President Donald Trump has publicly entertained an extraordinary proposal that would place the 2026 midterm elections under greater federal control—after a loyal MAGA broadcaster urged him to declare a national emergency and impose new voting restrictions without waiting for Congress.
Trump did not explicitly endorse the plan.
But he did not reject it either.
“Stranger things have happened,” the president replied when right-wing radio host Wayne Allyn Root presented the proposal during an interview Tuesday.
“I’ll leave it at that.”
The brief response transformed what had been circulating as a fringe election theory into a question now hanging directly over the White House: Could Trump attempt to use emergency powers to change how Americans vote just months before control of Congress is decided?
Root’s proposal centered on Trump’s stalled SAVE America Act, a Republican-backed measure that would impose proof-of-citizenship requirements and new identification rules for voters. The House passed the legislation, but it has failed to advance through the Senate.
With senators now on recess and the November elections approaching, Root urged Trump to bypass the legislative process completely.
“If they never get the SAVE America Act done, you have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections,” Root told the president.
Root claimed that a 1983 Supreme Court decision, INS v. Chadha, would prevent courts or Congress from challenging the declaration except through a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
He then outlined the restrictions he believed Trump could impose through executive action: photo identification, documentary proof of citizenship and limits on mail-in voting.
The legal theory, however, rests on a serious misreading of both the Constitution and the Supreme Court decision Root invoked.
INS v. Chadha did not give presidents unchecked authority during national emergencies. The case concerned a “legislative veto” that allowed one chamber of Congress to overturn an executive-branch decision without passing new legislation through both chambers and presenting it to the president.
The Supreme Court ruled that arrangement unconstitutional because it violated the Constitution’s requirements of bicameralism and presentment.
The decision did not hold that presidential emergency declarations are immune from judicial review. Nor did it establish that such declarations can be overturned only by a two-thirds vote of Congress.
Presidential actions taken under emergency authority remain subject to statutory limits, constitutional constraints and review by federal courts.
The Constitution also does not hand the president general authority to administer federal elections.
Its Elections Clause gives state legislatures primary responsibility for determining the “Times, Places and Manner” of congressional elections while allowing Congress—not the president acting alone—to alter those regulations.
States run elections through thousands of local jurisdictions. Congress can establish national voting protections and election requirements by passing legislation, but a president cannot simply rewrite state election rules by declaring an emergency.
Any attempt by Trump to impose voter-identification requirements, proof-of-citizenship rules or mail-ballot restrictions unilaterally would almost certainly trigger immediate lawsuits from states, voting-rights organizations and affected voters.
Courts would then examine whether Congress had granted the president the specific authority he claimed and whether the restrictions violated constitutional and federal voting protections.
Root’s proposal is nevertheless gaining attention among election deniers and right-wing activists frustrated by the Senate’s failure to pass the SAVE America Act.
Supporters describe the legislation as an election-security measure. Critics argue that it addresses the exceedingly rare problem of noncitizen voting while creating substantial barriers for eligible Americans who lack ready access to passports, birth certificates or other qualifying documents.
The impact could fall especially heavily on married women whose current names differ from those on their birth certificates, elderly voters, rural residents, low-income citizens and people born outside hospitals.
Mail-in ballot restrictions could also alter election participation in states where absentee voting has become a routine and lawful part of the electoral system.
Trump has spent years making unsupported claims about widespread election fraud and attacking voting methods he believes disadvantage Republicans. After losing the 2020 election, he attempted to overturn the result through court challenges, pressure on state officials and efforts targeting Congress’ certification of the Electoral College count.
Dozens of courts rejected or dismissed challenges brought by Trump and his allies, and no evidence emerged of fraud sufficient to alter the result.
That history makes his willingness to entertain Root’s proposal especially consequential.
Trump has reportedly dismissed similar emergency-power suggestions in the past. His latest response may have been deliberately ambiguous—a way to flatter a supportive interviewer without committing to an actual policy.
But presidential ambiguity can carry enormous weight when the subject is federal control over an approaching election.
“Stranger things have happened” is not an executive order, and no emergency declaration has been issued. There is currently no public evidence that the White House has adopted Root’s proposal or instructed government lawyers to develop it.
Still, the exchange reveals how quickly an unsupported legal theory can move from right-wing media into a direct conversation with the president.
It also exposes the deeper objective behind the proposal: using emergency authority to obtain voting restrictions that Republicans have been unable to enact through the normal democratic process.
Congressional gridlock does not create new presidential power. A stalled bill does not become law simply because the president declares its provisions essential to national security.
If Trump attempted Root’s plan, the battle would immediately move into federal court—and could become one of the most important constitutional confrontations in modern American election history.
For now, Trump has left the door deliberately open.
And with the midterms approaching, those five words ensure the country will be watching what comes through it.
