‘Whoa!’ MS NOW Host Stunned When Trump Floats Declaring a National Emergency To Take Over Elections

President Donald Trump entertained the idea of declaring a national emergency ahead of the November midterm elections, alarming MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff.

Trump has urged the Senate to pass the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a photo ID when voting. The House passed the legislation, which remains stalled in the Senate, where Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) lacks the votes to advance the bill. Although Republicans control the chamber 53-47, 60 votes are required to overcome a procedural hurdle known as cloture. The president has repeatedly urged Thune to eliminate the rule so that the bill can pass with a simple majority. However, Thune has said changing the rule also lacks the votes.

On Tuesday, Trump was interviewed via phone by MAGA pundit Wayne Allyn Root, who at one point told the president, “So, let me put an idea in your head.” Root went on to suggest Trump declare a national security emergency. Hours later on MS NOW’s All In, Soboroff, who was guest-hosting, played the clip and offered his reaction:

ROOT: If they never get the SAVE America Act done, you have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections. And the Supreme Court ruled in 1983, under Reagan, that INS vs. Chadha– that if you declare a national security emergency as the President of the United States, they can’t challenge it. It can only be overturned by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress.

So if you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship, and a limit to mail-in ballots, and you don’t even need the Senate’s vote.

TRUMP: Let me just say that stranger things have happened. Ok, I’ll leave it at that.

[END CLIP]

SOBOROFF: Whoa! Stranger things have happened, like Trump goading an armed insurrectionist mob, which stormed the capitol and attempted to overturn an election that he lost. And as I saw up close, sending military troops and armed federal agents to the streets of America’s cities. So tonight, as Americans, as you practice your constitutional right to vote, let us not lose sight of how little this president respects that process.

Over at Election Law Blog, elections expert Rick Hasen slammed the idea as having no basis in law.

“The President has no role to play in running elections, a point courts have repeatedly raised in challenges to his two executive orders on elections,” he wrote. “Calling it a ‘national emergency’ doesn’t change things. There’s no part of the Constitution or federal law that would give the President power to say how states run their mail ballot programs, voter id, etc.”

Watch above via MS NOW.

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