Trump to deliver TV address amid speculation over elections announcement | Donald Trump
Donald Trump will address the nation on Thursday in a speech broadcast live on prime time television that has become the subject of feverish speculation amid speculation he will make headline-grabbing announcements about election security and war with Iran.
Expectations for the address were boosted by Trump himself, who promised “really big news” without being specific.
“It won’t grow because you can’t have a country without free and fair elections,” he said he told reporters Tuesday at the White House.
The expectation that he will focus on the election stems from his preoccupation with his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, which he continues to falsely claim was a result of voter fraud.
He recently appointed a key ally, Bill Pulte, as acting director of national intelligence, even though he had no previous intelligence experience. Pulte, who used his previous position in charge of the federal housing finance agency to gather evidence for revenge against Trump’s rivals, is believed to have provided intelligence documents to substantiate Trump’s claims about possible interference in the 2020 poll.
The president is also clamoring for passage of the Save America Act, which requires definitive voter identification but is currently stuck in Congress.
The speech, planned to be held at 21:00 GMT, came after Trump canceled the ceasefire agreement signed with Iran last month and the Tehran regime resumed ordering a military strike in order to loosen its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, which has been largely closed to commercial shipping since the war began on February 28, causing global energy costs to rise.
White House officials acknowledged that Trump could also touch on the subject, saying the speech would be “a potpourri.”
Trump gave a televised speech about Iran on April 1, a month after the war began. The speech was widely criticized by critics who called it a threat to bomb Iran “back to the stone age”.
Another report on the economy shortly before last Christmas also drew criticism for an aggressive presentation style that saw Trump seemingly shouting and speaking too fast.
Despite holding regular media briefings, Trump has delivered relatively few prepared addresses from the White House; This was a strategy that past presidents often used to convey messages perceived to be of national importance.
The setting involves the reading of a given text from a teleprompter for a limited amount of time, with restrictions at odds with Trump’s style of speaking, which often deviates from the written script and rambles on at length.
Trump may make more speeches on television in the future, officials said.
“We want to get into the rhythm of doing this,” one consultant said. I told Axios. “It’s very powerful to give prime time speeches that make you feel like what you’re saying matters.”
