WASHINGTON — In a primetime address to the nation on Thursday, President Donald Trump set the stage to question the midterm election results.
In a 17-minute speech, Trump claimed without evidence there is election fraud and interference in elections by China, and ordered the Department of Justice to prosecute those believed to be involved.
“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; you have to trust your country,” Trump said. “Because if there can be no trust, there can be no greatness, and that’s very simple: no trust, no greatness.”
Trump failed to provide specific evidence that the election outcome, or any votes, were altered in the 2020 election, despite his repeated claims that the election was “stolen” or “rigged.”
The president once again pushed for Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, his sweeping elections reform bill that Senate Majority Leader John Thune has repeatedly said does not have enough Republican votes to pass.
The documents that Trump released don’t support his claims that China manufactured fake votes for former President Joe Biden in 2020 and that a “deep state” conspiracy that China’s is against him.
Democrats called Thursday’s speech “frightening”, fearing the speech is setting the stage for another January 6th like event if Republicans fail to win the midterm elections in November.
One heavily-redacted document titled “200M Voter Records Compromised. repeatedly references personally identifiable information being compromised. This information includes names, phone numbers and addresses — which can also be found from many other sources.
Trump falsely said in his address that Chinese officials took steps to produce illegal ballots in 2020. The allegation Trump cited was not new and had been released more than a year ago by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R- Iowa. The document is a memo by the FBI’s Albany, New York, office describing an individual with secondhand information.
