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.
WASHINGTON JOURNALS STARTS NOW. GOOD MORNING.
It's Wednesday, February 4th.
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.
This was on Dan Bongino's podcast.
These people were brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally.
And the, you know, amazing that the Republicans aren't uffer on it.
The Republicans should say, we want to take over, we should take over the voting, the voting in at least many 15 places.
The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.
And we're getting your thoughts.
What do you think of that?
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.
What exactly did you mean when you said that you should nationalize elections?
And which 15 states are you talking about?
I want to see elections be honest.
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.
We're getting your thoughts this morning.
Let's start with Fran in New Hampshire, Democrat.
Hi, Fran, you're on the air.
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 Fran, do you vote in person?
I certainly do.
And what do you have to show as far as ID when you show up to vote to prove that you're the person to get that ballot?
My driver's license.
All right.
And here's Arthur in Florida, line for Republicans.
Yes, ma'am.
I believe that we need to keep the system as honest as we possibly can.
We need to make sure that there ain't any disregard actions going on.
And whatever we have to do to keep honest elections, we need to do that.
Thank you for your time, ma'am.
Bye.
Bye.
This is Malin, South Carolina, Independent Line.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I just want to call and find out what this president we've got is trying to just take over the whole world.
I don't believe this thing about this election stuff at all.
That's probably going to be in his favor, wanting to be in favor of him.
I just don't think it's right to be messing with elections as bad as it is.
Is there anything you would like to see change about our election system?
As far as the city is.
In South Carolina, where I live at, everything seems to go very easy and just right.
You know, you don't have to have all these Republicans with him wanting to change everything around and move and redistricting and all that.
It's just another pull ply from a person that's not capable of doing stuff.
All right.
And this is Ballotpedia.
This is at ballotpedia.org.
It's got a lot of really good information about election laws and the policies of different states.
So this is voter ID requirements as of the November 5th, 2024 election.
So things could have changed over the past year.
But as of November of 2024, there were 35 states that required voters to present identification in order to vote at the polls on Election Day.
Of these states, 25 of them required voters to present identification containing a photograph, and 10 accepted other forms of identification.
The remaining 15 states did not require voters to present identification in order to vote at the polls on Election Day.
And the valid forms of ID differ by states, but you can go to Ballotpedia and take a look and look at your state or different states.
So I wonder what you think about that.
Do you think that all states should require a photo ID at the voting polls?
Eric, Buffalo, New York, Democrat, what do you think?
Yeah, what I think is Donald Trump is a big baby, and he's drawing all this attention.
And it's just a ruse avoiding the Epstein files.
He's throwing so much at the United States that we just go down that rabbit hole.
When it comes to voting, there's no problem with voting.
These people have put this thing together, and I think it is going pretty well.
But he wants you to think of something else, and that's only because of his ego and where he wants this party to go.
He don't care nothing about the party or no one.
All he wants his self to be is legendary.
But somebody that's got one foot in the grave and one foot on a banana peel, this man is amazing.
And like the Bible says, what is it to gain the world and lose your soul?
It's amazing.
And Rachel on the Republican line, Brooksville, Florida.
Good morning.
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?
I don't understand, you know.
Right.
So you can still get it.
You still can get an ID.
But the question, Rachel, is the SAVE Act.
What do you think of requiring in-person proof of American citizenship when you register or when you change your registration?
Yes.
Well, you know, I want, you know, I want legal people to vote.
I can't, you know, when 20 million foreigners come in here, I don't think they know the issues like, you know, we citizens do.
That's why I, you know, I don't think they should be voting, at least not right, you know, right away.
No, so it is illegal for non-citizens to vote.
Yeah, it's illegal.
So, the question is.
Right, right.
So, so proving your citizenship.
So, you're in favor of that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Got it.
Sid in Maryland, independent line.
Go ahead, Sid.
I do support the president's comment on nationalizing the elections in certain states.
The states like California issue driver's license and CDL licenses to illegal aliens, and they can use that ID to vote in the election.
And I do support the SAVE Act, where you do have to prove your U.S. citizenship in order to vote.
So I'm in favor of that.
Yes.
And, Sid, the argument against the SAVE Act is that not every American citizen has certainly not a passport.
A lot of people just don't leave the country and they don't have a passport.
And they don't have access to their birthday.
If you have one, then go get one.
