Is Donald Trump going to cancel the midterm elections?
Americast
BBC
4.3 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2026
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week Donald Trump has doubled down on why he thinks power should be taken away from individual states when it comes to running elections. Instead, he says federal government should be running elections - contrary to the U.S. constitution - claiming there is too much corruption from “crooked” blue Democrat states. In this episode, Justin and Anthony unpack what the president is proposing, and look at other ways Republicans could disrupt this year’s midterms. Also, is there a way Trump may be able to effectively cancel or stop the midterms from happening at all?
Plus, what are the Democrats up to ahead of the midterms? The California governor Gavin Newsom achieved a win in the Supreme Court, allowing California to use a new voting map that favours Democrats. And there’s been a historic win in Texas with a huge 31-point swing towards the Democrats from the ’24 presidential election. What does this tell us about the popularity of Democratic policies?
And we hear another entry into the ‘United States of Americast’ - this time from Jenny in Utah who tells us about the issues that matter in the ‘Beehive State’.
HOSTS: • Justin Webb, Radio 4 presenter • Anthony Zurcher, North America Correspondent
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The race to the midterms is well and truly under
This episode was made by Purvee Pattni with Rufus Gray, Grace Reeve and Kris Jalowiecki. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | He's not exactly saying he's going to cancel them, but what is Donald Trump up to? |
| 0:09.6 | What is his end game when it comes to the 2026 midterm elections? |
| 0:14.1 | The president is talking about changing the way elections are run, taking power away from |
| 0:19.4 | individual states, perhaps having the federal |
| 0:22.1 | government run them? |
| 0:23.6 | We can't allow cheating in elections. |
| 0:25.6 | Now, if we need to put in federal controls as opposed to state controls, remember this. |
| 0:31.5 | They're really an agent. |
| 0:33.2 | They're really accumulating the votes for who wins an election. |
| 0:36.6 | If they can't do it honestly and it |
| 0:38.7 | can't be done properly and timely, then something else has to happen. Will you trust the |
| 0:43.9 | results of the midterms if Republicans lose control of Congress? I will if the elections |
| 0:48.5 | are honest. Look. To which many people reply, yikes, if the elections are honest, what exactly does that mean? Should we be |
| 0:55.4 | taking the president at his word? Is he really going to potentially distrust these elections? |
| 1:01.4 | What could he do? How could he influence them? What could he do after them? Welcome to |
| 1:05.7 | AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News |
| 1:11.7 | When Donald Trump calls, they say yes, sir, right away, sir. |
| 1:15.5 | Happy to lick your boot, sir. |
| 1:17.3 | We are the sickest country in the world. |
| 1:19.7 | Oh dear, are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry? |
| 1:23.4 | Of course the president supports peaceful protest. |
... |
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