White House website crashes as Trump claims evidence of election fraud | US | News
President Trump gave his first speech (Image: Getty)
As President Donald Trump addressed the nation Thursday evening to unveil what he claimed was new evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, the White House website crashed, once again drawing attention to an issue he has been advocating for years.
Trump opened his speech by claiming that new evidence will be made public proving that the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden was stolen and that Americans were able to access this material on the White House website. But as the address continued, the website crashed.
“Tonight, I’m announcing the immediate declassification and disclosure of critical intelligence that reveals shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. This evidence shows that the election system we have has dangerously exposed and actually exposed hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference at levels never thought possible. Equally disturbing, this vital information has been covered up and hidden from you for many years,” he said in his speech.
Screenshots of the faulty website quickly spread on social media, with reporter Katie Pavlich posting on her
Before the speech, Trump had only hinted at the content of his speech. Asked by a reporter Tuesday if this was about “election machines and integrity,” Trump confirmed it was “about that,” adding “we’ll have a few more things to say.”
On Thursday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced: “President Trump will deliver an important address to the nation about protecting the integrity of our elections. And we encourage every American to listen.”
He offered little more detail, but said what the president was trying to say “will shock you if you listen to the president with an honest eye tonight,” arguing that the United States “needs to make some adjustments going forward”; This includes the strict voter ID bill he championed.
Primetime presidential addresses are traditionally reserved for major events or topics of major national importance.
Trump last gave his presidential speech in April, a month after the Iran war began. He stated at the time that the United States would achieve its goals “in a very short time” and that “the hard part has been done, so it should be easy.”
Trump addressed the nation and pushed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election (Image: Getty)
However, the conflict continued, with attacks between the US and Iran increasing this week.
Trump also gave a politically charged primetime speech in December during which he attempted to place blame for the difficult economic climate on Democrats. At least some television networks announced Thursday that they would not broadcast the speech live but would stream it on their own streaming platforms.
Both ABC and NBC opted not to have the remarks aired live, opting instead to carry them in full on their streaming services and interrupt network programming when necessary.
Trump claims country’s election system is ‘disastrously inadequate’ (Image: Getty)
At Thursday’s press conference, Leavitt appeared to still be trying to persuade networks to air his remarks live, saying: “I think the mainstream media should broadcast the president’s speech and let the American people draw their own conclusions from it.”
Leavitt stated that Trump could use his words to address the economy and Iran, and said, “We have had talks on various issues regarding him, and this may very well be possible tonight.”
Trump’s preoccupation with his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden six years ago and the long-discredited theories he has advanced about it are topics he continues to bring up regularly when discussing other topics.
However, elevating highly political and conspiratorial topics into his presidential primetime address demonstrates the extent to which Trump is using his second term to both ignore tradition and dwell on past resentments.
