Joy Reid Floats Conspiracy Theory That the 2026 Election Will Be Rigged: ‘Insane’ to ‘Assume We’re Going to Have Normal Elections’

Former MSNBC host Joy Reid called it “insane” to “assume we’re going to have normal elections in 2026 — and added that she believes President Donald Trump intends to stay in power for the rest of his life.

Speaking Thursday with Wajahat Ali on Ali’s substack The Left Hook, Reid floated the conspiracy theory that the United States will not hold free and fair elections in 2026.

“Whenever Democrats say to me … ‘we have to coalesce for 2026,’ I always add to the end of their sentence …
‘Yeah, assuming we actually have free and fair elections,'” Reid said. “I think it’s insane, honestly, to just assume we’re going to have normal elections next year.”

Reid’s argument centered around the idea that Republican members of congress voted for the Trump-backed “Big, Beautiful” budget bill despite many expressing concerns.

“To me, the fact that Republicans are still voting for the bill tells me that they’re not actually worried about being reelected,” Reid said. “The way Trump is behaving, he’s not acting like somebody who worries that his party will lose power or that even if the party, even if somehow we had normal elections and Democrats took control of either House … he’s not acting like somebody who’s worried about the consequences of that.”

The former MSNBC host added that she thinks Trump is “behaving as an autocrat” because he doesn’t need the votes of the American people to maintain his grip on power.

“I don’t think Trump intends to leave office,” Reid said. “I’m very clear about that. I think he intends stay in office like Putin till he dies.”

She added, “I think it’s going to take an extraordinary movement to get rid of him.”

Watch above via Wajahat Ali.