And you can also get a U.S. passport card to prove that you're a citizen.
But it's against the law for non-citizens to be voting in our elections.
That's just our Constitution.
That's what's written in our Constitution.
And that needs to be followed, whether you like it or not.
You know, I served in the country, I served the country for 20 years, the military and government, and I certainly would support that.
I earned my citizenship.
I didn't just walk across the border and got asylum.
You know what I'm saying?
So it is constitutional.
Concerns About Election Security00:05:49
Yep.
Okay.
Let's hear from Vice Chair of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner.
He's a Democrat.
He said yesterday that President Trump's calls to nationalize elections is concerning.
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.
That was Senator Mark Warner, and we're talking to Sherman now in Ohio, line for Democrats.
Hey, good morning.
How are you doing?
Good.
Hey, before I make my comments, I just wanted to take the time out to not only praise you for your work, but the folks behind the camera as well.
Thank you.
And I think too many of my fellow countrymen, especially Democrats, acted upon very naive instincts.
They automatically assumed that there was going to be another election.
And Trump's attempts to nationalize this election is far from the course.
Trump and his henchmen, they're going to steal everything that's not nailed down.
And unfortunately, this is the result of 2024 and not enough of us getting out to vote, especially the younger generation, millennials, the X, Y.
I don't know if the Z generation is old enough to.
But I hope it's a hard lesson to learn.
Democracy's not a spectator sport.
Thanks so much.
And this is Edwin, the Republican, New Bern, North Carolina.
Hi, Edwin.
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.
So why do people think?
Why would you think it's a bad thing, though, to nationalize elections?
What are the drawbacks in your country?
It is because it's a control.
Donald John Trump, if you look at the history of Donald John Trump, he's a control freak.
His whole aura, okay?
And to nationalize elections, he's got sour grapes because he lost the first time by millions of votes.
And he hates to lose.
I'm sorry.
Nobody wins every sporting event.
There are scores to be made.
And I'm sick and tired of the media giving Donald John Trump the biggest spotlight.
It needs to stop because we're forgetting everything right now what's going on.
Affordability, this economy, and the Epstein file.
Everything else is a distraction.
All right, Edwin.
Let's hear from the Speaker of the House on what he thinks about the security of our elections.
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.
Election Day Fraudulence00:05:11
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.
All right.
Well, let's hear from somebody in a blue state.
Here's Greg in Champaign, Illinois, Democrat.
What do you think, Greg?
Good morning.
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.
And it just ain't happening.
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.
Right.
Tell us about that.
How do you know that the person standing in front of you asking for a ballot is the right person?
Because your signature is as distinct as your fingerprint.
It is very, very, very difficult to forge a signature.
And they train you how to spot it if people try.
If you don't believe me, try forging someone else's signature and see if you can even come close.
So, Greg.
That's that.
So, what I understand is you ask somebody to.
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.
That's how you know.
Okay, so when somebody shows up, you ask them to sign, and then you do a comparison.
Sign in, and you have a copy of their signature.
You can compare that signature with the signature they wrote down in your book.
Got it.
John, a Republican in Norman, Oklahoma.
Go ahead, John.
Yeah, we're red state.
I'm pretty moderate.
The Republican Party is like Flight 93.
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.
Voter Fraud Concerns00:12:18
Yeah, yeah.
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?
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.
I mean, I personally know of that.
All right.
And these people are being treated so unfairly.
It's just, it's not at all Christian.
All right, John, let's go to the line for Democrats now in Sun City, California.
Rudy, go ahead.
You're on the air.
Good morning, Mimi.
Everybody seems to believe anything that comes out of Donald's mouth.
And the biggest thing I want for him to show me is the proof.
Give me 500 voter frauds per state.
And I think that adds up to 25,000 since from his calculation, there's millions of people voting illegally.
Well, show me 25,000 people that have voted illegally.
You know, he can't do it.
You know, he runs his mouth and everybody jumps on it, you know, like crazy.
So, you know, he lies, he lies, he lies, and people pick up on it, except for me.
So, Rudy.
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.
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.
All right.
Well, let's stay in California this time to Redding on the Republican line.
Kathy, good morning.
Good morning.
I am all for ID, voter ID.
I have worked in the elections since 2018.
And here in California, we are told by our election board that we are not allowed to ask anybody for identification.
