President Donald Trump will deliver a primetime address Thursday at 9 p.m. that he says will include a focus on elections, escalating his push for Republicans to pass tighter federal voting rules ahead of November's midterm elections. The president has been guarded about specifics but promised "really big news."
"It doesn't get bigger, because without free and fair elections, you don't have a country," Trump said Tuesday in the Oval Office. He refused to provide further details, saying he wanted to "save it" for the moment. He added that the address would cover other topics and described it as "a very big announcement."
The speech comes as Trump confronts a collapsing deal to end the war with Iran and numerous domestic issues, including recent deadly shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Trump has used primetime presidential addresses before, including one in December when he sought to blame the challenging economic climate on Democrats.
Election Integrity Push
Trump has made voting regulation a core issue during his second term, frequently declaring that he won the White House "three times" and demanding legislation that would require voter ID and sharply limit mail-in voting. Facing midterm races that will decide control of Capitol Hill, Trump has stirred new claims to cast doubt on election results that could challenge his power in Washington.
On Monday, when asked about the speech, Trump repeated baseless claims of voter fraud in the Los Angeles primary race for mayor. During an interview with conservative outlet Newsmax, Trump said Republican Spencer Pratt lost his primary bid because of fraud, citing in part California's slow vote count. Federal prosecutors said they were opening fraud investigations in the state last month after Trump drew attention to the claim.
History of Fraud Claims
Trump's preoccupation with voting fraud and election security dates back at least to 2016, when he refused to say whether he would accept defeat to Democrat Hillary Clinton. After he won, he convened a voting integrity commission to support his claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the popular vote, though the commission disbanded without uncovering any such evidence.
After he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden six years ago, Trump again claimed cheating and focused on Biden's narrow win in Georgia. Trump called the state's secretary of state and pressured him to "find 11,780 votes," just enough to overturn Biden's victory in the state. Trump, along with more than a dozen allies, was indicted in the state, though the charges were later dropped.
Repeated audits and reviews — many run by Republicans, including Trump's own then-attorney general — have found no significant fraud occurred in 2020. Before winning in 2024, Trump was again laying the groundwork to claim cheating if he lost. After returning to office, he stocked his administration with officials who back his false claims of 2020 election fraud.
Recent Federal Actions
Earlier this year, FBI agents raided elections offices in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing materials from the 2020 election. Tulsi Gabbard, then Trump's director of national intelligence, traveled to Atlanta to oversee the execution of the search warrant.
Beyond Georgia, Trump has widely taken aim at states that allow voters to submit ballots by mail. Trump said he called a U.S. attorney in California and demanded scrutiny of the governor's primary last month as votes were being counted. Last week, Trump ousted the remaining members of the federal Election Assistance Commission, a bipartisan panel that resisted his efforts to require would-be voters to document their U.S. citizenship before registering.
Democratic Response
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, campaigning in Georgia for Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff and governor's candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, said Tuesday that Trump's approach was "for losers." "I think people are exhausted by having conversations about elections that happened six years ago, that we have the answer to," Moore said. "He continues to bring this up because he cannot get out of his mind that he actually could have lost."
Why This Matters:
Thursday's primetime address positions election integrity at the center of the midterm campaign, with control of Congress hanging in the balance. The president's focus on voting rules reflects longstanding Republican concerns about ballot security and the expansion of mail-in voting procedures that accelerated during the pandemic. Whether Congress can pass meaningful election reforms before November remains uncertain, but the address will frame the debate for voters heading into critical races. The outcome of these midterms will determine Trump's legislative agenda for the remainder of his term, making his ability to shape the electoral landscape through both policy and rhetoric a matter of significant political consequence. Federal investigations in California and Georgia signal an aggressive approach to election oversight that could reshape how states administer voting procedures.