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Prime-time election push
President Donald Trump plans a primetime speech Thursday at 9 p.m. ET to discuss “new findings” about the security of American elections and to dispute the results of the 2020 election he lost.
“President Donald Trump plans to use part of a primetime speech Thursday to discuss new findings about the security of American elections, among other topics — setting up yet another high-profile opportunity for the president to dispute the results of the 2020 election he lost”
Speaking in the Oval Office two days ahead of the planned address, Trump said, “It’s really, really big news, and our country has to shape up,” and he added, “It doesn’t get bigger, because without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country.”
CNN reported that officials said the speech is still being finalized, while Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt, “It’s just going to be a speech, like a lot of my speeches.”
The Democracy Docket said the address is slated for 9 p.m. ET and is expected to cite soon-to-be-declassified intelligence information purporting to show irregularities and vulnerabilities in voting machines in the 2020 contest.
Declassified files and pushback
Democracy Docket said Trump will reportedly base his assertions on intelligence files that a White House task force is set to declassify this week, and it described the effort as aimed at accelerating a campaign to restrict the right to vote and increase executive control over U.S. elections ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The outlet also quoted Trump’s Oval Office remarks that “It’s really big news,” and that “What we’re going to be talking about Thursday — it doesn’t get any bigger, because without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country.”
FactCheck.org said that on August 18 Trump began a second-term push to end both mail-in voting and electronic voting machines, claiming he would “lead a movement to eliminate MAIL-IN VOTING and, since we’re on that, the Tremendously Inaccurate, Extremely Expensive and Highly Controversial VOTING MACHINES.”
FactCheck.org also said Trump asserted, “the states are simply agents of the Federal Government in counting and tallying the votes,” and it stated that experts told it the Constitution grants states authority to conduct elections.
Election disputes and legal fights
Beyond the Thursday address, Georgia Public Broadcasting reported that the battle over voter confidence in Georgia’s election machines escalated after the Legislature decided last month to keep them until 2028, and it said the U.S. Department of Justice planned to surge into Atlanta with 260 FBI analysts.
“On August 18, President Donald Trump began a second-term push to end both mail-in voting and electronic voting machines, launching a series of unfounded claims as he announced an initiative to eliminate both voting methods”
Georgia Public Broadcasting said a federal judge in Atlanta denied the administration’s demand for the personal information of thousands of Fulton election workers and volunteers, and it quoted the judge’s order warning that disclosing addresses and phone numbers “threatens to chill participation in future elections, which will surely impact Fulton County.”
In a separate legal development, Ouest-France reported that Judge Eric Davis of Delaware’s Superior Court ruled that Newsmax agreed to pay 67 million dollars to Dominion after finding Newsmax had defamed the equipment supplier.
Ouest-France said Dominion was seeking 1.6 billion dollars from the network, and it quoted the settlement framing that Newsmax claimed it reached the financial agreement because it “would not have received a fair trial” in Delaware.
