[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 3, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S448-S449]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Trump Administration

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, in a podcast interview released 
yesterday, Donald Trump called for Republicans to ``take over voting in 
15 States in the country.'' Trump said:

       The Republicans should say, we want to take over. We [want 
     to] take [things] over. Republicans ought to nationalize the 
     voting.

  Let me say that again because it is hard to believe that a President 
of the United States--anyone who believes in democracy, anyone who 
believes in the Constitution, anyone who believes in this Country--
would say it, but Trump said it. Trump said:

       Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.

  This is more dangerous, autocratic poison from Donald Trump. What 
does Donald Trump think he ran for--a dictatorship, President for life 
in a single-party state, where one party runs the elections, like in 
every other tin-pot dictatorship?
  This President clearly doesn't believe in democracy at all. Never in 
American history have we had a President so hostile to democratic 
traditions. Even worse, never have we had a President who breaks the 
norms that have made this country strong and held it together for 
centuries, and he just slashes them. And people on the other side of 
the aisle just shrug their shoulders. It is incredible.
  Democracy is at risk here from the President of the United States, 
and the people who might have the most say over him, the Republican 
Senators, are silent, quaking in their boots that they can never 
criticize Donald Trump, no matter how outrageous what he says is.
  What Donald Trump wants is a one-party MAGA dictatorship. Do you want 
your kids to grow up in that autocracy? Do you want your kids to grow 
up in a one-party MAGA dictatorship, which is what Trump is calling 
for? He wants MAGA to call the shots and MAGA to control the elections.
  Democracy trusts the people, but Donald Trump fears the people. He 
wants to make sure those who disagree with him don't have a voice. He 
can't stand criticism. Republicans ought to fiercely condemn Donald 
Trump's vicious attacks against our democratic systems. They are not 
only vicious; they are dangerous.
  Republicans seem to have no problem criticizing Democrats who are 
trying to make it easier to vote, saying we are trying to nationalize 
elections. Yet when Donald Trump actually wants the Federal Government 
to control how elections are run in the States, the Republican Senate 
is silent as mice.
  It is not just Donald Trump's words. If it were just his words, you 
might shrug your shoulders. It is his actions. He carries these things 
out--FBI agents raiding election offices in Georgia; Trump ordering his 
goons to dig up fake evidence of stolen elections and people voting 
illegally; demanding that States turn over voter rolls to the 
Department of Justice, which is his own attack dog; threatening to use 
the Insurrection Act against States he doesn't like.
  We know why Donald Trump is doing this. He is losing support of the 
American people, and he knows it. So he doesn't want them to vote. He 
doesn't want them to have power.
  The American people are sending his candidates packing at the polls 
in State after State, most recently in Texas. They are losing elections 
by dramatic amounts because the people are repudiating Donald Trump.
  What is his answer? To try and lower people's costs, to try and 
reduce the chaos in our cities? Oh, no. Take away people's right to 
vote. Let Donald Trump and his MAGA goons run the elections.
  Democracy, the roots of which tunnel deep into the soil of this great 
country, has turned against Donald Trump in a truly profound way. We 
haven't seen anything quite like this, the dramatic drops in the 
President's popularity and poll numbers. So, of course, what is his 
answer? What is Trump's answer? Undo democracy itself.
  That is the oldest trick in the book of dictators. Just say the 
elections are fake. Say certain people's votes don't count; your side 
should control the elections for some made-up reason or another.
  Well, we have seen this, again and again, in countries around the 
world but never in the United States of America, until now. That is 
what makes Donald Trump's agenda such a danger to the grand American 
tradition of democracy, because it is only about him and the power he 
can grab. He doesn't have a single democratic fiber in his being. It is 
all about Donald Trump, his ego, his power, his self-aggrandizement. 
That is it. Democracy doesn't matter. The American people don't matter.
  I ask my Republican colleagues: When the hell will you find your 
voice? When he says that we should nationalize the elections and 
Republicans should take over, and you don't make a peep? What is going 
on here? You are just so afraid?
  This is the path that has ruined many a democracy.
  Now, our democracy is deep and strong, but it requires and allows 
resistance to these things--verbal resistance, electoral resistance. 
Where are you? When are Republican colleagues going to speak against 
such brutish autocratic drivel from Trump?
  His drive to autocracy is so obvious that any sixth-grade social 
studies student would recognize what Donald Trump is doing and tell you 
it is totally against what America is all about.
  Republicans, if they think they are going to get the crumbs from 
Donald Trump's table when he gets his way, they are sadly mistaken. 
Donald Trump's autocratic instincts will consume everyone, Democrats 
and Republicans alike.

[[Page S449]]

  Republicans must reject Trump's call to nationalize elections, the 
very pillars of our grand democracy, our grand national experiment. 
Democracy must prevail over the cult of arrogant, autocratic, 
egotistical personality.