Former NBC executive Tom Rogers (often credited with founding CNBC and MSNBC) told “Morning Joe” on Wednesday that he believes President Trump’s planned speech on Thursday is laying the groundwork to invoke extraordinary emergency powers to “overturn the 2026 elections” under the pretext of a “communist threat.” Rogers predicted Trump could cite foreign interference or noncitizen voting to challenge Democratic victories, then use warnings about a broader communist threat to justify emergency action. Trump’s address is expected to focus on election security, alleged foreign interference in the 2020 election and vulnerabilities in voting systems and alleg Democratic Party collusion to cover-up China’s role in stealing the election for Biden.

‘MORNING JOE’ HOST: Yes, it’s a little bit about Trump’s ego over losing in 2020. But, Tom Rogers, it’s far more about setting up pretexts for 2026 and 2028. He’s trying to get the SAVE America Act passed. Many people feel that would really restrict voting. It seems unlikely-it seems like it won’t go anywhere on the Hill-but you’ve been thinking about ways he can achieve similar objectives. TOM ROGERS: Absolutely. I think we have a combination of desperation and obsession on Trump’s part here to do something to overturn the 2026 elections. Clearly, he’s been frustrated by Congress not passing SAVE America. He’s been frustrated by the courts, which have shot down his attempts to change the process when it comes to the midterms. The question is: What does he do? I think the speech tomorrow night, along with a number of other speeches he’s given, is about laying the groundwork for him to take action. He’s going to claim that the 2026 midterms were rigged if Democrats win in key districts that would turn Congress into Democratic majorities. He will say the results can’t be finalized until it’s all investigated because there was foreign interference or illegal immigrants voting. He would then probably order Congress to organize around Republican majorities and say, You can’t seat members in districts where we’re questioning the results. I think what would follow from that is enormous street protests, probably stimulating violence on his part by bringing in troops. Then it could get really scary. There’s something that hasn’t been focused on at all called PEADs, or Presidential Emergency Action Documents. These are highly classified documents that have been in place since the Eisenhower administration. When you hear Trump saying, I have a lot of powers that people don’t even know about, or, I have very strong emergency powers, he’s probably referring to those. They’ve never been used. They’re in place to be signed in the event of a nuclear attack, when civil society totally disintegrates and the president has to take some kind of emergency action. I think he’s laying the groundwork to be able to put those into effect: arrest and detain people without trial, seize election machines. Obviously, all that would be litigated, but we know the courts move a lot slower than the administration would move in that kind of circumstance. I think we’re headed-with all this communist-threat talk of a bigger threat than World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor and 9/11-toward something that he thinks he’s going to be able to turn into a major crisis to take actions like that. We’d be naive not to think so.

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