U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine delivered what one expert described as a “significant” blow to President Donald Trump’s alleged scheme to meddle in the upcoming midterms.
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In a letter to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) shared by CNN’s Zachary Cohen on Monday, Caine confirmed that senior military leaders had “no plans” to deploy federal military personnel or National Guard members to polling places during the midterms, adding that he had “neither received nor anticipate receiving any unlawful order concerning the role of the Joint Force in the upcoming November 2026 midterm elections.”
In the wake of Trump’s unprecedented use of National Guard members to clamp down on protests across the United States, fears have grown that the president may deploy the nearly half-a-million National Guard members to polling places this November. Veteran journalist Seymour Hersh claimed a White House insider confirmed such a plan to him in July, and Trump, when pressed on the matter, refused to rule it out.
Constitutional lawyer and voting-rights expert Wendy Weiser called the development “significant,” noting that Caine had gotten out ahead of any White House directive by preemptively declaring such an order unlawful.
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“This letter from the Joint Chiefs Chair is significant not only because it says they have no plans to send troops to the polls or to election offices, but also because it acknowledges that any order asking them to do so would be ‘unlawful,’” Weiser wrote Monday night in a social media post on X. “And it also makes clear that ‘state and local officials’ are the ones with the fundamental responsibility to protect elections.”
Earlier this year, Slotkin pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on whether he would commit to not sending U.S. service members to polling places during the midterms, and, like Trump, Hegseth refused to rule it out, calling Slotkin’s question a “gotcha hypothetical.”
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This letter from the Joint Chiefs Chair is significant not only because it says they have no plans to send troops to the polls or to election offices, but also because it acknowledges that any order asking them to do so would be “unlawful.” And it also makes clear that “state and… https://t.co/MA1KS7fx0L
— Wendy Weiser (@WendyRWeiser) September 1, 2026
