US President Donald Trump delivered a charged primetime address on Thursday night — reiterating his frequent claims of voter fraud and assuring that America was “winning big in Iran”. The White House also unveiled a new website containing what the POTUS described as previously classified documents related to the 2020 and 2018 elections. Trump also contradicted US intelligence assessments to accuse China of altering the 2020 vote against him, and justified his push for a strict voter ID bill in Congress. The remarks have since prompted a scathing rebuttal from former Vice President Kamala Harris and urgent calls for people to vote in the upcoming midterm elections.
“The president is scared of your power, and he wants you to believe your vote does not matter. He wants you to lose confidence in our electoral system so you stay home this November. He knows how discontent the American people are, and he wants to make sure that you do not vote. Because if the people vote in their numbers, Republicans will lose,” Harris wrote on X.
She had also ‘predicted’ the direction of his address before the speech began — alleging that Trump would “peddle lies and conspiracy theories” on television. Harris repeated that the “2020 election was not stolen” and claimed that the Republican-backed SAVE Act was “voter suppression”.
Harris accuses Trump of ‘peddling lies’ to ‘distract’ Americans
The former Vice President insisted in a lengthy X thread that Republicans would lose “if the people vote in their numbers” during the upcoming midterm elections. Harris also flagged rising costs and the ongoing war with Iran to underscore her point. The Democrat added that Americans “have a lot of work to do” — emphasising the need to “make our voices heard, prove that we are still in this fight, and put a real check on this corrupt and cruel administration” by voting.
“Donald Trump and his administration have done nothing to bring down the cost of housing, health care, child care, food, or gas. Donald Trump and his administration got America into a war the people do not want. He is attempting to distract you from that reality,” she wrote on X.
What did Trump claim today?
The President of the United States alleged on Thursday that members of the “Deep State” within US intelligence agencies had suppressed information about Chinese interference in the 2020 US elections. Trump announced an investigation into this ‘cover-up’ that had purportedly kept information from both the President and the American people. His long-running attacks on election security have prevailed despite a US intelligence assessment that found no evidence Beijing altered the 2020 vote that Trump lost to Joe Biden.
The White House also declassified intelligence that Trump said showed Chinese interference in American elections. The president said these documents showed China had illicitly acquired 220 million US voter files, including names, addresses and other data used to register to vote. Repeated audits and reviews — many run by Republicans, including Trump’s own attorney general at the time — have found no significant fraud occurred in 2020. And no questions have been raised about the 2016 or 2024 elections that Trump won.
The 25-minute address underscored Trump’s effort to make election security a central political issue ahead of November’s midterm elections, when Republicans will be defending their congressional majorities and face the possibility of losing control of one or both chambers. The POTUS also pressed his fellow Republicans in Congress to pass legislation imposing new voter identification and citizenship requirements.