal, but the focus shifts to President Trump’s push to "nationalize elections," citing alleged corruption in Detroit, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. Callers debate: Fran (NH Democrat) dismisses claims as political fearmongering, while Rachel (FL Republican) backs the SAVE Act for citizenship proof; 35 states require voter ID, but 15 don’t. Speaker Mike Johnson highlights California’s extended ballot counting, though admits no direct fraud evidence. Kathy (CA Republican) cites Carl DeMayo’s 1.2M-signature petition for a 2026 voter ID ballot measure, while Lee (GA Democrat) argues Trump’s conviction and insurrection disqualify him. The episode reveals deep partisan divides over election integrity, with nationalization proposals exposing tensions between state autonomy and federal intervention amid unproven fraud claims and legal battles. [Automatically generated summary]
Will brief reporters on ICE and Border Patrol operations in Minnesota.
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Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll talk about the House voting to end the partial shutdown and temporarily fund Homeland Security, as well as other congressional news of the day.
First with Illinois Democratic Congressman Brad Schneider, then with California Republican Congressman Tom McClintock, and Michael Beckel with the nonprofit Issue One on efforts by Republicans to increase federal oversight of nationwide elections.
The federal government has reopened with a vote in the House and the President's signature yesterday.
An issue that came up was the SAVE Act that would require in-person proof of American citizenship for anyone registering or updating their registration to vote.
It was not included in the bill.
This morning, though, we're getting your thoughts on election security.
Last week, federal agents executed a search at the Fulton County Elections Office in Georgia, seizing ballots and voter data from the 2020 election.
And on Monday, President Trump said that elections should consider nationalizing elections, taking over voting in some places.
What do you think?
How secure do you think U.S. elections are?
Should the federal government have more control over how elections are run?
Here are the numbers.
Republicans, 202748, 8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
And Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can send a text to 202-748-8003, include your first name in your city-state, and you can reach us on social media, facebook.com slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
We're glad you're with us.
Let's start with that part of the interview where President Trump called on Republicans to nationalize the voting.
Here is the New York Times that says Trump repeats call to nationalize election as White House walks it back.
It says President Trump's extraordinary comments were the latest iteration of his unsubstantial substantiated claims that U.S. elections are rigged as Republicans face potentially big losses next year.
Well, in the Oval Office yesterday, he was asked to clarify his suggestion that the federal government should nationalize elections.
unidentified
What exactly did you mean when you said that you should nationalize elections?
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 in elections.
I 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.
If we have areas, take a look at Detroit.
Take a look at Pennsylvania.
Take a look at Philadelphia.
You go take a look at Atlanta.
Look at some of the places that horrible corruption on elections.
And the federal government should not allow that.
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.
I was a supervisor of the checklist in my little town in New Hampshire for two terms, which is 12 years.
And I can tell you that there is virtually zero any illegal activity in voting in New Hampshire and probably other states too.
And I feel that way because people are afraid of the results of illegal voting.
That gets you into big trouble.
And in every state.
So this idea that people are blithely going to lie about their background and where they come from and vote illegally, I think is just a manufactured idea by someone who's afraid of who's going to win next election.
And Rachel on the Republican line, Brooksville, Florida.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Yes.
When I get out and vote, I want to make sure my vote counts.
I want people to have IDs.
And my question to everybody is, if you're not required to have an ID in some of these states, how do we know if you're an illegal that's voting if you don't have to have an ID?
I just don't understand that.
Everybody says, no, they can't vote, but if you don't have an ID or just a driver's license, do we know how easy it is for them to get a driver's license?
People would often ask me when they were seeing the actions of the Trump administration: you know, do you think we'll have free and fair elections in 26 or in 28?
And my response at that point was, you know, I think you're overreacting.
I have deep concerns about the fairness of our elections in 26 and 28 right now.
I have concerns about the elections in primaries in our country.
I have concerns about the elections that may take place in Virginia in terms of a redistricting referendum.
These kind of actions that have taken place over the last year, as we've seen the systemic dismantling of the very protections that were put in place by, again, the first Trump administration.
If it doesn't scare the heck out of you, it should.
And then, if you go back to the report, the bipartisan intelligence committee investigation report into the 2016 interference, unanimously agreed to by including the Secretary of State and all of the members of the committee,
it said one of the strongest protections we had about interference in our election system was the fact of our decentralization that we have these elections carried out as laid out in the Constitution by states and localities.
The idea that now Donald Trump wants to nationalize these elections and have one political party take over that process this provides a huge danger to our country going forward and the safety and security of these elections.
And this is Edwin, the Republican, New Bern, North Carolina.
Hi, Edwin.
unidentified
Hi.
I blame every media source for reporting everything that Donald John Trump comes out of his mouth because the nationalized elections is nothing but a scary, scary road we're taking.
Okay?
We've had fair and audited elections for decades.
And just because you lost the first time with sour grapes and you contact Georgia to find so many votes, you, Stephen Miller, and others want to control this country like a dictatorship.
This is a democracy, and only the Supreme Court and the courts will be able to ride this thing out.
We have thoughtful debate about our election system every election cycle and sometimes in between.
We know it's in our system.
The states have been in charge of administering their elections.
What you're hearing from the president is his frustration about the lack of some of the blue states, frankly, of enforcing these things and making sure that they are free and fair elections.
We need constant improvement on that front.
I don't know what the ultimate solution is going to be.
I'm not going to get ahead of the negotiations here, but I think that is something that's going to be a continuing theme here.
It's something that we'll continue to push.
And we hope the governors will insist upon that same thing as well.
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.
No series of ballots that were counted after election day were our candidates ahead on any of those counts.
