Trump’s plan to use the federal government to interfere with elections

At a White House press conference that should have been about protecting the vote, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin revealed something far more dangerous: a federal campaign to pressure states, threaten election officials, attack judges, and dress old election lies in the language of security. He stumbled through his own title, offered sweeping claims without public evidence, and then made clear that states refusing the administration's program could face funding consequences while election workers could face fines, penalties, or even prison. This was not election integrity. It was a warning about how authoritarian power tries to control the machinery of democracy before voters ever reach the ballot box.

Based on the events of 7-17-2026

The Breakdown:

* Markwayne Mullin opened the press conference by struggling through his own title as Secretary of Homeland Security.

* Mullin repeatedly emphasized his loyalty to Donald Trump, saying there was "no daylight" between himself and the president.

* He told alleged election law violators, "We will hunt you down. We will find you."

* He threatened election officials with fines, penalties, and possible prison time if they rejected the administration's election demands.

* Mullin claimed DHS had identified 250,000 noncitizens registered to vote in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada.

* The claim targeted states central to Trump's 2020 grievance narrative, while failing to distinguish registration records from actual illegal votes.

* Georgia checked DHS-flagged names and found only 150 out of 2,549 had ever voted in the state.

* The Heritage Foundation's election fraud database found only 77 cases of noncitizen voting across U.S. elections from 1999 to 2023.

* David Becker said the 250,000 figure appeared to rely on commercial data, which can create false matches against voter records.

* Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center said Mullin provided no evidence for his numbers and called them likely false or wildly overstated.

* Mullin also cited 400,000 deceased people still on voter rolls, turning ordinary list maintenance into a fraud insinuation.

* He used 250,000 and 278,000 interchangeably for the same claimed group without explaining the discrepancy.

* DHS signaled that states could lose election-related funding if they refused to adopt the administration's security program.

* ABC News reported DHS had also threatened FEMA counterterrorism grants over election security mandates.

* Mullin said the federal government would scrub election records before and after the election for ineligible voters.

* He attacked "activist judges" after courts blocked parts of the administration's election agenda.

* Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wrote that the federal government had trampled privacy rights in a way that threatens the sacred right to vote.

* Fifteen courts have blocked administration election demands, including six judges appointed by Trump.

* John Solomon, serving on Trump's own election task force, said the intelligence community had zero evidence that a foreign power flipped votes in 2020, 2022, or 2024.

* Gavin Newsom, Chuck Schumer, Raphael Warnock, Jerry Nadler, Al Schmidt, and Francisco Aguilar all pushed back against the intimidation and unsupported claims.

This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I'm Heather Tlaney Reese, and you're listening to Hope for America, where every day I bring you the truth about our politics, our country, and the forces trying to destroy them. Together, we cut through the noise, expose the lies, and stay focused on what really matters, fighting for the survival of our country.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

