Trump set to revive election conspiracies in national address

Donald Trump was set to deliver a national address at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday after saying it would focus on elections and voting machines, raising the prospect that he would again promote long-debunked claims about his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden. Trump called the planned speech “really, really big news.”

An administration official said the address would cover national elections and what White House officials view as vulnerabilities in voting machines. ABC News reported that Trump was expected to detail information he had recently received from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence about the 2020 election, putting the event squarely back on terrain that has fueled years of Republican infighting and Democratic skepticism.

The timing also made the speech politically sensitive. Trump had been pressing Republicans in Congress to approve tighter federal voting rules before the November midterms, including the SAVE Act, as part of a broader push to harden election law. That effort has already sharpened partisan lines in Washington, where Trump’s allies have framed voting restrictions as a security issue and Democrats have warned that the rhetoric risks suppressing turnout.

Some Republicans were privately bracing for backlash, fearing Trump would use the primetime slot to relitigate 2020 and deepen mistrust heading into the 2026 midterms. Those concerns reflected a familiar problem for the party: Trump remains the dominant figure in Republican politics, but his insistence on revisiting the last presidential election still threatens to pull the party back into the same disputes many lawmakers have tried to move beyond.

The address came after a string of coverage from AP News, Reuters, CNN, The New York Times, The Hill, Politico and NBC News all pointed to election security, voting machines and allegations tied to 2020 as the likely center of gravity. For Trump, the speech offered another high-profile platform to press the same message. For Republicans uneasy about the fallout, it reopened a fight over whether the party was preparing for the next election or still arguing about the last one.