It just 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 in the election system, and it's essential.
And everybody, no matter what party you're in, should agree with that.
The mass mailing of paper ballot or mail-in ballots and all the other irregularities that have haunted us over the last couple cycles, we need to tighten that up.
Now, the Red States have done a lot of good work in that front, but it's the blue states that I'm frankly concerned about.
So we'll see how the law is modified and what's changed, but I hope we can get consensus to get that done.
Well, I think the people who think there's a lot of fraud in the elections, whether blue states, red states, any state, are people who have never worked the polls.
I mean, I've worked the polls, and you get trained, and there is layer upon layer upon layer of protections to keep fraudulent votes from being cast.
They're Republican, patriotic, Republican, and Democratic poll watchers every step of the way.
So, Greg, I want to ask you, since you've worked the polls, according to Ballotpedia, Illinois is one of those states that does not require ID to vote.
You would have to know, if you go in on election day, you would have to know that the person whose signature you're trying to forge did not vote early, has not already cast a ballot, did not vote by mail, or won't come into the voting move and try and cast their own ballot after you have left.
You're going to get caught, and it ain't worth it for one vote.
We're not sure where it's going to crash, but a lot of us were left on the ground.
But as far as the elections and IDs, I didn't realize there were that many states that actually didn't have to have an ID, and I heard the explanation before.
But they might call and say, call the election and say, well, nobody had real IDs.
And I understand you can get on an airplane for a $45 fee, but whoever can't afford that before the primaries It's kind of a discriminatory voting thing to like say, you know, they might have a rule pop up or not, but they may call an election invalid because of it.
And Speaker Johnson, he's a snake in the grass.
He's about like Eddie Haskell trying to pull something off.
But that's just what I've got to say about that as a Republican.
And also as a Republican, we've kind of got our own little microcosm with former U.S. Senator Borin.
He had big scandals at the University of Oklahoma that I think we need the Borin files released, at least try to.
And we've got $10 billion arena being crammed down our throats, but that's all I got to say.
But I want to ask you before you go about the SAVE Act.
What do you think about requiring in person proof of American citizenship when you either register or when you change your registration?
unidentified
I think people that are well on their path to citizenship ought to be considered to vote as soon as they can, you know, be as soon as they can be citizens.
I mean, a lot of them try hard and they get deported to the middle of a riot in Turkey.
Let's talk about voting in California because you heard Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, talking specifically about California and saying how bad that those elections are run.
California is a state that ID is not required to vote.
So tell me about your voting process and how you can be assured that the right people are voting.
unidentified
Well, I believe in, might be kind of naive, I'm 70 years old, but I believe in the faith of other people.
People are not going to do that.
People are not going to risk themselves for a vote because we know who Donald and his cohort, Stephen Miller, are talking about.
We know which ethnic group he's talking about.
I just have total faith in our voting system, whether it be Mail-N or personal.
Personally, I hated Mail-N ballots, but because of COVID, now I'm doing it.
So I send everything in.
But up until six years ago, I always went in.
But COVID, I said, okay, no big deal.
I'll just start mailing my ballots in.
So I do have faith in our voting system.
And like I said, everything that comes out of the Oval Office, people, please don't listen to it.
And then when they started the mail-in ballots, and there are so many people that said, you know, they've gotten numerous ballots mailed to their house, and there's no way of checking that.
Again, like Mike Johnson said, in California, after the election is closed on Election Day, then we have all these other ballots come in, and it can go on for six weeks that they're accepting all these mail-in ballots.
You know, people, oh, we found more over here, and we found some more over here.
I think Donald Trump is doing an excellent job in trying to get this election system of ours under control.
I think nationalization, again, thank you for the C-SPAN service.
The nationalization of election is a bad idea by the worst person to pose it.
This is someone who is convicted of a fraud and actually waiting for citizen and locked up.
And the only thing that's keeping him out of prison is he's a sitting president.
Aside from his own personal interests, anybody that pays taxes, they know that somehow another the government know who you are.
And so the same interests that come after you for pay-in, they should also understand the value of your vote as a republic.
And with that, again, we're talking about this person that bought a mega GOP person that bought Dominion voting machines and the software.
And then they turn around and get the actual rules from Georgia, what's to keep them from actually just duplicating and at some auspicious time introducing false votes in themselves.
So each state has an interest.
And if we go back to Colorado, as they actually sued to take Donald Trump off their ballot, because the people didn't have confidence, I think the Supreme Court made a mistake in not letting the people decide.
At any rate, they did tell them, that is the people of Colorado, you do have a chance to see if he is qualified.
And this dates back to him engaged in insurrection, and I'll emphasize the word engaged.
That's the 14th Amendment, Section 3.
And so the Congress was supposed to have taken a two-third vote on him for him to be qualified.
So I don't have that information, but you can see the map right here.
We'll just put it up for you again.
unidentified
And anything mail-in, they should disallow any mail-in ballots from any state that doesn't clean up their voter rolls because this is where a lot of cheating goes on.
These people don't want to walk in and face people.
They mail them in.
And these ballot boxes in 2020 were just outrageous.
It was just, there was no, in 2020, the election was rigged big time, and it's obvious.
And these people that, you know, it's really hard to listen to this program sometimes because these people are so uninformed.
And I blame media for that.
But, you know, what's going on in this country is big time right now.
And if we don't get the voting right, we ain't going to have a country.
But as far as putting elections under national control, the federal government control.
unidentified
I just think that states have to, well, it's got to be a federal regulation for all the states to do it because, you know, I know the states are allowed to do their own, but it seems like these states aren't cleaning up their rolls and they don't want to do that.
I think there's only one state that does mail-in ballot right.