At 11 a.m. yesterday morning, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen entered the Indian Treaty Room carrying a blue folder with both hands. He walked directly to the podium, nervously adjusted the two microphones again and again, shuffled through his notes, and never once looked up at the journalist seated just a few feet away. Once he was finally ready, he began working his way through his prepared remarks, including, one of the greatest privileges I have is being Secretary, Department of Homeland. He struggled with his own title. It was an awkward and sobering reminder of the people Donald Trump has entrusted with some of the most powerful departments in the federal government. By the time his 27 minutes were up, Mullen had reminded the rear multiple times that his loyalty to Trump was absolute. When I was sworn in just over a hundred days ago by President Trump, and then he continued with, I haven't quit smiling. Later he assured the room there was no daylight between himself and the president, even mentioning they had been texting that morning before praising Trump's remarkable team. But it wasn't all about Trump, or at least not outright. Speaking about people he claimed had violated election laws, Mullen declared, we will hunt you down, we will find you. He threatened election officials with fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time. If after receiving what he described as new election information from the administration, they failed to act on it. He said that information would be released in 30 days, which is practically just before the midterm elections. He also criticized what he called activist judges, adding another target to the minds of an already radicalized Trump follower base. What we watched yesterday was not about securing our elections. It was about rigging them. It is a warning that every American needs to hear. Mark Wayne told us exactly how they plan to make sure the Trump administration never loses unchecked power. He started his whole speech with a lie. This isn't about rehashing the 2020 elections, he said. This is just exposing what took place and to make sure it never happens again, which sounds like rehashing it. That is exactly what it was about, though. He was told to get up to that podium and make it look legitimate, to dress up a fabricated crisis to look like a national security threat. He said that because that is the only play this administration has left. He framed it in the way authoritarians always frame it, as something no reasonable person would oppose. This should be something that every American, regardless if you're a Republican, you're a Democrat, you're an independent, you're a libertarian, regardless if you live in a blue state or you live in a red state, everyone should know that their vote counts. He was offering a simple solution to a complex problem, except this time it was a problem that doesn't actually exist. He was trying to make it sound like anyone who questions what the Trump administration is doing does not care about elections, that they are un-American. That is what he was really saying. And there's the thing that cuts through every single claim he made yesterday. If Democrats could actually rig elections, or if there was some massive voting problem in this country from inside or from outside forces, Donald Trump would have lost. Republicans would not have control of both chambers of Congress. They would not have been able to stack the Supreme Court. That is the proof. That is the only response any of us need when they say these absurd things. The actual real evidence is right in front of us in every court case, audit, and investigation that has already been done. This is not a real acute crisis. This is just another step in their authoritarian takeover. And they're just ramping it up. Mullen then laid out his centerpiece claim. Department of Homeland Security, we've identified 250,000 non-citizen registered to vote in just four states. Mind you, we have 46 other states and just four states, we've identified 250,000 non-citizen registered to vote in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada. He opened with Democratic states that the ones Trump needed and lost in 2020, the ones he is most bitter about. And even if the number were true, which it's certainly not, it would not matter. Registration is not the same as voting. In states like California, election officials are required to confirm each voter's registration status and verify their signature before a ballot can be counted. A name appearing on a registration list does not mean that that person cast a ballot, and it does not mean an unlawful vote was counted or would be counted. When researchers have actually investigated how many non-citizens voted, the amount has always been so small it was statistically insignificant. Every illegal vote that occurred should be investigated, and we should form even more barriers to prevent it. But our actual election integrity is extremely strong. The only real risk to it is people like this man and his boss, the president, trying to take over our country because they know they cannot get enough legitimate votes to hold power. His own letters to the states acknowledge the numbers are unverified. When Georgia actually checked the names DHS flagged, only 150 out of 2,549 had ever voted in the state. The bipartisan policy center of the Heritage Foundation's election fought database, which I would dispute as actually being bipartisan, found only 77 instances of non-citizen voting across all U.S. elections between 1999 and 2023. 