Donald Trump has spent quite a bit of time lately trying to lower expectations ahead of this year’s midterm elections. When the president sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity last week, for example, he said it’s an “amazing phenomena” that the party that controls the White House so often fares poorly in the midterms.
“There’s something down deep psychologically with the voters that they want, maybe a check or something?” he asked rhetorically.
This week, the Republican raised a similar observation during an Oval Office interview with Reuters’ Steve Holland — but this time, Trump offered one additional thought. From the Reuters report:
The president expressed frustration that his Republican Party could lose control of the U.S. House of Representatives or the Senate in this year’s midterm elections, citing historical trends that have seen the party in power lose seats in the second year of a presidency.
‘It’s some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms,’ Trump said. He boasted that he had accomplished so much that ‘when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.’
Trump’s incessant focus on the historical pattern seems designed to avoid blame: If and when Republicans fare poorly, the president apparently wants to be able to say, “No one should blame me, this is what always happens.”
But it is that other part of the quote that is especially important.
Broadly speaking, there are three core problems with his suggestion that his accomplishments negate the need for national elections. The first is that Trump is an unpopular president who’s failing spectacularly at practically every aspect of his job. That he has a record of accomplishments worthy of pride is absurd.
Second, the people have a right to weigh in on the nation’s direction and its future, regardless of the sitting president’s track record. Elections are not punishments, they’re governing opportunities to which Americans are entitled. That Trump continues to struggle with this foundational idea is a reminder of his aversion to democracy.
Finally, what makes the rhetoric especially jarring is the familiarity of the circumstances. It was just last week that the president spoke to House Republicans and briefly mentioned “canceling” the 2026 elections before backing off.
In August, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — whose country cannot hold elections during Russia’s deadly war — Trump said, “Say, three and a half years from now, so you mean, if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections.” A year earlier, in the run-up to Election Day 2024, the then-candidate reflected on his professed popularity and asked, “So why are we having an election?” Conservatives are likely to see the quote Trump offered to Reuters and shrug, brushing it off as a harmless aside. But throughout his career, he’s repeatedly rejected the idea that Americans can resolve their differences at the ballot box and asserted that he’d only accept election results that align with his hopes and expectations. Every time he muses about the United States not having elections, his authoritarian vision comes into sharper focus. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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