Trump speech lays groundwork for him to tamper with midterm results, critics warn | Donald Trump
Democrats and voting rights groups say Donald Trump’s first speech, which made unsubstantiated claims about Chinese interference in the 2020 election, is the clearest sign yet that the president is laying the groundwork to interfere with November midterm election results.
The upcoming elections, which will determine the balance of power in Congress and many state legislatures, will be a major test with voters two years after Trump resoundingly defeated Democratic candidate Kamala Harris to return to the White House. While polls show the president is unpopular with a majority of voters and his Republican allies risk losing control of the House of Representatives, the president’s speech on Thursday evening, which revived allegations about the 2020 election in which he lost to Joe Biden, sparked fears that he was already looking for ways to ensure the November results were in his favor.
Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the House administration committee whose jurisdiction includes federal elections, called the president’s speech “pathetic and unserious bluster” that served as “an excuse to undermine November’s results by casting false doubt on the integrity of our democratic systems.”
“True election security isn’t about helping a politician save face. It’s about making sure every American citizen can vote freely and that votes are counted fairly,” Morelle said.
Jon Ossoff, the Georgia senator who is the most endangered Democrat facing re-election in November, said he heard Trump “signaling his clear intent to attack this election and our voting rights, just as he tried to throw away our votes and seize the presidency in 2020.”
The administration of elections falls to the states, and the nation’s 24 Democratic governors said in a joint statement: “It is deeply troubling that President Trump continues to undermine free and fair elections. No amount of lies and conspiracy theories can change the fact that our nation’s elections have been proven time and time again to be safe and secure.”
Cisco Aguilar, president of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said: “This was complete nonsense.”
In his speech, Trump reiterated his demand that Congress pass the Save America Act, which would ban mail-in voting nationwide and require new identification for voters when registering and heading to the polls. But the measure has no path to pass the Senate, which is universally opposed by Democrats and attempts by right-wing Republicans to weaken the filibuster to make it easier to pass.
However, many proponents of the bill seized on the president’s speech to renew their demands for passage.
“American elections should be no less secure than endless pasta from Olive Garden,” said Republican senator Mike Lee, one of the measure’s biggest backers in the chamber. “Pass the SAVE America Act.”
Top Republicans in Congress have been relatively quiet. Neither House speaker Mike Johnson nor Senate majority leader John Thune was in the room for Trump’s speech, and neither had publicly commented on the matter as of Friday morning.
Johnson is pushing ahead with an effort to sign the Save America Act into law that both chambers could pass along party lines, but will likely fail to sign into law if it only addresses budget issues. Thune, meanwhile, has faced backlash from right-wing activists who say the president didn’t do enough to pass the priority bill.
If the Senate attempts to re-pass the Save America Act, Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer said his party will never waver from its stance against the bill.
“The courts rejected it, Congress rejected it, even members of your own party rejected it; give up,” Schumer said. The Save America Act “is not going anywhere. Period,” he said.
Even some of the president’s former allies found his speech inadequate.
On X, Republican former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed only Trump supporters were being punished while outlining a series of unproven theories of fraud in the recent election. He called the president’s speech “just a big, shiny object for Maga to distract them from the Iran War, the Epstein files, and the massive failure to deliver on campaign promises.”
Congressman Thomas Massie, who lost his Kentucky primary in May after endorsing the president’s opponent, wrote that Trump’s claim that China stole voter data and that U.S. intelligence agencies covered up the theft was “absurd” because such information is generally available to the public for a fee.
Tiffany Muller, president of the advocacy group End Citizens United, said the president is “trying to sell lies to the American people” because he “wants to take over our election and rig November for Republicans.”
“Republicans are headed for a loss in the midterm elections because voters are fed up with corrupt administrations that serve billionaires at the expense of working families. Instead of winning ideas and reassuring the American people, he’s trying to change the rules to help his party,” Muller said.
