WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump used a primetime address to the nation Thursday to elevate his yearslong push to raise doubts about the legitimacy of U.S. elections and dispute his 2020 loss in an appeal for more restrictive voting laws ahead of the midterms.
Trump’s amplification of debunked theories about the election six years ago and his inability to accept his loss led to one of the darker moments in American history when a mob of his supporters led a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in the final days of his first term.
Now back in power, Trump opted to revisit the subject, despite persistent voter concerns about the cost of living, American forces escalating strikes on Iran in a conflict for which there is no end in sight, and an immigration crackdown facing bipartisan scrutiny for its sometimes deadly tactics.
His address Thursday hinged on contradictions.
A twice-elected president complained about his one personal defeat, alleged a cover-up by officials in his own first administration and surfaced claims about countries attempting to harm his own prospects while staying silent on steps taken by other nations to boost him.
Trump used the remarks to justify his push to pass a strict voter ID bill in Congress that has not advanced because it lacks enough support from his fellow Republicans.
“America is back and doing really well, but we still have a major challenge that must be urgently addressed, because no country can be great without fair and honest elections,” he said.
Trump doesn’t raise doubts about his election wins
Trump began Thursday night with a stark warning about what he described as flaws in the voting system and said he was releasing previously classified documents related to the 2020 and 2018 elections, when he lost the presidential election and when his party suffered losses.
Trump’s speech presented allegations of interference and influence in ways that lacked key context and did not produce evidence that votes had been manipulated or that the election outcome had been altered.
Notably, Trump focused on China but glossed over Russia, a country that intelligence officials have said favored Trump in 2016 and 2020 and engaged in wide-ranging influence campaigns aimed at boosting him over Democrat Joe Biden in the latter campaign.
Despite focusing on China in his speech, Trump did not criticize or issue a warning to Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he has long praised.
Election security experts say America’s decentralized voting system, with the power over elections residing with the states instead of the federal government, is a strength. Americans vote in more than 10,000 different jurisdictions with different rules, making the nations’ elections extraordinarily complicated but safe from widespread fraud.
No credible intelligence has emerged showing that the vote count in 2020 was manipulated by foreign actors. Repeated audits and reviews — manyrun by Republicans, including Trump’s own then-attorney general — have found no significant fraud occurred in 2020.
Even if substantiated, Trump’s claims did not amount to conduct that would have altered the outcome of any race, let alone the 2020 race for the White House.
He also did not raise doubts about his election wins in 2016 or 2024.
As Trump spoke, the White House unveiled a website containing documents that were presented without context and included selectively released pieces of investigation files, intelligence analysis and correspondence.