But I think that's wrong because you have no idea who these people are when they come in to vote.
And I really think it's something here in California that we need.
And so many that came in to vote always want to show me their ID.
And I say, no, no, no, I can't.
I can't walk, you know, I'm not required to see it.
But I think it with the illegals that have come into this country, especially in California, we need to have voter ID.
There's a person here in California called Carl DeMayo, who is actually working on getting voter ID.
We just had a petition of which we collected 1.2 signatures to get this put on the ballot in November of 2026.
And Kathy, how are you currently checking the person that comes in front of you that they're the right person?
You know, we heard from the caller in Illinois who said that they have them sign and then they check the signatures.
No.
We don't do any of that.
Don't do any of that.
And it's a shame.
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.
And one more.
Sorry, one more question for you as far as mail-in ballots.
How long would you allow those ballots to be counted?
What do you think about that?
Like you said six weeks, you said that that was too long.
How long would you allow it?
Yeah, way too long.
And, you know, they say that if it's postmarked by the election day, but they haven't arrived yet, they'll take them in for a week.
But a couple of years ago, it was six weeks, and those ballots were still dribbling in, and they were still accepting them.
And I think that's outrageous.
I think we need to get under control.
But thank you very much.
All right.
This is Lee in Georgia, Democrat.
Good morning, Lee.
You're on the air.
All righty.
Yeah.
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 Lee, I got to move on because we're just running out of time on this topic.
I want to get in.
Ron in Tennessee, Republican.
Go ahead, Ron.
Hi, Mimi.
Thanks for taking my call.
Could I ask you a question?
Out of that 15 that don't have IDs, how many are blue and how many are red?
Yes.
Do you know that?
So I don't have that information, but you can see the map right here.
We'll just put it up for you again.
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.
So you prefer.
You are in favor of nationalizing elections.
Hell yeah.
You've got to prove you're a citizen to be here to vote.
It's the most important thing.
So that's a save act.
That's not necessarily.
Yeah, sorry.
That's the save act.
I hear you saying that you're in favor of that.
But as far as putting elections under national control, the federal government control.
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.
And I think it's like Oregon or something.
And they cleaned up the rolls.
All right.
This is Mark, Pennsylvania, Republican.
You're on the air, Mark.
Good morning.
Yes, I really don't have a lot of confidence in the way we run our election systems.
It's not because the people in these local precincts that are doing their job aren't trying to do their job correctly.
It's the whole system and the way it's set up.
So I'll give you an example.
Pennsylvania, I go in, I'll sign a keep one of those little digital pads.
My signature doesn't look like anything like it's supposed to because they're doing it on an angle.
I'm sure everybody who signed one of those pads will agree.
It's not the same as signing a piece of paper flat on the table.
So throw that out right off the bat.
The ID, they don't check IDs.
And even if they did, it's up to the person who's looking at the ID to say it's you.
So if you've got someone that's unscrupulous that works in these things, say in a like Philadelphia area, they're not even going to check them.
They'll just look at them, oh, yeah, you're good.
Go ahead, go through.
And who's going to oversee that?
Nobody, because they're going to hire only the people that they know will let stuff go through.
Secondarily, mail and balloting.
It was illegal in the state of Pennsylvania to start a mail and balloting scheme in 2020, but they did it anyway.
And you saw the problems that happened with that, how long it took to count these ballots.
You can't verify the envelope to the ballot itself.
So it can never be taken to court because you don't know what they voted for.
That's why you can't prove any of this stuff.
And there's like signature verification, another one on these envelopes.
Down in Georgia, there was a partial recount of 15,000 votes.
They found 450 signatures that didn't match.
Brad Rasensberg, instead of calling the election null and void because the signatures were so high up there, they had 1.2 million votes.
That would have said 45,000 signatures potentially wouldn't have matched.
He just covered it up and said, up, there's only two that didn't match.
I checked it out and let it go through.
So signature, you know, you have to be an expert at signature verification.
In Arizona, they reset the parameters on the equipment so all the signatures would go through.
We got your point, but we are out of time for this segment.
I know a lot of you want to weigh in on this topic.
We'll have time later in the program during open forums, so be sure to call in then.
Coming up later on Washington Journal, we've got California Republican Tom McClintock.
He joins us to discuss the end of the partial government shutdown and other congressional news.