77 in 24 years. David Becker, the executive director of the Center of Election Innovation and Research, attended a White House briefing earlier this week and said that 250,000 figure was based on comparisons with commercial data, which is less detailed than actual voter records and routinely produces false matches. Wendy Weiser, Vice President of the Brennan Center for Justice, said, pay attention to what Mullen did not provide. Any evidence to back up his wild numbers or even an explanation as to where those numbers came from. They are almost certainly false or wildly overstated. Mullen then added in his speech, we also worked with proactive states to identify 28,000 non-citizens on their voter rolls, plus 400,000 individuals that are still registered to vote that are deceased. Now listen, deceased people are not intentionally trying to vote, and neither are the people checking their mail as their affairs are wrapped up. People die every single day. And the fact that their names are still on voter rolls does not mean anything. It does not mean they or anyone else would vote. It means they are dead and they cannot notify the voting authority that they are dead. Voter rolls are updated on rolling timelines. This is just a paperwork issue, not fraud. And it is shameful that he would use this statistic to make it sound like some deliberate scheme when he has no proof of that. It is exploitative of the reality of people who die and the families they leave behind. Throughout the press conference, Mullin used the numbers 250,000 and 278 interchangeably, or at least it seemed, uh, for the same claimed group, never once explaining this discrepancy. He could not remember which four states he was talking about and had to check his notes. He said FOYA FOIA when he meant FOIA. He said catched instead of caught. He said he has gave instead of he has given. This is the man who is telling us he is going to secure our elections. As I watched him, I couldn't help but think about the legacy he is choosing to leave behind. Mark Wayne Mullen built a life working for his family's plumbing business before making his way to Congress. His family should be an American store that represents hard work and opportunity. Instead, he now stands at the head of one of the most powerful departments in the federal government, not because he built a reputation for independent judgment or expertise in homeland security, but because he has demonstrated unwavering loyalty to one man. There's a difference between serving a president and serving power itself. History remembers those who were willing to trade their dignity and American spirit for proximity to power just as clearly as it remembers the people who demanded it. Then he said something that revealed the strategy behind the entire event. One thing that I love about numbers and I love about facts is they don't lie. This isn't something that I'm trying to tell you to spin a narrative. This is what is going on. It is obvious what he is doing here. He is not introducing evidence for the audience to examine. He is asking the audience to accept his conclusions before they have seen the evidence. Because there doesn't appear to be any. Throughout the press conference, he repeatedly insisted we know and declared that his claims were not even for debate, as though saying something often enough transforms it into fact. It's just not how facts work. Facts are established by evidence that can be examined, challenged, and independently verified. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Yet during those 27 minutes, no public evidence was presented to support the sweeping assertions he was making. Instead, Americans were told to trust that the evidence exists and to accept the conclusions. In a democracy, that is backwards. Government officials do not establish truth by declaring it, they establish credibility by showing their evidence and allowing it to withstand public scrutiny. Now there is no doubt that we are susceptible to outside influence, just like every country is. Our system, though, is set up so that there are thousands of jurisdictions in control of voting. To say that a foreign adversary could infiltrate one small jurisdiction and somehow affect the entire federal election system is just not how it works. But since they do not have proof, they're going with the strong man approach. You are not allowed to question it. That shows how weak their case is and how weak this man is. Then Mullen moved on to operational threats. Working with Secretary Lutnick, we are going to make our security enhancements mandatory, he said, meaning that if these states want a grant and they want to be reimbursed to run federal elections, they're going to have to implement security issues, just security issues. We're not trying to get into anything else, but we're saying that the machines have to be secured and that your voter registration list needs to be scrubbed. This is where the picture became much bigger than just Mark Wayne Mullen. He made it clear that states choosing not to participate in the administration's new security, in the administration's new election security program could face consequences. He also indicated that states declining to participate could risk losing access to certain federal election funding. ABC News reported that DHS has also previously threatened to withhold FEMA counterterrorism grants unless states complied with election security mandates. So this is not just about election reimbursement. They are holding public safety funding over the heads of the states. Mullen then said something deeply alarming. Before and after the election, we will scrub all election records looking for illegal aliens and those who are ineligible to vote, including those that somehow voted yet they were deceased. We are less than four months away from the midterms, and the federal government wants to come into the states and scrub voter rolls. Who decides how those roles are scrubbed? Who decides who gets removed and who does not? Where is the oversight? If they are in control of this process, there is no one watching. And they can do whatever they want. They can remove any voter that they don't want. Now I'm not saying they're going to do this, but what I am saying is that it leaves us and the states vulnerable to the administration removing or doing anything that they want that would benefit them. And then came the moment in the question and answer session that rightfully drew the most attention. In response to a question from a Daily Caller reporter, Mullins said, I will tell you, if the states that choose not to participate with the state program and they choose not to participate in securing the elections, we will make sure that we make those states a priority to look at who voted in their states and hold them, the election officials, accountable. If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even depending on how far it goes, prison time. This is the kind of rhetoric that has defined fascists and other authoritarian movements throughout history. When governments begin threatening election officials with fines, criminal penalties, or prison for refusing to carry out the ruling party's preferred policies, they are no longer relying solely on persuasion. They are relying on fear. We've seen this pattern before. The details change, but the tactics remain the same. Pressure