President Donald Trump will deliver a primetime national address Thursday night at 9 p.m., focusing on elections and voting machines as he revisits claims about the 2020 election and alleged foreign interference. Trump told reporters the speech would concern "election machines and integrity" and include "a couple of other things." He described it as "really, really big news" and said "our country has to shape up."
The address comes as Trump's Republican Party faces headwinds heading into November's midterm elections. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that "nobody knows yet what President Trump will ultimately say, which is why everyone should tune in." The vague preview hasn't stopped speculation about whether Trump will present new evidence to support his long-standing concerns about election security.
The 2020 Election Record
Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden six years ago. In the weeks after that election, officials Trump appointed to run the Department of Justice, cybersecurity agencies and intelligence departments all said the election was fair, legitimate and free of major fraud or foreign interference. Trump's attorney general at the time, William Barr, said there were no signs of significant fraud. Chris Krebs, Trump's appointee to run the agency monitoring cyberattacks on election infrastructure, declared the 2020 election secure with no signs of tampering. Trump fired Krebs and later demanded an investigation of him upon returning to power last year.
An intelligence assessment completed five years ago on Jan. 7, 2021, in Trump's last days in office, found no foreign tampering with vote totals or election equipment in 2020. Trump and his allies lost dozens of court cases challenging the results, sometimes before judges Trump himself appointed. Numerous audits, recounts and investigations, including several by Republicans, found no major problems with the vote or count.
Last year, Trump signed a federal document as part of a regular review of possible foreign influence in elections that declared, "there has been no evidence of a foreign power altering the outcome or vote tabulation in any United States election."
Current Federal Investigation
Since returning to office, Trump has launched a review of the 2020 vote. Federal agents have seized voting records in Democratic-run Fulton County, Georgia, and Republican-run Maricopa County, Arizona, two major metropolitan swing-state counties that figured prominently in 2020 conspiracy theories. Trump tapped Kurt Olsen, a prominent lawyer in election law circles, to head the probe. Olsen was previously sanctioned by the Arizona Supreme Court for false statements in a lawsuit he brought to challenge the 2022 loss of an Arizona governor's race by one of Trump's allies.
A search warrant affidavit filed in the Fulton County case referenced old theories about the vote in the county, and the FBI reassigned hundreds of analysts to go through the material. David Becker, a former Department of Justice lawyer who now leads the Center for Election Integrity & Research, said, "He has committed untold taxpayer resources. They've found nothing."
Legal and Financial Consequences
Theories alleging that Venezuela and possibly other countries manipulated U.S. voting machines to deprive Trump of victory have led to massive payouts in libel lawsuits brought by voting machine companies. Fox News paid $787.5 million to settle one lawsuit over airing those claims in late 2020. Conservative networks Newsmax and One America News have also reached settlements with voting companies over airing those allegations. A Denver jury found that Mike Lindell, whom Trump this week endorsed as a Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota, defamed an employee with a voting machine company by calling him a traitor.
Becker said conspiracy theorists make sweeping allegations in public, sometimes with what seems to be massive reams of documentation from elaborate election databases, but they've lost regularly in court, where the threshold is whether there's any factual basis to the claims. "If someone's alleging a crime that occurred six years ago, we shouldn't be responding to their claims. We should be demanding they meet the burden of proof," he said.
Political Reactions
Many of Trump's nominees have refused to directly answer who won in 2020, instead saying Biden became president. Jay Clayton, Trump's nominee to become the next national intelligence director, used that formula in his confirmation hearing Wednesday. "He had the most electoral votes," Clayton said of Biden. "He was declared the winner." When pressed by Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, Clayton replied, "That's your characterization. I'm not going to continue to do this."
Victoria Bassetti of States United, a nonpartisan group supporting state officials who run elections, said, "There has been six-plus years of consistent findings from the intelligence community and from everyone who's looked at it that there was no foreign interference in 2020, and our voting systems were secure and accurate. I suppose the president could come up with some new assertion or new conclusion. It would fly in the face of all the evidence."
Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner said in a statement on X, "Tomorrow night, Trump is going to use a primetime address to stoke misleading claims about our elections in order to justify interfering in our midterms. It's on all of us to follow the facts and not accept his constant stream of misdirections and lies." New Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim said in a post on X, "Trump is again trying to drum up baseless election conspiracies ahead of the November elections. Americans are tired of endless war, skyrocketing gas prices, and a president that isn't looking out for them."
On Capitol Hill Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance bristled when asked if he'd encourage Trump to stay focused on November's midterm elections rather than relitigate past elections. "You're basically assuming an answer in the very question that you ask," Vance said. "The president is going to talk about a number of things tomorrow night. I'm obviously not going to get ahead of his remarks." Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters he doesn't know what Trump is going to say. "But," he said, "the only thing I can tell you is that we are focused on the 2026 election, at least I am, and I think most of my colleagues are."
Primetime Presidential Addresses
Primetime presidential addresses are typically reserved for major milestones or nationally significant events. Trump last did it this year in April to speak on the Iran war, a month after it started. He said then that the U.S. would accomplish its objectives "very shortly" and that "the hard part is done, so it should be easy." The war has dragged on and strikes between the U.S. and Iran have intensified this week. Trump also delivered a politically charged primetime speech last year in December in which he sought to blame the challenging economic climate on Democrats.
It wasn't clear if TV networks were planning to air the speech, or to what extent. Messages to ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and MS NOW asking about coverage plans weren't immediately returned.
Why This Matters:
The president's decision to use a primetime address for election claims rather than pressing economic or security concerns raises questions about resource allocation and priorities. Federal investigators have already committed substantial taxpayer resources to reviewing 2020 election records in Georgia and Arizona, with no publicly announced findings. The legal costs from election-related defamation suits have exceeded $787.5 million for media companies alone, demonstrating the financial risks of unsubstantiated claims. With Republicans facing competitive midterm races in November, the focus on past elections rather than forward-looking policy proposals may affect voter priorities. The speech's timing and content will test whether networks choose to provide live coverage, a decision with implications for how presidential addresses are treated going forward. Election officials and security experts have consistently affirmed the integrity of U.S. voting systems, making any new claims subject to immediate scrutiny and potential legal exposure.