On his War Room podcast this week, former President Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon proposed that the Trump Administration dispatch ICE agents to polling stations for this year’s midterm elections. Bannon declared, “You’re damn right we’re gonna have ICE surround the polls come November.”
At a Thursday press briefing with journalists, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated she was unaware of President Donald Trump contemplating the deployment of immigration officers to voting locations, yet she declined to eliminate the possibility.
“That’s not something I’ve ever heard the president consider, no,” Leavitt responded.
When questioned whether she could assure the American public that immigration agents would not be present near voting sites, Leavitt replied: “I can’t guarantee an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November—I mean, that’s frankly a very silly hypothetical question. But what I can tell you is I haven’t heard the President discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations.”
President Trump has consistently promoted unfounded assertions that substantial numbers of non-citizens cast illegal ballots in presidential elections and that extensive voter fraud caused his 2020 defeat. On Monday, Trump stated that Republicans should “take over the voting in at least — many, 15 places” and “nationalize the voting.” Such actions would breach the Constitution, which mandates that elections be administered by states and counties—a framework established to prevent a sitting President from affecting the result.
In the previous week, FBI personnel, accompanied by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, accessed Fulton County, Georgia election offices with a search warrant and confiscated ballots from the November 2020 contest that Trump lost to Joe Biden.
Election specialists and Democratic legislators have cited recent remarks from Trump and his supporters, along with developments unfolding in locations such as and Georgia, to express apprehension about the Administration sending armed federal personnel to influence electoral outcomes.
Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, articulated this concern during a Wednesday interview on The Contrarian podcast, stating he was “greatly afraid” that “those ICE roving vans be used to try to go and intimidate voters at the polling station.”