the people responsible for administering elections until independent judgment gives way to political obedience. The deeper damage is the part not being talked about. If election officials can be threatened with prosecution for doing their jobs, who is going to want to work at the polls? Who is going to volunteer? If government officials can construct a narrative and then threaten the people who refuse to accept it, the entire system of election administration begins to break down. That is how trust in democratic institutions erode. That is how fear replaces independent judgment, and history has shown us where that road can lead. He also went after the judiciary. What's interesting to me is we're getting pushback from activist judges. He said conflating the SAVE Act, which is a congressional bill with the SAVE program, which is the DHS immigration database. He said this should be that any judge and any God-fearing individual that loves this country should want to make sure that our elections are secure. This is one of the most concerning things he said. They are preemptively discrediting the courts. They know they are going to lose. A federal judge has already blocked the expanded SAVE database. Judge Sparko Suknan wrote in her 75-page ruling that the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. 15 courts have now blocked the administration's election demands, including six judges appointed by Donald Trump. This is why they are poisoning the well now, months before the midterms, so that when judges rule against them, they have already told their base those judges are corrupt. They're not just attacking one judge, they are attacking the entire concept of independent judiciary in preparation for what comes after November. He also said, what's frustrating again in this is that the Biden administration knew this, and our Intel community knew this. And not only did they withhold it from President Trump in his first term, but the thing is there was no Biden administration during Trump's first term. The president in 2020 was Donald Trump. He served for four years before the election he lost. If there was any issue with election security or integrity during that time, they were on Donald Trump. That's his problem, not on Joe Biden. This administration loves to point to other people. They love their scapegoats, transgender people, immigrants, Biden, Obama. It does not have to make sense. It obviously is not true, but they do not care because they know their base does not care either about truth or facts. And here's the thing maybe he meant that if the Biden administration discovered something, they should have told Trump. I don't know what he's trying to get at, but I know what he said. And the facts are what is real. And Biden had nothing to do with Trump's first administration. And yesterday forced me to confront the two things I worry about most. The press and our elections. Without a free press, we do not know what is happening, and we cannot hold anyone accountable. And without free and fair elections, we lose the one peaceful way we have to change our government. On days like yesterday, it is easy to let my mind drift to the worst case scenario. But strangely, those are also the days that give me the most hope. Because as dark as things can feel, they remind me that we are still not at the end of this story. There's still time to change course. Every once in a while, though, Trump's own administration surprises me. And it is often when I least suspect it. Because we had a moment when the truth was still able to break through from within. John Solomon, a conservative media figure, putting it lightly, who now serves on Trump's own election task force, was handpicked by the administration to investigate the very claims they are peddling as facts. And on Thursday night after Trump's primetime address, Solomon said this on camera. When asked specifically whether Venezuela had tampered with U.S. voting machines, a conspiracy theory that election deniers have been spreading for years, Solomon said no. The intelligence is very clear. They did it on their own machines. The Washington Post reported that even in Thursday's primetime speech, Trump never claimed to have any evidence of altered votes or compromise machines. And fact-checked or confirmed the speech offered no evidence that widespread fraud had occurred. The pushback to both Trump and Mullen came quickly. Governor Gavin Newsom responded to Mullen directly. California has free, fair, and secure elections, and we will fight for them. Try us. Senator Chuck Schumer said they are losing and they know it. Election officials will not be intimidated. Senator Raphael Warnock said he knows he's a failed president. He knows that his popularity is faltering. He knows that he is on course to lose in 2026. And instead of doing something for the people, he's trying to interfere in our elections. Representative Jerry Neller said the Trump administration's own review of the 2020 election determined it was safe. A finding reaffirmed by countless audits and court cases. The only person refusing to accept reality is Donald Trump. Pennsylvania's Republican Secretary of State Al Schmidt said, all evidence has shown that non-citizen voting is extremely rare across this country, including in Pennsylvania. Nevada's Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said, we can affirm that on its face, we refute these claims. These numbers are wildly speculative at best, and the Department of Homeland Security hasn't shared anything that backs it up. This was another week where Trump and the people enabling him showed us just how far they are willing to go to Leon's power. But they also showed us something else. They are not in complete control, or they would not be resorting to these kinds of extreme measures. We are less than four months away from the midterm elections. The pressure will only build from here. But so will the resistance. We have a very real chance to slow this down and stop the worst of what they are trying to do. November will be here before we know it. And until then we just have to keep the pressure on, keep speaking the truth, and keep showing up for one another. And I know we will. And that is why I still have hope for America and you should too.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

And remember, no matter how dark the days get, I will be here every single day. And together we will always find hope for America. I'll see you tomorrow.