President Donald Trump said Monday that Republicans should move to “nationalize” elections, arguing that the party needs to take a stronger role in how voting is conducted across the country.
In an interview with former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino on The Dan Bongino Show, Trump said Republicans should stop sitting on the sidelines.
“The Republicans should say, We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places,” Trump said.
“The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
Trump again maintained that he won the 2020 election in a landslide and said he only lost because of illegal voting. He also hinted that developments could be coming out of Georgia, saying, “You’re going to see some interesting things come out,” without offering specifics.
His comments come as election records in Fulton County, Georgia, remain under scrutiny. The FBI recently raided an elections office there, seizing ballots and voting records tied to the 2020 election. While state investigations and independent reviews have found procedural mistakes, they concluded there was no widespread fraud sufficient to change the outcome.
In 2023, then–Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis secured an indictment against Trump and others over alleged efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 results. That case was later dismissed after courts disqualified her office due to a conflict of interest — a legal ending that raised its own set of questions about how the case was handled in the first place.
Disputes over election records in Fulton County have continued, with legal fights over access to voter data and federal subpoenas seeking ballots and related materials.
The Constitution assigns states the responsibility for administering elections, but Trump has argued that federal authority still plays a role. Last August, he wrote on Truth Social that states are merely an “agent” for the federal government when counting and tabulating votes and must follow federal direction “for the good of our country.”
Election security has become a central focus of Trump’s agenda heading into the 2026 midterms. Last year, he issued an executive order requiring applicants using the national voter registration form to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship and changing rules affecting mail-in voting. Key parts of that order have been blocked by federal courts and remain tied up in legal challenges.
Trump’s message is clear: Republicans should stop trusting a system he says failed them and start pushing for stronger control and uniform standards. Whether the courts like it or not, the debate over who runs elections — and how — is far from over. And with Trump leading the charge, the push for tighter election security isn’t going away anytime soon.
