James Carville says he wouldn’t “put anything past” Donald Trump in his bid to keep Democrats from winning back Congress in the upcoming midterm elections — even suggesting the president might cancel elections entirely to keep the GOP in power.
The longtime Democratic strategist offered his speculation on Tuesday’s edition of “The Jim Acosta Show,” in response to a viewer question about whether Carville is worried about potential vote tampering from Trump and his senior aide, Stephen Miller.
“In a short word, yes,” Carville answered. “In the longer words, very. OK? I think what may happen, he’s going to see the writing on the wall in Virginia — this is what I think is going to happen — and New Jersey also.”
“And he’s going to see retirements, and people are going to start coming in, and saying, ‘Since I know we’re getting ready to lose, I got to change and I got to get some distance,’” he continued. “And he’s going to see all that coming and I don’t put anything past him.”
Acosta argued that the president doesn’t want Democrats to regain control of the House and Senate, as that could trigger impeachment proceedings against him. Carville said “nothing” would surprise him, including Trump trying to fully “call the election off.”
The strategist, who famously helped elect Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992, repeatedly predicted Democratic nominee Kamala Harris would beat Trump last year, though he admitted ahead of her defeat in November that he was “scared to death” of the election.
Carville has since routinely criticized the president on a variety of issues, including the steep international tariffs Trump imposed earlier this year and his acceptance of a $400 million airplane from the government of Qatar.
Acosta appeared taken aback on Tuesday by the “scary shit” Carville was predicting, but agreed Trump may be determined to stay in power. He said Trump has “already tried to steal one” election before, after all, in reference to the lies and lawsuits he promoted following the 2020 contest.
“He can think of things like that, that we can’t, because we’re not accustomed to thinking like that,” Carville told Acosta. “We always assume there’s going to be an election, in your case, ‘How do I cover the election?’ My case, ‘How do I affect the election?’”
“This is a whole new thing,” the strategist warned. “But the person that wrote in on this, you know, people come up to me all the time and say, ‘James, I’m really scared.’ I say, ‘You should be. You have every reason to be scared. Don’t kid yourself.’”