Rep. Jim Himes said President Donald Trump will deny the results of the midterm elections if Democrats take control of the House or Senate and warned the president could interfere with the results by using the same tactics he used in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
“All it takes is for the president to say ‘The election was corrupt, and you need to go to the Capitol to fight, fight, fight,’” Himes said on the latest episode of the On NOTUS podcast. “This time it’ll be you need to show up at polling places in Michigan and North Carolina and Georgia.”
“Don’t tell me this is not possible, we saw what was possible on Jan. 6,” Himes said.
Himes, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said his Democratic colleagues are mobilizing ahead of the election, including running tabletop exercises for potential scenarios under the supervision of the House Administration Committee ranking member, Rep. Joe Morelle.
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“It’s not the Democrats’ job to make sure that our elections are not compromised,” Himes said. “It’s the American people’s job, it’s civil society. But obviously, since we know that it will be weaponized against us, we’re very, very active on this right now.”
@notusreports Rep. Jim Himes warns Trump could “deny that the election was fair or honest if he loses the House of Representatives and certainly the Senate” this fall.
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Himes said Americans must do their own research about Trump’s false claims on foreign interference in elections for the good of American democracy.
“If an individual citizen can’t exercise the critical faculties involved in seeing the president’s lies for what they are, if 50% of America believes lies that are easily disprovable, we’re done,” Himes said, adding that he wasn’t pessimistic about voters. “The real obligation lies with the American citizens.”
Himes’ warning comes days after Trump claimed vulnerabilities in America’s election system during a primetime address Himes said was a “pratfall.”
“It was a big nothing burger, pretty much everybody acknowledged that,” Himes said. “I’ve looked at all the intelligence and, by the way, you don’t need to trust me, you can go look at the… intelligence community assessment around the election of 2020.”
Himes also urged Congress to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a controversial surveillance tool that lets the federal government collect communications of foreigners overseas.
“Congress doesn’t act very well unless the unabstract pain of not acting is right in your face,” Himes said. “Heaven forbid, but if we had an attack because 702 didn’t allow us to follow, connect the dots, all of a sudden we’d get called back here and 702 would be passed in a millisecond.”
Authorization for Section 702 expired in June, but Himes said it is still operational while companies continue to cooperate with government requests.
Himes said that he was “pained” by Director of National Intelligence nominee Jay Clayton’s testimony at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, but said he expected Clayton to be “law-oriented” and a better choice than the acting DNI head, Bill Pulte.
“Bill Pulte has shown that he will very happily break the law,” Himes said. “Choose Jay Clayton every single day and twice on Sunday, in terms of the likelihood that that individual is gonna be profoundly corrupted.”
Himes brushed aside questions of division inside the Democratic Party over Israel and socialism by praising his party’s “big tent” and the potential success it could yield at the ballot box.
“You don’t need to be a mathematical genius to know that the party that gets the biggest tent, that has the most people in it, is going to have majorities in the House and the Senate and probably win the presidency,” Himes said. “That’s just third-grade math.”
Still, Himes urged his fellow Democrats to avoid vilifying the ultra-rich and other groups while pushing for increased taxation.
“When you start getting into the business of vilifying billionaires, there’s not that many billionaires, but now all of a sudden if you’re vilifying corporations and the management class, and you’re vilifying white men because they’re toxic, pretty soon you’re vilifying a good chunk of the American population that you desperately want supporting you,” Himes said.
On NOTUS is a weekly podcast where NOTUS reporters talk to lawmakers about their work in Washington and what motivates them. You can download or listen here.
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