Mike Johnson Unconcerned by Trump’s Threat to “Take Over” Voting

On Monday, President Trump suggested that Republicans should “take over” and “nationalize” voting. But House Speaker Mike Johnson isn’t too concerned.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We wanna take over, we should take over the voting in at least 15 places’; the Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” Trump said on former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino’s podcast Monday. “We have states that I won, that show I didn’t win … like the 2020 election, I won the election by so much. Everybody knows it.”

CNN’s Manu Raju made sure to ask Johnson about the president’s statements the next day.

“Mr. Speaker, the president had called yesterday for a takeover of federal elections; [he] said to nationalize in some states, is that something that you think he should do?” Raju asked.

Johnson proceeded to claim that Trump just didn’t really mean that.

“The president is expressing his frustration about the problems that we have in some of these blue states, where election integrity is not always guaranteed,” Johnson said, making a baseless claim about election security in blue states in order to defend a man who still lies about winning the 2020 election. “So we have to figure out solutions to that problem, and that’s what I think—”

“Take over?!” Raju interrupted, not allowing the speaker to ramble on without acknowledging the actual question.

“No, no,” Johnson said.

The U.S. Constitution orders that elections be governed by states and locales, not the executive branch. Even still, it’s hard not to hear Trump’s comment about taking over elections without immediately thinking about January 6. This time we should take his threats seriously—especially given the recent FBI raid of an election office in Georgia’s Fulton County.

A Maryland community has nixed a previously issued building permit for a private detention center that local officials said would be used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Howard County government revoked the permit Monday, ending construction for the proposed detention facility at 6522 Meadowridge Rd. in Elkridge, just across the road from a quiet residential neighborhood and within half a mile of several schools.

“The retrofitting of private office buildings for detention use without transparency, without input, without clear oversight, is deeply troubling,” said county executive Calvin Ball during a Monday press conference. “In this case, the proposed detention center sits in an existing office park in close proximity to health care providers, schools, parks, and neighborhoods.”

The Howard County Council introduced two pieces of emergency legislation later that evening intended to formally prevent private entities from operating detention centers within county lines.

The five-person council will hold an emergency public hearing on the bills Wednesday, which will be followed by a vote.

“Since there are four co-sponsors on the bill, it is about 99.99 percent likely to pass,” County Council chair Opel Jones said to a standing ovation, WTOP News reported.

The proposed Elkridge detention center is the latest ICE contract to be killed in light of the agency’s escalating violence. Landowners in Oklahoma City backed out of a similar deal with the federal agency late last month, citing community safety concerns should ICE move in following the extrajudicial killings of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal agents.

It is far from the end of ICE’s encroachment in Maryland, however. The “Free State” already has three primary detention facilities, one of which is in Howard County. And last week, the Department of Homeland Security purchased a warehouse near Hagerstown, sparking concerns that the site could be used as yet another detention center for deportations.

ICE detained more than 3,200 people in Maryland in 2025, doubling the number of arrests of previous years, according to figures from the Deportation Data Project. Just one-third of the detainees had criminal convictions, while more than 50 percent had no criminal history whatsoever.

You’ll never guess which country launched a massive attack just hours after President Donald Trump announced yet another supposed temporary ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

Sitting at his desk in the Oval Office Monday, Trump repeated his claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “agreed” to pause Moscow’s repeated strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, as the temperatures in Europe dropped dangerously low.

“I asked him if he wouldn’t shoot for a period of one week, no missiles going into Kyiv or any other town, and he’s agreed to do it, so it’s something,” said Trump, the king of wishful thinking—or more just utter bullshit.

Trump had initially claimed there would be a weeklong ceasefire during a Cabinet meeting Thursday, sparking some confusion in Kyiv about when the pause would actually begin, or what it would entail. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov clarified that Russia had only agreed to pause strikes until February 1 “in order to create favorable conditions for negotiations,” which are set to resume Wednesday in Abu Dhabi.

That would mean Trump’s supposed weeklong ceasefire was only in effect for two days.

True to its word, Russia resumed strikes overnight Monday, launching 450 attack drones and more than 70 missiles, hitting power plants in at least six regions and leaving more than 1,000 residential buildings in Kyiv without power. So, as much as Trump would like to play-act like he has Putin’s ear, that’s clearly not the case.

“Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorize people is more important to Russia than turning to diplomacy,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X, early Tuesday.

Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said the attacks on “purely civilian” targets amounted to “another Russian crime against humanity.”

The FBI’s raid of a Fulton County, Georgia, elections office last week confused local authorities and caused a dispute, despite the FBI possessing a judicial search warrant.

Body camera footage from Fulton County police reveals that officials at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operations Center were not clear on what was going on and expressed confusion about the warrant, which was shown to them on their phones instead of as a hard copy. FBI agents on camera told the officials that they were having computer problems and trying to get an updated warrant.

The agents said that when the first warrant was issued, they didn’t realize that the records they were seeking from the 2020 presidential election weren’t held by the county elections board, but by the clerk of court.

While local officials ultimately cooperated with the FBI, interactions were tense. The acting head of the FBI’s Atlanta field office, Peter Ellis, said that he was letting county officials stay in the building during the search as a courtesy, but when county attorney Soo Jo said he was there to observe, another agent pushed back. The FBI said that the media and anyone taking video weren’t welcome inside.

“I want to remind you that this is a criminal search warrant and this location is kind of restricted at this point, respectfully,” an agent said at one point.

Agents also appeared willing to take the records by force if necessary. The Fulton County clerk of courts, Che Alexander, said that she was willing to unlock the storage areas where ballots were kept, but didn’t want to hand over records without knowing “what it is you’re looking for so you’re not taking other stuff.”

“They said they’ll break the lock and take ‘em,” Alexander told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In the end, more than 650 ballots were taken by the agents to an undisclosed location. What they will be used for is unclear, as President Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen have all been debunked in court. But for some reason, he has tasked Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard with the case, raising the question of whether Trump is attempting to create a pretext to take over future elections.

White House adviser and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is once again attacking the judicial branch after it ruined his plans to deport thousands of Haitian immigrants.

On Monday evening, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to terminate Haitians’ temporary protected status, which was supposed to end on Tuesday night.

“An unelected judge has just ruled that elections, laws and borders don’t exist,” said Miller—perhaps the most powerful unelected individual in the country—in reaction to the judge’s ruling.

Miller was quickly rebuked.

“Nope. A judge who was nominated and confirmed according to the constitutional process just issued a ruling interpreting the law, holding that the administration was lawless,” writer David French replied. “If you disagree with the ruling, you can appeal. That’s how the law works.”

This isn’t the first time basic judicial oversight has caused Miller to throw a tantrum. Last April, as judges ruled against President Trump for suspending due process to deport people, Miller complained about the “rogue, radical left judiciary.” And when judges blocked Trump from sending the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, Miller went online and called the ruling “one of the most egregious and thunderous violations of constitutional order we have ever seen.”

The shock, awe, and indignation Miller displays every time the judicial system does the whole “checks and balances” thing it’s known for only further affirms how little he cares about that process in the first place. He makes these statements because he knows there’s nothing he can really do to remove judges who simply won’t look away from Trump’s constitutional violations.