Trump's chilling five-word response when asked if he'll declare national emergency to control midterm elections

Donald Trump has refused to rule out declaring a national emergency to seize greater control over the midterm elections, where Democrats are expected to make massive gains.

The president has spent recent months pressing the Senate to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require Americans to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections and to show photo ID at the polls.

Conservative television host Wayne Allyn Root of Real America's Voice brought up the possibility of Trump declaring a national security emergency if the Senate fails to act.

'They can't challenge it,' Root said. 'It can only be overturned by a two-thirds vote by both houses of Congress. So if you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship (for voter registration) and a limit to mail-in ballots.' 

Trump cut the host off and suggested he would consider it: 'Let me just say that stranger things have happened, OK? I'll leave it at that.'

The president has long been fixated on claims of voter fraud and has falsely insisted that he won the 2020 election.

More recently, he has sought to exert greater control over elections through a March executive order that would bar the US Postal Service from delivering mail ballots in states that refuse to hand over their voter lists to the federal government.

Trump's threat to declare an emergency comes as forecasters give Democrats the edge in November. Nate Silver's model puts their chances of retaking the House at 86.6 percent and of winning the Senate at a narrower 57.3 percent.

Betting markets, meanwhile, such as Kalshi predict Republicans are slight favorites to hold their majority in the Senate. 

Trump's fraud push comes months after FBI agents seized hundreds of boxes of ballots and voter rolls from an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia, which was a flashpoint of the 2020 vote. 

The warrant stemmed from a criminal referral made by Kurt Olsen, a 2020 election denier now working in the White House. 

Trump has said he regards states as 'agents' of the federal government on elections, telling reporters in February: 'I don't know why the federal government doesn't do them anyway.' 

The Constitution assigns election administration to the states.

Trump's move to curtail mail voting comes as Democrats remain more likely than Republicans to cast ballots that way, so restrictions would likely favor the GOP, according to CNN. 

In February, Trump urged his party to 'take over the voting in at least 15 places' and said Republicans 'ought to nationalize the voting.'

His primetime address last month centered on China attempting to manipulate votes during the 2020 election, though intelligence supporting the claim is thin.

His fixation on the 'SAVE America' bill that has never had the votes to pass may itself be groundwork for the emergency he keeps declining to rule out.