‘I Should Have’: Trump Says He Regrets Not Seizing Voting Machines In 2020 To Overturn Election

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump told the New York Times that he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines following the 2020 presidential election so that he could overturn the election, which he continues to baselessly claim was rigged.

Trump sat with the Times last week for a lengthy interview, which the paper continued to report on throughout the weekend. In a Sunday report, Times journalists Alan Feuer and Ashley Ahn detailed Trump’s remarks about seizing the voting machines and his 2020 efforts to actually do so.

Trump pushed both his then-Attorney General Bill Barr and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on whether or not he could seize the machines. Barr flatly rejected the DOJ getting involved with such an act, and Giuliani was rebuffed by the Department of Homeland Security.
“In the end, Mr. Trump did not move forward with the proposal — a decision he said in the interview with The Times that he regretted,” reported the Times, which quoted Trump directly:

“Well, I should have,” he said.

Asked whether using the military to impound voting machines had been a viable option, the president questioned the sophistication of the National Guard.

“I don’t know that they are sophisticated enough,” he said. “You know, they’re good warriors. I’m not sure that they’re sophisticated enough in the ways of crooked Democrats, and the way they cheat, to figure that out.”

Trump’s comments quickly sent shock waves across the political world, in which critics are already questioning if the Trump administration will take actions to disrupt the 2026 midterm elections – beyond the unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering push already underway.