Trump setting stage to declare emergency around midterms, former White House attorney says | PBS News
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Trump setting stage to declare emergency around midterms, former White House attorney says
Jul 16, 2026 6:52 PM EDT
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Geoff Bennett
Geoff Bennett
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Jonah Anderson
Jonah Anderson
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For perspective on what President Trump is trying to achieve with Thursday night's speech, the limits of his authority and the potential consequences for future elections, Geoff Bennett spoke with Ty Cobb. He was a White House attorney in the first Trump administration, managing the response to special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into alleged Russian election interference.
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Geoff Bennett:
Now, for perspective on what the president is trying to achieve with tonight's speech, the limits of his authority, and the potential consequences for future elections, we turn now to Ty Cobb, an attorney who served as the special counsel during the first Trump administration.<br>I spoke with him a short time ago.<br>Ty Cobb, welcome back to the "News Hour."
Ty Cobb, Former White House Special Counsel:
My pleasure. Nice to be with you, Geoff.
Geoff Bennett:
Ty, you have described a broader pattern here, President Trump's focus on voting machines, his efforts to change mail-in voting, voter registration requirements, most recently his removal of members of the Election Assistance Commission.<br>What does tonight's speech add to that picture?
Ty Cobb:
Well, I think tonight's speech is intended to add the predicate that he needs to declare an emergency at or about the time of the elections.<br>As you know, Steve Bannon and Todd Blanche have suggested that there will be ICE agents at the polls. I think that that's a virtual certainty. Whether that will include the National Guard or not, we don't know, but anything to -- anything to intimidate minority voters, particularly immigrant voters, and also I think anything that allows them to try to seize voting machines, as Trump wanted to do in 2020, but Bill Barr explained to him there was just no basis for it.<br>I think you will I think you will see him doing everything he can to try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, the election of Democrats, and do whatever he can to remain in power and to keep his cronies in power, so that he can continue doing what he thinks he's allowed to do as president, which is anything he wants.
Geoff Bennett:
President Trump has said in the past that he believes, if Democrats win control of Congress in the midterms, that he will be impeached.<br>When you say that you believe he's intent on declaring a national emergency, what guardrails remain if the president does, in fact, use the power of the federal government to shape how the midterm elections are conducted?
Ty Cobb:
I think the only real guardrail is for people to get to the polls, to vote against the level of corruption and insanity and frivolity that we have seen, the type of conduct that has made the world more dangerous, and that has enriched President Trump to the tune of somewhere between $4 billion and $8 billion during the time he's been in office.<br>We know he made $2.2 billion last year, largely on crypto. We know that his stock trades were -- he had hundreds of stock trades last year, if not thousands. I think Obama had zero, Biden had 13, by comparison.<br>And that many of those stock trades were followed by statements from Trump touting -- touting the products of the companies that he had bought or giving them government contracts. So what we have seen is so inimical to what it has historically meant to be an American president, where integrity, courage, straightforwardness, and an interest in the lives of the people that are being governed were at the front and center.<br>We have a president now who's there solely to enrich himself, his family, and his cronies, and to wield power in a way that satisfies his basest instincts. We need people to come out and vote against that. That is the -- that is the guardrail.<br>Internally, unlike the first administration, when you had people like General Kelly, General Mattis, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, people of character who would hold up their hand when Trump wanted to do something reckless or self-dealing, we don't have that now.<br>I mean, we have the Stephen Millers of the world, the Todd Blanches, whose mantra is, "I love you, sir, I'm your lawyer," who has overseen...