President Donald Trump is drawing widespread attention and backlash after urging Republicans on Monday to “nationalize” elections in at least fifteen jurisdictions he deemed “crooked,” particularly because the U.S. Constitution primarily assigns election authority to the states. Now, the White House is having to defend his remarks.

Saying there are “millions and millions” of undocumented immigrants and “we have to get them out,” Trump warned that “if Republicans don’t get them out, you will never win another election as a Republican.”

He claimed that undocumented immigrants are told, “Oh, well, you can vote, you can do whatever you want.”

“It’s crazy,” he added. “I mean, it’s crazy how you can get these people to vote, and if we don’t get them out, Republicans will never win another election.”

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting,’ the voting in at least many, 15 places,” Trump insisted. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

The New York Times called Trump’s remarks an “escalation,” saying it was “an aggressive rhetorical step that was likely to raise new worries about his administration’s efforts to involve itself in election matters,” and noting that it followed “a string of moves from his administration to try to exert more control over American elections.”

Prominent elections attorney Marc Elias said Trump’s call to nationalize elections is “one of his most explicit signals yet that he plans to interfere with the workings of democracy.”

But during a press gaggle on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that Trump was referring to the SAVE Act, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. Opponents argue many Americans do not have ready access to acceptable documents, such as a passport or birth certificate. The bill could also complicate voter registration for people who changed their names but don’t have updated citizenship documents.

Calling the SAVE Act “a huge common sense piece of legislation that Republicans have supported,” Leavitt added, “I don’t think any rational person who’s being honest with themselves would disagree with the idea of requiring citizens of this country to present an ID before casting a ballot in a federal election, or, frankly, in any election, and that’s something the president wants to see happen.”

Despite Trump’s call to “nationalize” elections and have the Republican Party oversee them, Leavitt told reporters that the president “does believe the states should oversee them. The President believes in the United States Constitution.”

“However,” she continued, “he believes there has obviously been a lot of fraud and irregularities that have taken place in American elections. And, again, voter ID is a highly popular and common sense policy that the president wants to pursue, and he wants to pass legislation to make that happen for all states across the country.”

Leavitt appeared to conflate a small number of California jurisdictions that allow non-citizens to vote in local elections, such as school board elections, with fraud.

“If you look at states like California, or if you look at New York City, for example, non-citizens are allowed to vote in elections in places like California and New York City,” she said. Non-citizens are not allowed to vote in elections in New York City at all.

“That just creates a system, an electoral system that is absolutely ripe with fraud, and you cannot deny the fact that, unfortunately, there are millions of people who have questions about that, as does the president,” she continued.

Noting that it’s a “constitutional issue,” Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune said he is “not in favor” of nationalizing elections, NBC News reported.

The Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said “it’s always been the responsibility of the states to administer elections and it’s a system that works well, so long as the states make it a priority to ensure the integrity of our elections. And we have real concerns about some of the blue states, frankly, that have not been doing that well.”

There is little evidence of voter fraud across the country.

“Extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare,” the Brennan Center for Justice reported. “Yet repeated, false allegations of fraud can make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to participate in elections.”

Former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade noted of Trump’s remarks, “The Constitution delegates the power to conduct elections to the states. This would require an amendment. It would expose voter data to the risk of one hack instead of 50.”

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Attorney George Conway, the prominent Republican-turned-Democratic congressional candidate, is calling for one federal building to be named after President Donald Trump, once his time in office is up.

On Monday, Conway issued a dire warning about President Trump and his “megalomania.”

“The way things are going in America, it should be clear we don’t have much time,” Conway wrote on social media. “We certainly don’t have three years. We need to help ourselves by pushing for impeachment and removal as hard as we can and carrying it out as soon as humanly possible.”

On Tuesday, Conway responded to his fellow Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt, who had written, “There will be no buildings named for Trump, no rest stops, not even a plastic urinal in a national park latrine. Nothing. All that will linger is disgrace and shame.”

Schmidt’s remarks came from his Substack post in which he appeared to compare President Donald Trump’s desire to construct a massive 250-foot-tall triumphal arch, “dwarfing the Lincoln Memorial,” as The Washington Post reported, to Adolf Hitler’s desire to remake Berlin.

“I’d like it to be the biggest one of all,” Trump told reporters. “We’re the biggest, most powerful nation.”

