Mark Warner isn’t what I’d call an alarmist. I wouldn’t put him in the category of conspiracy theorist.
The former governor-turned-U.S. senator is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Dude traffics in facts.
So, when I tell you that Mark Warner was on CBS “Face the Nation” on Sunday telling us to beware of what the Trumpers have in store for ICE in the upcoming 2026 midterm election season, sit up and take notice.
I’m going to give you what he said verbatim, with some analysis afterward:
“This was what I’m seeing from the President’s own comments about nationalizing elections and putting Republicans in charge, counter to the Constitution. We’ve seen these activities in Georgia, where could there be some effort that suddenly gives him an excuse to try to take some of these federalization efforts.
“We’ve seen ICE, we focused a lot of this activity on ICE in terms of their going rogue in Minneapolis. But there is a very real threat, without reforms at ICE, that you could have ICE patrols around polling stations.
“People would say, Well, why would that matter, if they’re all American citizens. Because we’ve seen ICE discriminate against Latinos’ families. We’ve seen, as well, mixed families, where someone may be legal and others not. And candidly, you don’t need to do a lot to discourage people from voting.
“And we’ve more recently seen ICE starting to use technology where they can get information about Americans. Recently, there was an individual in Minnesota that got denied a global entry card to get through TSA quicker because he or she appeared at a protest rally.
“Do we really want ICE having that information? That was what happened in Minnesota. Hypothetically, if ICE is getting information and you’ve got an unpaid parking ticket, would you go vote if you’ve got an unpaid parking ticket, thinking that an ICE patrol might be at a polling station?
“This is uncharted territory, and yet you’ve got the President’s own words, in many ways, raising concerns, because he says, Well, gosh, we Republicans ought to take over.”
Warner floats the idea here of ICE, which has become Trump’s secret police, being a key to the effort to depress turnout in the 2026 midterms, and the various scenarios where that could be a reality.
The obvious: targeting brown-skinned people, as we’ve seen on the streets of several American cities, most recently, Minneapolis.
Next level: targeting protestors, which means, exposure for a lot of us – folks who’ve already taken to the streets in Minneapolis, Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, DC; and those of us who will be heading out to local protests across the country once the snowcrete melts.
That issue with the person denied an early TSA check-in because of the use of facial-recognition technology is most concerning.
We need to organize, now, to make sure this crap doesn’t happen.
Hat tip here to Mark Warner for not acting like other Democrat leaders, who seem all too willing to acquiesce.
Mark Warner on ‘Face the Nation’
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Chris Graham
