Why Trump Isn't Joking About Canceling Midterms: Congressman

[Eugene]

Source: The Daily Beast

Why Trump Isn’t Joking About Canceling Midterms: Congressman

Julia Ornedo, The Daily Beast Podcast
Wed, January 7, 2026 at 10:26 PM EST
3 min read

The success of President Donald Trump’s shocking raid in Venezuela will likely embolden him to “disrupt” the midterm elections on his home turf this year, a Democratic congressman warned.

Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton told The Daily Beast Podcast that Trump’s earlier remarks about messing with the midterms are “absolutely a possibility.”

On Tuesday, the 79-year-old president joked about canceling the midterms as he took the stage at the Kennedy Center for the House Republican retreat.

“I won’t say ‘Cancel the election, they should cancel the election,’ because the fake news will say, ‘He wants the elections canceled. He’s a dictator.’ They always call me a dictator,” Trump said mockingly.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/why-trump-isn-t-joking-032602653.html

[bigtree]

1. the no kings protests will pale in comparison to the outbreak of resistance to that

...

[ScratchCat]

2. Not one single Red State would comply

And obviously no Blue State would either.

Come on. This is ridiculous. The Executive Branch doesn't have one iota of authority over State Elections. Further, these elections are for hundreds of local, state and federal offices, all of which have terms which expire at a time prescribed by their State or US Constitution. I'm positive, as in 100%, that he would be removed almost unanimously overnight if he even brings this up.

Let me be 100% clear - Nothing allows the Executive Branch to "cancel" elections because there is no legal or illegal means.

[Wicked Blue]

5. Unless his thugs threaten the people on state boards of elections

and anyone else involved in election proceedings.

Since they threaten judges, I would not put it past them.

[Wifes husband]

8. Of course the red states will comply

Trump will try to stop the mid terms. It was only the unexpected courage of a few people that stopped him on January 6.

I believe he will fail to stop the mid terms, but they will be compromised

[EdmondDantes_]

9. No they won't.

They'd lose any representation in the House and any Senators up for election not to mention state and local elections.

Republicans would lose 22 Senators and we'd lose 13. So they'd have 31 and we'd have 34 Senators. The house would be even worse for them.

[Irish_Dem]

27. This is naive. Red states will not lose anything.

I can understand why people cannot wrap their heads around any of this.

They have never experienced living under a dictatorship.

[Wifes husband]

33. Agreed

They won't be worried about the law

[EdmondDantes_]

35. How exactly do you get around the constitution and exact term lengths?

Hand waving isn't sufficient. Be explicit as to how you get there. What court is going to rule for that? Or are you just fear mongering?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

38. What would stop Republican Governors from just appointing republican senators? Ow does the math work?

[Fiendish Thingy]

18. If the red states canceled their elections, they would have zero reps in the house

And would lose those senate seats up for re-election, giving the majorities to the Dems and disenfranchising all of their voters.

[Irish_Dem]

26. 100% certain Red States will do whatever Trump tells them to do.

[Cosmocat]

15. Eh ...

I can absolutely see red stats backing any play like this.

[Fiendish Thingy]

19. That's because you haven't thought through the consequences

If red states sat out the midterms, Dem would take control of both the house and senate, and would have enough to impeach and remove Trump.

[mwmisses4289]

24. "...that he would be removed almost unanimously overnight if he even brings this up"

Except that he has brought this up. Repeatedly. And has not yet been removed from office for bringing it up.
He is terrified of being held to account. The only way he can stop it is to prevent elections.
People on several other threads have pointed out ways he might try to do this. Will they work? Maybe, maybe not.
He and his cabal are working on every and any way to stay in power.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

41. Prior to the 2020 election there was an article in The Atlantic laying out the shenanigans Trump might try

There was a Loyola Law article from the year prior laying out the same bs legal arguments they might try.

Posting that resulted in the sensible woodchucks saying it was doom and gloom. I was accused of being a disgruntled Bernie bro for posting the articles.

Of course everyone who chimed in said all the shenanigans would be illegal. I agreed. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t try it.

I still maintain winning Arizona and Georgia helped us avert a gigantic constitutional crisis.

[Dave Bowman]

3. "They always call me a dictator". Because that's what you are, dipshit. And a lame one.

