Trump raises election doubt in jarring speech, fueling midterm concerns – COLORADO COMMENTS
WASHINGTON | President Donald Trump used a primetime address to the nation Thursday to elevate his yearslong push to raise doubts about the legitimacy of U.S. elections and dispute his 2020 loss in an appeal for more restrictive voting laws ahead of the midterms.
Trump’s amplification of debunked theories about the election six years ago and his inability to accept his loss led to one of the darker moments in American history when a mob of his supporters led a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in the final days of his first term.
Now back in power, Trump opted to revisit the subject, despite persistent voter concerns about the cost of living, American forces escalating strikes on Iran in a conflict for which there is no end in sight, and an immigration crackdown facing bipartisan scrutiny for its sometimes deadly tactics.
His address Thursday hinged on contradictions.
COLORADO COMMENTS
Rep. Jason Crow, D-Aurora: “Tonight the American people heard more lies from an unwell President. Donald Trump is obsessed with staying in office so he can enrich himself and his billionaire donors–disregarding the will of the voters. He’s desperately trying to cling to power and distract from his unpopular war, skyrocketing prices, incompetent leadership, and rampant corruption.Our election system has been and remains safe and secure. Thousands of elections have happened all over the country at every level of government during the President’s time in office. Yet Trump only has a problem with one election, the one he lost. As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I have seen no credible evidence of successful foreign interference with prior elections or foreign threats to the current election. The President’s attempt to cherry-pick intelligence or rewrite history does not change that. Despite his lies and assault on our democracy, he will not succeed. The American people are fed up with failed leadership. Accountability is coming.”
Democratic Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold: “Donald Trump continues to spread election lies. In his second term, he has actively worked to undermine the nation’s elections and make them less secure. Now Trump is doubling down on the tactic he knows best: lying and misleading the public about American elections. Trump will continue trying to exert power he doesn’t have, to affect elections he doesn’t control, to disenfranchise the American people who he doesn’t care about. He is laying the groundwork to undermine the 2026 Midterms – and we will stop him.”
Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colorado: “President Trump is once again peddling conspiracies to distract from his failures and doubling down on his efforts to make it harder to vote. As governor, we expanded Colorado’s mail-in voting system, which Democrats and Republicans trust because it’s convenient, safe, and secure. No matter how many lies Donald Trump, Tina Peters, or other election deniers tell, we’ll keep fighting to protect your right to vote.”
Colorado Democratic Party Chairperson Shad Murib: “Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Nearly six years later, he’s still using the presidency to waste taxpayer money and time to investigate his delusions and spread conspiracy theories because he can’t accept that fact. Colorado has already paid a price for his obsession, after he blamed our trusted mail voting system as a reason to take the U.S. Space Command away from Colorado Springs and change a regional economy overnight. Colorado’s elections are safe, secure and fair. We’ll continue to protect every Coloradan’s freedom to vote.”
Colorado Democratic Voter Protection Director Emily Dowd: “Regardless of the president’s paranoid, baseless beliefs about the 2020 election, our voter protection team is committed to protecting eligible voters’ right to access our safe, secure, and fair elections. We are working with bipartisan election officials, lawyers, and volunteers statewide to ensure every eligible voter in Colorado can register to vote and cast a ballot that counts this fall.”
Rep. Brittany Petterson, D-Lakewood: “Donald Trump’s speech tonight was not just unhinged, but dangerous. We will let the fact-checkers do their job. But this speech is meant to disrupt confidence in our elections more than any of the false claims he made. I won’t look away, like he wants; I will fight to make sure our elections stay free and fair!”
A twice-elected president complained about his one personal defeat, alleged a cover-up by officials in his own first administration and surfaced claims about countries attempting to harm his own prospects while staying silent on steps taken by other nations to boost him.
Trump used the remarks to justify his push to pass a strict voter ID bill in Congress that has not advanced because it lacks enough support from Republicans.
“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.
Trump doesn’t raise doubts about his election wins
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, when he lost the presidential election and his party suffered losses.
Trump’s speech presented allegations of interference and influence in ways that lacked key context, and did not produce evidence that votes had been manipulated or that the election outcome had been altered.
No credible intelligence has emerged showing that the vote count in 2020 was manipulated by foreign actors. Repeated audits and reviews — manyrun by Republicans, including Trump’s own then-attorney general — have found no significant fraud occurred in 2020.
Even if substantiated, Trump’s claims did not amount to conduct that would have altered the outcome of any race, let alone the 2020 race for the White House.
He also did not raise doubts about his election wins in 2016 or 2024.
As Trump spoke, the White House unveiled a website containing documents that were presented without context and included selectively released pieces of investigation files, intelligence analysis and correspondence.
Notably, Trump focused on China but glossed over Russia, a country that intelligence officials have said favored Trump in 2016 and 2020 and engaged in wide-ranging influence campaigns aimed at boosting him over Biden in the latter campaign.
Despite focusing on China in his speech, Trump did not criticize or issue a warning to Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he has long praised.
Former intelligence official calls address ‘dangerous’
Sue Gordon, principal deputy director of national intelligence in Trump’s first term, called the president’s address “a dangerous speech about an incredibly important topic.” She said the intelligence community throughout Trump’s first term was alarmed about foreign interference in elections, but Trump scoffed at them, angered at the investigation of his campaign’s relationship with Russia.
“He had an entire term to deal with it and I don’t know how you can believe how the same community that told him about it, that was excoriated about it” wouldn’t warn him in 2020, Gordon said on CNN.
Trump urged the Justice Department to conduct investigations and prosecutions, though it was unclear from his speech what sort of criminal conduct — if any — could be identified, proven and charged.
In a contrast with his concerns about foreign interference in elections, Trump in his new budget proposes a $707 million cut in the U.S. Cybsersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, the group charged with protecting American election systems from overseas cyberattacks. Trump and other conservatives have been frustrated that the organization pushed back on election claims in 2020 and beyond.
Some networks did not air it live
In past presidencies, primetime addresses have typically been reserved for major milestones or nationally significant events.
Trump last spoke to the nation in April, giving an address 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.
ABC, NBC and CNN did not air Thursday’s remarks live but carried them in full on their streaming services and said they would break into network coverage as needed.
CBS and MS NOW both cut away from Trump’s speech before he finished, while Fox News continued to carry his address.
Trump called out the media outlets for not carrying it live and accused them of being “part of a plot.”
Networks typically — but not always — carry presidential addresses to the nation live. In 2022, when President Joe Biden delivered a primetime address full of warnings about 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 President Barack Obama on his plans for immigration reform.
Democrats accuse Trump of seeking to discredit next election
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.
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia called Trump’s claims “totally bogus.”
“The fact is our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that China did not even try to change a single vote in the 2020 election,” Warner said in a statement on X. “A single concurring opinion suggested China may have tried to sway voters’ opinions … but that’s been public knowledge since 2021.”
Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the ranking Democrat on the administration committee that handles federal voting issues and elections, said Trump is trying to sow confusion before the midterm elections.
“This is a pretext for the president, I think, calling into dispute the 2026 elections,” Morelle said on C-SPAN, adding that “we have secure elections.”
“I heard no concrete allegations that foreign actors actually changed the results of an American election,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said on CNN.
Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Lisa Mascaro and Will Weissert in Washington and Jocelyn Noveck in New York contributed to this report.
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