By Nandita Bose and David Morgan
WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump plans to deliver a prime-time speech on Thursday focused on election security, bringing renewed attention to his long-running complaints about voting systems and election administration as Republicans face challenging midterm elections in November.
The White House was deciding whether the president’s remarks would include the disclosure of sensitive intelligence related to China’s intention or ability to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing four sources. Some Trump officials worried the information could be misleading, sources said.
Trump has spent years raising doubts about electoral outcomes, falsely asserting that his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged. He has also advanced other false claims, including that mail-in balloting is rife with fraud, voting machines are vulnerable and non-citizen voting is widespread.
Numerous courts and vote recounts found no evidence of large-scale fraud in the 2020 election.
CHINA INTELLIGENCE UNDER REVIEW
The China intelligence, which was collected during Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021, did not show Beijing had manipulated or changed votes, sources told Reuters.
A White House task force led by conservative journalist John Solomon recently asked the intelligence community for documents outlining the information and has spent the past several weeks reviewing them ahead of Trump’s speech, one source familiar with the group’s work said.
The final draft of the speech was not ready as of midday on Thursday and remained subject to changes from the president, a person familiar with the plans said. Several senior White House officials were anxious about what the president would end up saying in his speech and how that could impact Republicans’ chances in November’s midterms, the source said.
“As usual, anonymous sources are speculating about what President Trump will say during his speech on Thursday evening,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday. “The truth is, nobody knows yet what President Trump will ultimately say.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to requests for comment on the Reuters report on Wednesday, and the CIA declined to comment.
Democratic members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence sent a letter to the acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, along with the leaders of the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, warning them not to allow Trump to “weaponize intelligence to support false claims about election security.”
It was not clear whether television networks would give the White House air time for Trump’s speech, a practice typically reserved for major addresses on issues of national import. Spokespeople for the three major broadcasters — NBC, CBS and ABC — as well as cable networks CNN and Fox News did not respond to questions about whether they would carry Trump’s remarks live.
POLITICAL HEADWINDS
Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has sought to expand federal power over the administration of elections, which legally resides with state governments under the U.S. Constitution.
In recent months, he has also pressured Senate Republicans to advance a bill, the SAVE America Act, that would require photo ID to vote and proof of U.S. citizenship to register while also mandating that states share voter registration information with the federal government. Democrats and voting-rights advocates say that voter fraud is exceedingly rare and argue the legislation would suppress legitimate votes.
Some Republican leaders have urged Trump to focus on issues that matter most to Americans, including high living costs, rather than focus on the 2020 vote.
“I don’t know what he’s going to say,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said when asked on Wednesday whether he would advise Trump to avoid talking about the 2020 election. “The only thing I can tell you is, we are focused on the 2026 election, at least I am, and I think most of my colleagues are.”
Republicans are navigating political headwinds as the midterm elections approach, with Trump’s approval rating underwater and voters deeply frustrated by the Iran war and attendant high energy prices.
Democrats need to flip only three Republican seats to take a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. They face an uphill battle to win a Senate majority, however, with critical races unfolding in Republican-leaning states.
Democrats are preparing for the White House to attempt to manipulate November’s election, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told reporters on Wednesday.
“They know they can’t win the election fair and square,” he said. “So we don’t put it past them to try whatever they can.”
(Reporting by Nandita Bose and David Morgan in Washington; Additional reporting by Erin Banco and Edmund Lee; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Don Durfee, Deepa Babington and Matthew Lewis)
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