[sboatcar]

4. Probably smart for governors to get ready to activate the national guard to protect polling places from the feds

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. Utter nonsense designed to demoralize and sustain the mythology of Trump's omnipotence

All this talk about Trump cancelling the midterms, yet nobody even attempts to answer this one essential question:

Just HOW would Trump successfully cancel 50 elections in 50 states, which would result in the erasure of the entire House of Representatives, meaning no budget, no lifting the debt ceiling, nothing?

All these doomsayers make these predictions without considering any pushback from the states, the courts (which despite acting with lawless impunity, this administration has obeyed 99% of the time),the candidates , including republicans, or the people.

Just answer one fucking question: HOW?

Seth Moulton needs to STFU.

[EdmondDantes_]

10. Unfortunately fear mongering gets attention

[leftstreet]

11. The beatings continue, yet the morale doesn't improve n/t

[ScratchCat]

12. Thank You!

IMO, continuing to talk about this only legitimizes the notion that Trump could do such a thing. Its no different than when the media completely invented the idea out of thin air that Trump didn't have to accept the results of elections if he doesn't want to.

[Dave says]

14. Simple. He refuses to let the federal gov

seat the results of the midterms and proclaims that the House and Senate carry on with what they have now.

Laws? How does it go in that movie? His team says “we don’t need no stinkin’ laws!”

Yes, we would have a potentially nation ending crisis of authenticity. His government by fiat will be at war with state and local powers. Who wins? That’ll be up to all of us. Given that 77 million apparently voted for him in 2024, I’m not very optimistic.

[Fiendish Thingy]

20. You are perpetuating the myth of Trump's omnipotence

The president has no say in who gets seated in congress.

All house seats expire at the end of this year, as do a third of the senate.

Trump cannot order reps to remain in office after their terms expire.

You are not dwelling in the realm of reality.

Laws? How does it go in that movie? His team says “we don’t need no stinkin’ laws!”

As I said before, despite acting with lawless impunity, this administration has obeyed court orders restraining its conduct 99% of the time. Just as with his EO’s outlawing mail in voting, any ludicrous edicts by Trump cancelling elections will simply be ignored, and cannot be enforced by him.

[Dave says]

22. Not meaning to argue the point

But I am interested in this: do you have a cite where you obtained the 99% compliance with court rulings? I’m always willing to change my opinion when presented with new facts. After all, I live in reality.

[Fiendish Thingy]

23. Out of dozens if not hundreds of court rulings against Trump

Last edited Thu Jan 8, 2026, 03:13 PM - Edit history (1)

(I’m counting hundreds based on all the appeals rulings)

By my count, his administration has only defied 2-3 of them, the most famous being the flight to El Salvador that refused to turn around when a judge ordered them to.

Otherwise, they manipulate the court system just as Trump did with his private indictments- appeal, seek stays of lower court rulings, use procedural delays to stall rulings, etc. but once a ruling is in place, they obey it almost every time.

If you can cite more than 2-3 examples of defiance of court orders, I’d welcome the information.

[Dave says]

25. Sliding toward competitive authoritarianism

Trump also has the SCOTUS looking after him on rulings. Meaning they have reversed strong appeals court rulings in Trump’s favor. He counts on this. We’ll see what happens with the tariffs ruling.

If SCOTUS reverses a ruling, I guess you can blame them, but I don’t. It’s Trump’s team that argues their case. It’s all on Trump.

Things the Trump regime has done on the road to fascism, wether lawful or not (remember I’m at a doc, so can’t research):

— pressured universities to drop DEI initiatives
— pressured universities to fire professors that don’t tow the rightwing line
— sequestered and ordered national guard in our cities to quell non-existent chaos
— ordered are armed forces to do the same
— appointed Musk and funded the DOGE even though as the executive he had no authority to do so
— empowered DOGE and others to dismantle a lot of the civil service system, ncluding firings and sequestration of duly appropriated funding
— ICE with a $40b budget
—
Gotta go, infusion done, doc to talk to me about results of previous tests. Maybe I’ll be back to continue the list of things Dave Does Not Like.

[Fiendish Thingy]

30. Some of the things on your list have been reversed

Or in the process of being challenged, with injunctions in place to stop the actions from being implemented.