Trump has already leveled the East Wing of the White House to make room for his $400 million ballroom, which the U.S. Department of Justice now claims is necessary for national security.

He also just announced the shuttering of the Kennedy Center on July 4 for a two-year renovation project that he says will cost $200 million. He’s remade the White House Rose Garden — twice. He’s refurbished the Lincoln Bedroom’s bathroom. And he wants to revitalize Washington Dulles International Airport.

But Conway disagreed — at least in part — with Schmidt’s demand that no buildings should be named for Trump

“I strongly disagree with my friend Steve here,” said Conway.

“I think a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility—the most modern and secure one, because our president deserves the best—should be named after Trump. If elected to Congress, I pledge to do my best to enact this into law.”

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U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is under fire over her anti-gun remarks, becoming the latest Trump administration official caught in a firearms backlash. Her threat to jail anyone who brings a gun into Washington, D.C., has set off a revolt across the political spectrum, spearheaded by right-wing gun groups and GOP lawmakers.

“You bring a gun into the District, you mark my words, you’re going to jail,” Pirro said on Fox News Monday afternoon. “I don’t care if you have a license in another district, and I don’t care if you’re a law-abiding gun owner somewhere else. You bring a gun into this District, count on going to jail, and hope you get the gun back, and that makes all the difference.”

The New York Times reported that Pirro’s remarks “could deepen a growing rift between gun owners and the Trump administration.”

U.S. Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) slammed Pirro, warning her, “Come and Take It.”

“I bring a gun into the district every week,” he wrote to Pirro. “I have a license in Florida and DC to carry. And I will continue to carry to protect myself and others.”

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) declared, “This is not how this works,” and urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to “have a quick conversation” with Pirro for a “course correction here.”

READ MORE: Trump Rages at NYT Overnight — Says He Is Now Seeking $1 Billion From Harvard

U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) added, “The District of Columbia has been ‘shall issue’ since 2017 when the requirement that you must have a ‘good reason’ to carry a handgun was struck down. Non-residents can obtain a permit in DC — don’t ask me how I know.”

U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), citing the Second Amendment, wrote: “Shall NOT be infringed is NOT a suggestion.”

“Our Second Amendment freedoms don’t disappear when we cross state lines or enter our nation’s capital city,” he added, before calling for a nationwide concealed carry reciprocity law.

Gun Owners of America, also, called for passage of the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act in response to Pirro’s remarks, as did other gun rights groups.

“Unacceptable and intolerable” is how the National Association for Gun Rights characterized Pirro’s remarks, before turning its focus to the law.

“Jeanine Pirro threatening to arrest people for carrying in DC, even if they are law-abiding and licensed, shows how broken and out of touch these gun laws are,” the group said. “This is why we need Real Constitutional Carry nationwide. Bureaucrats act like the 2A does not exist and brag about jailing people for exercising their rights.”

The NRA did not mention Pirro by name, but also called for passage of the National Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, before declaring, “Your right to self-defense should not end simply because you crossed a state line or into Washington, D.C.”

READ MORE: ‘We Don’t Have Much Time’: George Conway Issues Dire Warning About Donald Trump

MS NOW’s Joe Scarborough, a former Republican U.S. Congressman, now an independent, called Pirro’s remarks “Unconstitutional drivel.”

Another former GOP congressman Joe Walsh, now a Democrat, called Pirro’s remarks the “latest piece of evidence in the Trump administration’s war against gun rights.”

“What Pirro just made is an un-constitutional threat against every American’s right to the 2nd Amendment, on national tv,” The Lincoln Project commented. “Trump and his admin are again trying to strip you of a constitutional right.”

Indeed, as Politico reported, President Donald Trump himself just last week said, “You can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns,” in relation to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal agents. Pretti was a licensed, concealed carry holder.

Trump went even further, saying, “certainly he shouldn’t have been carrying a gun,” and, “I don’t like that he had a gun, I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines, that’s a lot of bad stuff.”

FBI Director Kash Patel recently said, “you cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want.”

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem also said that she didn’t “know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.”

Jeanine Pirro: "You bring a gun into the District, you mark my words, you're going to jail. I don't care if you have a license in another district and I don't care if you're a law abiding law owner…”
pic.twitter.com/QU5uLpXV8Y

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) February 2, 2026

READ MORE: Trump to Bongino: ‘Republicans Ought to Nationalize the Voting’

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