Trump Press Sec Snaps at Media as Her Spin on His 2026 Threat Implodes

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4 • 800 Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2026

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt lost her temper with a reporter who asked if Donald Trump intends to flood polling places with ICE agents during the midterms. She called the question “silly” and “hypothetical” and “disingenuous,” even though Steve Bannon, who’s influential in the White House, explicitly said this week that this will happen. This comes as Trump himself called for Republicans to “nationalize the voting.” Leavitt also struggled to spin this threat from Trump, suggesting that’s not what he meant, only to have Trump undercut her by reiterating his demand soon after. The White House is all over the place on this. So we talked to legal expert Rick Hasen, author of the excellent Election Law Blog. He separates the real from the fake in Trump’s threats, outlines the nightmare scenarios that Trump actually could attempt to pull off, and explains how we can gear up right now to fight back. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Being an adult sucks.
0:02.0	Adults, they have to work all day.
0:05.0	When adults get male, it's always bills and bills suck.
0:11.0	Sure, but we've got a driver's license.
0:13.0	Enjoy 4.9% APR representative with up to four years free servicing on the Alpine A290 plus range at your Alpine store.
0:21.1	PCP, mobilized financial services, order between the 6th and the 23rd of February
0:24.6	2006. TNC supply. Visit Alpine-hiferncars.com.uk for more information. This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:46.5	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
1:02.3	The White House can't get its story straight on President Trump's threats to rig the midterms.
1:08.3	Earlier this week, Trump explicitly called on Republicans to nationalize the elections,
1:14.0	a direct threat. After this blew up, Caroline Leavitt rushed out to reassure people about Trump's intentions. But then Trump wrecked Leavitt's spin by confirming that,
1:20.4	yes, he does want Republicans to take over the elections. Meanwhile, in the background,
1:25.4	Steve Bannon is saying, in effect, that ICE will, in fact, be doing voter intimidation in the midterms.
1:32.2	And after that, Levitt went out and snapped at a reporter in anger for asking a reasonable question about whether ICE will be at polling places or not.
1:41.8	In short, they're all over the place.
1:43.7	So how seriously should we take
1:45.9	these threats and what should we make of them? We're checking in with election law expert
1:50.2	Rick Hassan, who's been warning that the threat is very serious indeed. Rick, nice to have you on.
1:56.5	Good to be with you. So let's start with what Trump said earlier this week. Here it is. Quote,
2:02.8	the Republicans should say we want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15
2:08.2	places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting, close quote. Rick, what does nationalize
2:15.6	the voting actually mean? What does Trump mean by it? And why should we worry about it?
	...

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