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By Dan Gooding and Gabe Whisnant
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President Donald Trump on Friday denied knowledge of any plan to declare a national emergency related to the upcoming midterm elections, pushing back on report about a draft executive order.
Asked by a reporter whether he was considering such a move, Trump responded, “Who told you that?” before saying he had “never heard about it.”
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, reposted the clip on X and wrote: "Donald, you're not denying it."
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The remarks came amid Washington Post reporting that pro‑Trump activists are circulating a proposal that would cite alleged foreign election interference to expand presidential authority over voting.
Newsweek reached out to the White House for further comment, but officials deferred to the president's remarks on the White House lawn.
Why It Matters
Amid the upcoming midterm elections that are set to take place later this year, Trump has often voiced concerns about election security and potential fraud, with his Republican Party pushing for new voter ID measures which would bring in new restrictions around registering to vote.
The GOP has argued this is necessary to prevent illegal immigrants from voting—something which is largely unlawful and rarely happens—while critics say the so-called SAVE Act will bring about unnecessary barriers for American citizens exercising their constitutional rights.
What To Know
Earlier this month, Trump said he would enforce voter ID for the midterm elections, whether Congress passed the SAVE Act or not. He said he would enact these plans through an executive order, which has yet to materialize.
The Washington Post cited pro-Trump activists on Thursday, who had said claims around Chinese interference in the 2020 election—the one Trump has repeatedly claimed was stolen from him despite multiple investigations finding otherwise—was the reasoning behind the proposed order.
On Friday, Democracy Docket published what is claimed was a draft 17-page executive order which set out sweeping changes to the way U.S. elections are held. The document was dated April 12, 2025, but was said to be aimed at the 2026 midterm elections.
The order outlined a national blueprint for elections, pending Congressional and state-level policy changes, including only allowing paper ballots, strict rules around absentee voting, and the much-discussed mandate for voter ID to prove U.S. citizenship.
The use of election hardware solely manufactured in the U.S., non-networked voter registration systems, and a ban on electronic counting, are also features of the reported order.
Concerns have been raised about the president's calls to federalize elections, as the U.S. Constitution gives power to states to decide how elections are held. That has led to each state having its own systems and rules around elections.
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What People Are Saying
NAACP National President Derrick Johnson, in a statement shared with Newsweek on Thursday: "This proposal is outright illegal, and it will not stand. The Constitution explicitly grants the power to regulate elections to state legislatures and Congress, not the president. Trump is incredibly weak, pathetic, and overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people. That’s why he’s throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. And this spaghetti will not stick. His administration has so poorly failed us on the economy that his only option now, to maintain power in the midterms, is to resort to illegal orders."
Rick Wilson of The Lincoln Project, in a column Friday: "They are trying to build a legal and administrative infrastructure that allows them to ignore the voters entirely. This is about creating a 'constitutional crisis' as a feature, not a bug. They want the chaos. They want the uncertainty. They want to delegitimize the very act of voting so that when the results come in, and they don’t like them, they can point to their own manufactured emergency as a reason to toss the returns."
Representative Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the House Administration Committee, in a statement on the SAVE Act earlier this month: "Americans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity—including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification. These reforms will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat."
What Happens Next
The president has not yet moved to enact an executive order on the midterm elections, which are due to take place as planned on November 3, 2026.
Update 2/27/26, 4:15 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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