GOP Senator Shoots Down Trump’s Call for National Elections Takeover

Senator Tim Sheehy (R-MT) publicly undercut President Donald Trump’s push to federalize America’s elections on Thursday, flatly warning he did not support the idea, which would require a constitutional amendment.

The proposal, first floated by the president on Tuesday in a podcast interview with Dan Bongino, his former FBI deputy director, came alongside Trump’s familiar unsubstantiated claims that he won states where he was officially defeated in past presidential elections, which he again branded “crooked.” The president said Republicans should “take over the voting” in at least 15 jurisdictions.

Trump repeated the claim on Wednesday night in an interview with NBC Nightly News host Tom Llamas, baselessly arguing many elections across the country were “extremely corrupt” and once again discussing “federal controls.”

During an interview with Sheehy on Thursday morning, CNN anchor Pamela Brown rolled back the clip and pressed the Republican on the matter.

“Yes or no, Senator, do you support elections becoming federalized, contrary to what the constitution says?” Brown asked.

“No, that’s a constitutional amendment and elections are placed at the state level for a reason,” Sheehy replied.

He continued: “I do strongly believe in voter ID, I think that’s absolutely the right answer. Unfortunately, as you know, to implement that federally would require basically amending the Constitution, which is, you know, the bar for that is very high from state legislatures to super-majorities in Congress. In our partisan age, it’s highly unlikely that happens as much as I wish it would.”

“So I think we have to do everything we can to ensure election security at the federal level and obviously work with states to make sure it’s happening at the state level as well,” he added.

Watch above via CNN.

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