But yes, it’s going to be a long haul, but the people are not just going to lie down and take it.

[questionseverything]

28. Easy for you to argue when you have no skin in the game

[EdmondDantes_]

36. It's also easy when we have facts on our side

There's zero chance of the midterms being cancelled and if Republicans tried to cancel in red states, their members of of Congress wouldn't have terms. I also don't worry that Martians attacking cancelling the elections.

If Republicans were going to try to cancel the elections why are they gerrymandering, trying to make voting harder, and trying to get rid of the rest of the voting rights act?

[haele]

16. There are ways he can try. Here's the issue.

If he tries, causing chaos and confusion, he can de-legitimize or throw to the courts the results in some states or districts.
He's using the Andrew Jackson/Unitary Executive playbook - the laws may direct one thing, but who's going to enforce those laws?

The Courts who might be in his pocket, or his pet police force that used to be the Department of Justice?

And it's quite obvious the Legislative branch is not willing to put any brakes on him or his moneyed backers. Especially if he tells Johnson and Thune to just not allow the any new Democratic members of Congress to be seated because the DOJ is investigating election fraud in those states or districts.

That's where the concern about elections going forward can come from.

[Fiendish Thingy]

21. Thune and Johnson's leadership roles expire at the end of the year

The new house and senate won’t be seated until January 3, 2027, at which time the members-elect choose a speaker, who then swears in the house en masse.

The Legislative Branch want to keep their jobs, and their states, red and blue, won’t agree to relinquish representation in congress and allow the house to simply be erased from existence.

[Initech]

7. We need to cancel him! Fuck Trump, may he rot in the hottest circle of hell!

[SamKnause]

13. Thank you for posting.

That was extremely interesting.

K&R

[peggysue2]

17. It's all a big joke for Trump

He'll cancel elections. Har, har, har.

Whether doable or not, I think Dems in all states need to be prepared for Trump's lackeys to try everything imaginable (even unimaginable) to turn the midterms their way. They know what a loss means for them and most specifically for Trump.

All members of Trump's Flying Monkey Brigade know what they've done, what they've destroyed from Day 1.

No one wants to be held accountable. They'll do anything in an attempt to prevent that outcome.

As Canadians are quick to say: Elbows up!

[GreenWave]

29. Let me tell you Orange person a saying repeated often in Venezuela...

Dime con quien andas
y te dire quien eres.

Tell me who you run around with and I'll tell you who you are.

Mr. Orange Person you do run around worshiping dictators.

[Wiz Imp]

31. He may not be joking, but it will not happen regardless.

[GoodRaisin]

32. Insurrection act invoked, martial law, no elections.

Red states go along with it.

Anybody who doesn’t think this can happen just hasn’t been paying attention to the stark reality of this ruthless, murdering dictator who’s party has shown absolutely no interest in trying to stop him.

I really want to be wrong about this but can’t deny what I’ve been seeing.

[EdmondDantes_]

39. As multiple of us have pointed out, all that does is cost republicans

Every house seat expires. If there are no elections in those states, then they simply don't have any representation. There are 35 senate seats up. 13 of ours and 22 of theirs. Only 1 Democratic seat in a Republican state (Ossoff in Georgia) and 1 Republican in a Democratic state ( Collins in Maine). Republicans would give up a minimum of 21 seats and Collins is already not a certain reelection. Given they only have 53 seats, that puts them to 32, and probably 31 seats while we would probably stay at 47 through gaining the Maine seat but losing the Georgia seat.

Handing us a filibuster proof majority seems like a poor choice.

[Torchlight]

34. He'll certainly examine the risk/benefit ratio and read it as best he can

Seems naieve (at best) to think/pretend otherwise. If he sees X Benefit and Y Risk, of course he'll do it. If it's above/below that, probably not... but he's got the grift, the flock, and the sealions he's always wanted; difficult for me to think he'll accept an end to that simply because of laws and standards.

[valleyrogue]

37. He can't do shit about them.

Elections are matters for the states. Too bad, so sad for him.

[B.See]

40. Actually I've been bookmarking threads on this topic,

so that IF it happens, I'll be able to... revisit it.