How Trump’s made-up emergencies could subvert the midterm elections 

America’s law libraries will be filled one day with volumes on how President Trump abused his office. By then, we will know whether his violations of norms, laws and the Constitution became precedents for future presidents, or whether voters, courts and Congress acted to stop them before the damage was irreparable.

It is already severe. Trump’s Justice Department spends more time dispensing retribution than justice. His pardons have unleashed violent criminals on society. He punishes Democratic states by withholding appropriated funds. He and his family have leveraged the presidency to accumulate billions of dollars in personal wealth.

Trump has bullied and alienated America’s vital allies. He has misused the world’s most powerful military. And he suppresses the fundamental rights of critics and protestors. The list goes on. 

But another abuse receives too little attention. He expands his powers by declaring national emergencies that don’t exist. And there are signs that he and his supporters will do this to subvert the midterm election.

Here is the background: Congress, courts and presidents themselves have defined emergency situations in which the chief executive can use extraordinary powers to address crises. They assume the powers immediately, without needing further authorization from Congress or the courts. But Trump is the Chicken Little of presidents, claiming frequently that the sky is falling so that he can invoke new authorities.

Presidents define their extraordinary powers with presidential emergency action documents. These are prepared in advance and usually classified. Their purpose is to maintain the continuity of government in the event of a nuclear attack or other severe crisis. For example, they might allow the president to restrict civil liberties, detain people without due process, control communications infrastructure, and so on.

The Brennan Center for Justice has identified 123 statutory authorities that presidents can invoke by declaring national emergencies. Most are sensible, but “others seem like the stuff of authoritarian regimes.” It concluded that safeguards are not in place to prevent abuse. About 50 such presidential emergency documents were thought to have been added by the George W. Bush presidency. The Trump White House has not disclosed how many exist today or what they cover.

Trump appears to have used some already without explaining the legal basis for his actions. An example is the administration’s declaration that Venezuelan drug cartels are narco-terrorists that pose a grave threat to Americans. To date, the U.S. military has attacked 48 small boats in the Caribbean and killed at least 163 passengers without publicly providing evidence that they were terrorists carrying weapons or illegal drugs.

Now, with the midterms just eight months away, some are raising concerns that Trump may assert claims of federal authority over elections by framing domestic political opposition in national security terms.

Although the Constitution puts states in charge of elections, Trump has called for Republicans to nationalize them. He issued executive orders in March 2025 and again several days ago to interfere with voting procedures. These clearly exceed his authority.

At the same time, the administration has purged many of the watchdogs that would push back against Trump’s abuses. With his ceaseless and unsubstantiated claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election, up to and including the recent seizure of voting records in Georgia, Trump has tried to condition the public to distrust elections and to tolerate his interference in the electoral system.

The real national emergency is the prospect that Trump, his administration and his supporters will use presidential emergency to rig or try to overturn the midterm results. The history of midterm elections and Trump’s tanking poll numbers are the motivation.

Congress should intervene now to protect democracy from that interference. It should set limits on presidential emergencies and require congressional review before Trump invokes them.

As usual, Trump himself has signaled what he might do. He told an audience in 2024 that if he regained the presidency, people wouldn’t have to vote for him again because “we’ll have it fixed so good.” In January 2025, Trump lamented that he wouldn’t be president during the World Cup. But then he speculated he’d still be president because “they rigged the election.”  

Earlier this year, he said he had accomplished so much that “When you think about it, we shouldn’t even have an election.” During his State of the Union address in February, he said of Democrats, “their policy is so bad that their only way to get elected is to cheat. And we’re going to stop it.”  

The warnings could not be clearer. 

William S. Becker is a former U.S. Department of Energy central regional director and a special assistant to the department’s assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy. He is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.