#cheat-like-hell — Trump Fail

Asked Directly Whether He Would Rule Out Invoking the Insurrection Act — the Law Letting a President Deploy the Military Against Americans on U.S. Soil — or Declaring a National Emergency Around the November Midterms, Trump Said, "I Don't Rule Anything Out or In. I Could Use It. A Lot of People Think I Should Use It Sometimes" — as His Administration Surges Troops and Agents Into Democratic-Run Cities

In an interview with Time published October 1, 2026, with the midterm elections a month away, Trump was asked whether he would rule out invoking the Insurrection Act or declaring a national emergency around the vote. His answer was a refusal to foreclose it: "I don't rule anything out or in. I could use it. A lot of people think I should use it sometimes." Asked more broadly about the limits of his power, he said, "I'm not committing to anything," and, "We're going to see how it plays out in court." The Insurrection Act is the statute that allows a president to deploy the U.S. military to enforce the law domestically — against Americans, on American streets. For a president to decline to rule out using it, or an emergency declaration, specifically "around the midterms" is not a neutral statement of legal fact. It is a threat left deliberately on the table, and it lands in a context this archive has documented: an administration that has surged National Guard troops and federal agents into Democratic-run cities on crime and immigration pretexts, that has spent a year attacking mail voting and voter rolls, and whose critics — including some on the right — have warned of a design to shape or contest the election. Time also reported that White House advisers have already war-gamed how to respond if Democrats win the House or Senate. A president confident of a fair contest does not muse about soldiers around it. This one would not say he wouldn't.

To Close His Dallas Convention, Trump Led the Crowd in a Loyalty Oath to Himself — Calling Himself "the Greatest President in the History of the United States" and Telling Anyone Who Doesn't Vote They'll "Go to Hell" — and, in the Same Breath as His Yearlong Crusade Against Imaginary Democratic "Fraud," Urged His Own Supporters to "Cheat Like Hell": "I Don't Care If I'm Registered or Not"

On September 10, 2026, closing the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Trump led the crowd in an extended "pledge" to vote — and told them to cheat. In the oath he directed the room to repeat, he said: "I don't care if I'm registered or not. I'm going to try and cheat like hell like they do. There's never been bigger cheaters." He told those who fail to vote that they would "go to hell," and described himself, mid-oath, as "the greatest president in the history of the United States." The moment is remarkable on two fronts. First, it is a sitting president openly urging his supporters to cheat in an election — even framed as bravado, an extraordinary thing for the head of state to say — and it detonates his own justification for a yearlong assault on voting access. Across this archive, Trump has restricted mail ballots, pushed a national voter database, and built a "citizenship verification" apparatus, all in the name of stopping Democratic "fraud" he has never substantiated. Here he tells his own crowd to "cheat like hell," which exposes the fraud rhetoric as projection and pretext: the cheating he warns about is the cheating he is now endorsing, for his side. Second, the "pledge" was to him personally — a loyalty oath to a man who called himself the greatest president in history and consigned non-voters to hell. A get-out-the-vote drive turned into a cult liturgy with a confession of intent to cheat built in.