U.S. President Donald Trump in Dearborn, Michigan, January 13, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Donald Trump's mounting attacks on U.S. elections are a sure sign he knows that he and the GOP are "going to lose" in future races, veteran political commentator and analyst David Rothkopf argued, and because of this desperation, his threats must be taken "seriously."
Late last month, he directed the FBI to raid an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, where agents took possession of ballots from 2020. Trump maintains the false claim that the 2020 race was stolen from him due to election fraud, with the seized ballots playing a part in his administration's attempt to find evidence.
His Justice Department, meanwhile, has begun demanding voter rolls from states, claiming that they will be investigated for people who are ineligible to vote. Trump has also recently mused about "nationalizing" elections, despite the Constitution allocating that authority to the states.
Rothkopf appeared as a guest on the latest episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, where he discussed these most recent efforts from Trump to attack the legitimacy of American elections and spread false claims about fraud. He argued that these moves signal that Trump is well aware that voters will punish him and the Republican Party in the upcoming midterms, so his plan is to interfere in the races so that things go his way.
“The reality is that they realize they’re going to lose, and so they are using every conceivable tool in order to put their thumb on the scale, right?” Rothkopf said.
He continued: "Why do they want the voter rolls? So they can disqualify people. Why do they want to pursue the conspiracy theories about Fulton County? So they can say, ‘Well, we need to impound these machines. There’s a potential problem.’ You will never see the votes again. You will never see what comes out of that.”
Trump's tanking approval ratings with voters have many observers predicting that Democrats will make major gains in the 2026 midterms, with the House majority and near certainty, and the Senate majority a new possibility — if Trump does not successfully interfere. Democratic majorities in Congress would effectively stall his agenda as president, allowing the opposition to launch investigations into his misconduct and making impeachment an inevitability.
Rothkopf also suggested that, if Trump can successfully interfere with the 2026 and 2028 elections, he will most likely support a GOP presidential successor likely to "cover his a——," suggesting a hypothetical ticket of his most loyal officials, Pam Bondi and Stephen Miller.
"[Bondi] has completely debased herself — taken the entire Department of Justice, turned it into a Department of Obstruction of Justice and Retribution,” Rothkopf said. “And in [Trump’s] book, that’s a winner."