Trump uses primetime address to once again raise doubts about 2020 U.S. presidential election

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U.S. President Donald Trump used a primetime address to the nation Thursday to once again raise doubts about the results of past elections, reviving a subject he’s long used to make unproven claims and deny his loss in the 2020 election.

Trump’s fixation on his loss to Democrat Joe Biden six years ago and the long-debunked theories he’s circulated about it are things he still brings up regularly when discussing other subjects. But elevating the deeply political and conspiratorial topics to a presidential primetime address underscores the lengths to which Trump has used his second term to both blow past norms and fixate on old grievances.

Trump began Thursday night with a stark warning about what he described as flaws in the voting system and said he was releasing previously classified documents related to the 2020 and 2018 elections.

“America is back and doing really well, but we still have a major challenge that must be urgently addressed, because no country can be great without fair and honest elections,” he said.

He said all Americans should be assured their elections are free of cheating and interference.

“Unfortunately, the system we have today falls catastrophically short of that standard,” Trump said.

Trump used the remarks to justify his push to pass a strict voter ID bill in Congress.

Primetime presidential addresses are typically reserved for major milestones or nationally significant events.

Trump last did it in April to speak on the Iran war, a month after it started. He said then that the U.S. would accomplish its objectives “very shortly” and that “the hard part is done, so it should be easy.” The war, however, has dragged on and strikes between the U.S. and Iran have intensified this week.

Trump also delivered a politically charged primetime speech in December in which he sought to blame the challenging economic climate on Democrats.

Some networks did not air it live

At least some TV networks said Thursday they would not carry the speech live but would air it on their streaming services. ABC, NBC and CNN decided not to air the remarks live but to carry them in full on their streaming services and break into network coverage as needed.

CBS said it was “airing a special report” during the address, but it wasn’t clear if the network would carry it live.

Trump called out the media outlets for not carrying it live and accused them of being “part of a plot.”

Networks typically but don’t always choose to carry presidential addresses to the nation live. In 2022, when then-U.S. president Joe Biden delivered a primetime address full of warnings about Donald Trump and his adherents’ “extreme ideology,” the networks did not carry it live.

In 2014, the major networks chose to stick with their primetime programming instead of airing an address by then-U.S. president Barack Obama on his plans for immigration reform.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday afternoon seemed to be still trying to persuade networks to carry the remarks live, saying, “I think that the mainstream media should air the president’s speech and allow the American people to draw their own conclusions from it.”

Raising questions about the midterms

Democrats warned that Trump was trying to revive false claims of past stolen elections in order to delegitimize the 2026 midterm elections, in which Trump’s Republican Party is facing headwinds.

“Trump is going to use a primetime address to stoke misleading claims about our elections in order to justify interfering in our midterms. It’s on all of us to follow the facts and not accept his constant stream of misdirections and lies,” Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner said in a statement on X.

“Trump is again trying to drum up baseless election conspiracies ahead of the November elections,” New Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim said in a post on X. “Americans are tired of endless war, skyrocketing gas prices, and a president that isn’t looking out for them. Voters will make their voices heard, whether Trump wants them to or not.”

Leavitt didn’t answer a question Thursday about whether Trump would accept the results of the midterms, though U.S. Vice-President JD Vance told reporters on Capitol Hill a day earlier that “of course we’re gonna support the results of the midterm elections.”

Vance bristled Wednesday when asked if he’d encourage Trump in his Thursday remarks to stay focused on November’s midterm elections rather than relitigate past elections. “‘The unfounded claims,”' Vance said, repeating the reporter’s language. “You’re basically assuming an answer in the very question that you ask.”

“The president is going to talk about a number of things tomorrow night. I’m obviously not going to get ahead of his remarks,” Vance said. “But we can talk about a number of the American people’s problems. We can solve a number of the American people’s problems.”

Before he began speaking about elections, Trump started his speech by ticking through a long list of what he said were his administration’s accomplishments — including cutting drug prices.

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Will Weissert in Washington and Jocelyn Noveck in New York contributed to this report.

Michelle L. Price, Eric Tucker And Collin Binkley, The Associated Press