On the most recent episode of NBC’s Meet The Press Sunday (May 3), Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche made remarks that had observers looking at him sideways. He was talking about the Trump administration’s push for a national voter identification and used a weird analogy.
“There’s a lot of things that we can be doing like voter ID, like every time you walk into a restaurant or a club you have to show your ID,” Blanche said to host Kristin Welker, adding: “How about you have to show your ID to vote? That’s not anything that’s crazy and that’s what we should be talking about.”
President Donald Trump has been obsessed with having a national voter ID, even going so far as to issue an executive order last month that looks to create lists of U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and for the United States Postal Service to only send ballots by mail to those eligible. In addition, Republicans in the Senate are trying to pass the SAVE act, which would require someone to provide documentary proof of citizenship to vote.
Trump has consistently – and falsely – claimed that illegal voting was the reason he lost the presidential election in 2020. Many observers note that his attempts to require proof of citizenship to vote reeks of authoritarian policies, and that if the SAVE Act passes it would prevent 21 million Americans without the required documents from voting. So far,
it has been stonewalled.
Todd Blanche, who was one of Trump’s personal lawyers, was raked over the coals for his comments on Sunday. Reporter Scott MacFarlane quipped in a post on X, formerly Twitter, “I don’t recall showing ID ‘everytime’ I walk into a restaurant. Am I the only one?” Others speculated that Blanche’s reference might have been inspired from visits to gentlemen’s clubs.
1. Jemele Hill
