Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) went on the offensive Sunday, charging that President Trump's primetime address is the latest sign the administration is not serious about safeguarding the midterm elections. Speaking on ABC's This Week, Warner highlighted the recent removal of Democratic commissioners from the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), a little-known but critical agency that works with local and state registrars to certify voting machines.
“There was something called the Elections Assistance Commission. Nobody knows about it, but it works with local registrars, state registrars, making sure we vet voting machines,” Warner said. “Recently, Trump fired all the senior leadership, made the Republican quit, fired the Democrats. You know, this guy is not looking for a secure election because if we have a free and fair election, he and his allies are gonna get beat historically this fall.”
The Virginia senator's comments come after months of warning about potential White House interference in the electoral process. He described the president's Thursday night speech as “the opening shot” in a campaign to erode public confidence in vote counting. “I think that what we just saw was this was the opening shot, the opening shot of trying to undermine Americans’ confidence that their vote will be actually counted and mean something,” Warner said.
Warner also raised alarms about Trump's reluctance to rule out deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to polling places or banning certain voting machines. “I fear as well that if he tries to pull something that could potentially – he’s not ruled out bringing ICE to the polls. He's not even ruled out the idea of trying to bar certain voting machines,” he continued.
Another focus of Warner's critique was the president's push to dismantle the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a bipartisan nonprofit that helps states securely cross-check and clean voter rolls by removing deceased individuals and those who have moved. “There are so many absurdities and falsehoods in Trump’s Thursday night speech, and I’m glad that most media treated it not as serious news,” Warner told anchor Margaret Brennan.
Trump, meanwhile, has doubled down on his election security agenda by urging lawmakers to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, a bill that has drawn mixed reactions from Republicans and faces an uncertain path forward. Critics argue the measure could disenfranchise eligible voters, while supporters say it's needed to prevent fraud.
Warner's sharp rebuke echoes broader Democratic concerns that Trump's actions—from firing EAC commissioners to his rhetoric about the 2020 election—are part of a deliberate strategy to cast doubt on the legitimacy of results unfavorable to him. As the midterms approach, the senator's warnings underscore a deepening partisan divide over the integrity of America's voting infrastructure.
