CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard meet in the Situation Room of the White House, Saturday, June 21, 2025. Portions of this photo have been blurred for security purposes. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)
True dictators who want to take over a country don't wait until there's an election. They plot and plan and strike when the moment is right.
That's what The Bulwark's Will Saletan said when speaking to once-Republican commentator Matt Lewis on his Substack. Saletan said he was researching historical analogs to Trump's efforts to overturn the U.S. election results.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was recently photographed lurking in an evidence truck as the FBI raided a Fulton County elections hub. As AlterNet reported last week, the administration's story for why she was there has changed at least five times.
The truth, said Saletan, is that during a conversation with Trump, Gabbard was indeed sent to Atlanta at Trump's urging, despite Trump claiming otherwise in a subsequent interview.
"Trump literally said to her in a meeting about — she was talking about an unrelated matter, something that was actually part of her job. And he tells — he says to her, and these are witnesses in the room. 'You go do that. You get it done.' He's saying that to the DNI. And so that's why she shows up a couple of days later on an evidence truck," said Saletan, relaying the New York Times reporting about the raid.
He called it "scary as hell" to have the FBI doing something like this, adding that the DNI's inclusion makes it worse.
Saletan remarked on a key provision of the warrant: the FBI could only take copies of the ballots. They couldn't take possession of literally every document that Fulton County had.
"Trump's FBI goes down with Tulsi Gabbard, this political hack," Saletan explained. "They seize these ballots, and I forget what else, what other equipment. They put it in the truck and they take it away. If I'm a juror, I'm not believing anything about this. The chain of custody is broken. I do not trust that those ballots that that those have have not been messed with."
Lewis noted that taking the ballots gives the administration the opportunity to now claim that Trump won 100 percent of Fulton County's votes and there would be no way to prove him otherwise. The former Republican said he's more concerned about the 2026 and 2028 elections. He asked Saletan whether the raid is about 2020 or if it's Trump digging into future elections.
Saletan said he fears this is more about our future before noting he was unable to find an analogous situation to compare because dictators don't wait around until they lose an election to overthrow the government.
"Real dictators, if you study history they make sure they get it right the first time," he said, using Nicolás Maduro as an example. "They make sure that when they lose an election, they won it. That the numbers come out there."
Lewis clarified that they don't try to change the results; they simply rig it or shut it down altogether.
Saletan said Trump likely learned from 2020 and now knows to first control the counting of the votes.
"This is a constitutional nightmare," said Saletan.
"That's what Trump is trying to do: Go and use Tulsi Gabbard and others to claim that the 2020 election was stolen by the other side. So, now 'my people' are going to go in and make sure we do this clean. It's going to be a fair election. How do we know it's fair? Cuz we're going to win it," he added.
It made Lewis wonder: "If Tulsi Gabbard can go in last week and seize the 2020 ballots, she could presumably go in this November and seize the 2026 ballots."