Warner rails against Trump’s primetime speech: ‘This guy is not looking for a secure election’
By Ashleigh Fields
In The Hill
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Sunday said President Trump’s primetime speech shows that he’s not serious about securing elections, pointing to the recent firings of the remaining Democratic members at an independent election administration agency earlier this month.
“There was something called the Elections Assistance Commission. Nobody knows about it, but it works with local registrars, state registrars, making sure we vet voting machines,” Warner said during a Sunday appearance on ABC News’s “This Week.”
“Recently, Trump fired all the senior leadership, made the Republican quit, fired the Democrats. You know, this guy is not looking for a secure election because if we have a free and fair election, he and his allies are gonna get beat historically this fall,” he added.
Warner has spent months casting doubt on the security of midterm elections, noting the possibility of White House interference.
During a Sunday appearance on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” the Virginia senator said Trump’s Thursday address provided further evidence of a potential obstruction after the president cast doubt on the outcome of campaign races in 2018 and 2020.
“I think that what we just saw was this was the opening shot, the opening shot of trying to undermine Americans’ confidence that their vote will be actually counted and mean something,” Warner said of Trump’s Thursday address.
“I fear as well that if he tries to pull something … he’s not ruled out bringing ICE to the polls,” he continued, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “He’s not even ruled out the idea of trying to bar certain voting machines.”
Warner said another point of concern lies in the president’s efforts to “dismantle” the Electronic Registration Information Center, which is a nonprofit, bipartisan data-sharing program used by states to securely cross-reference and clean voter registration lists of those who are deceased or who have moved away.
“There are so many absurdities and falsehoods in Trump’s Thursday night speech, and I’m glad that most media treated it not as serious news,” Warner told CBS News host Margaret Brennan.
Trump has attempted to double down on election security by urging lawmakers to accept the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, which has been met with some objection from Republicans coupled with unmatched support.
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