Trump Says He’ll Only Accept 2026 Midterms If He Deems Them “Honest”

By Chris Walker

This article was originally published by Truthout

In an interview with NBC News’s Tom Llamas on Wednesday, President Donald Trump indicated that it’s possible he won’t accept the outcome of the 2026 midterms.

Asked whether he’d respect the results of the elections that will be held later this year, Trump said he would only do so if he deemed the outcomes to be legitimate.

“I will [accept the midterm outcomes] if the elections are honest,” Trump said.

Trump also said that if the elections aren’t “honestly” conducted, “then something else has to happen.”

The president’s judgment on what constitutes an “honest” election is highly suspect, as he has repeatedly peddled falsehoods and debunked conspiracy theories about the results of recent elections.

Within the interview with Llamas, Trump also claimed to have had “a great election” in 2024, describing it as “one of the greatest elections” ever. A closer examination of the election results from that year shows that he won by one of the thinnest margins in history, and did not secure majority support from voters. 

Despite his win in 2024, Trump told Llamas that he still “believe[d] there was cheating” involved in states he did not win.

There is no evidence to corroborate Trump’s assertion that widespread fraud disrupted the results of the 2024 election, let alone any other elections for which he has made similar claims. 

Trump’s comments come just days after he demanded that Republicans on Capitol Hill “nationalize” elections ahead of the 2026 midterms, ostensibly to prevent “fraud.”

“We have states that I won that show I didn’t win. I won in a landslide… I won everything. I won a thing called counties,” Trump falsely claimed in an interview on Monday.

He added:

The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over — we should take over the voting in at least, many, 15 places.’ … The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that are so crooked, and they’re counting votes.

Article I of the U.S. Constitution dictates that although Congress can regulate how elections are run, it is the states that are charged with determining the “times, places, and manner” of holding federal elections within their boundaries.

Last month, Trump also suggested he should be allowed to “cancel” the midterm elections altogether, though he didn’t say he would.

“[Democrats] have the worst policy,” Trump said in January. “How we have to even run against these people — I won’t say cancel the election, they should cancel the election, because the fake news would say, ‘He wants the elections canceled. He’s a dictator.’ They always call me a dictator.”

Trump has a long history of refusing to agree to accept the outcome of elections. During his 2024 presidential campaign, for example, he said he would “absolutely” accept the results of the race, but only if the outcome was “fair and legal and good.”

Most notably, following his loss to former President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race, Trump didn’t accept the outcome. After he and his allies lost more than 60 court cases in an attempt to delay or overturn several states’ results, Trump and his campaign sought to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College through a “fake electors” scheme. When that didn’t work, Trump encouraged a mob of his loyalists to head to the U.S. Capitol building, where they violently breached the building and disrupted the certification ceremony for several hours until he reluctantly called them off later that day.

Trump’s allies have chalked up his previous comments about the 2026 election as jokes. But the actions of his Department of Justice (DOJ), as well as his Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, suggest that Trump may be up to something when it comes to this year’s fall races. 

The two entities took part in a raid of an elections center in Fulton County, Georgia, earlier this month, obtaining personal information of voters from the 2020 election, which Trump infamously tried to overturn. Some experts fear the information could be used to help Trump and his GOP allies figure out new ways to disenfranchise voters under the guise of “election reform.”

Gabbard’s involvement is unusual, as the Office of the DNI typically focuses on matters of national security and foreign policy. Gabbard justified her participation in the raid by citing her “broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security.”

However, her involvement could suggest that her inquiry, which is separate from the DOJ’s investigation, may focus on allegations that foreign nations interfered with the 2020 election, one of many false conspiracy theories that Trump promoted following his loss that year.

This article was originally published by Truthout and is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Please maintain all links and credits in accordance with our republishing guidelines.