10:48 pm ET
Trump-backed GOP Senate candidate thinks Americans should be ‘alarmed’
Terry Collins
Georgia Rep. Mike Collins, who’s also the state’s Republican Senate candidate, said on social media Thursday that Americans should be “alarmed” by their enemies’ attempts to prevent secure elections, echoing sentiments in a speech made by President Donald Trump.
“Our right to free and secure elections should be protected relentlessly, and every American should be alarmed by our enemies’ ability to disrupt our elections and jeopardize our right to vote,” Collins said in a post on X. “Eighty-three percent of Americans support voter ID, and there is no time more important than now to pass the SAVE America Act and safeguard democracy.”
Collins, who is endorsed by President Donald Trump, handily won his GOP Senate primary race last month. Collins will challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Trump critic, in the general election on Nov 3.
10:36 pm ET
U.S. election system is decentralized and that’s a good thing, expert says
Sarah D. Wire
President Donald Trump repeatedly spoke Thursday night of the country’s election infrastructure as a monolithic thing.
“Put together these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it,” he said. “It is not defensible.”
Trump has worked through executive actions in his second term to gain unprecedented control of election administration, saying his moves are necessary to prevent cheating and fraud.
But election experts stress that the Constitution grants states authority over running elections, which has created a patchwork of different systems that uphold similar standards, like requiring paper ballots that can be hand-counted during audits, while being tailored to the community.
That decentralization makes large scale fraud incredibly difficult, said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, a non-partisan think tank.
“The central action is still the state and local governments that are administering elections openly in ways that are very openly and verifiably and in bipartisan ways, you know. And all of this can be, and is, regularly audited, reviewed, witnessed,” she said.
State and local governments administer elections “very openly and verifiably and in bipartisan ways … and all of this can be, and is, regularly audited, reviewed, witnessed,” she said.
“The decentralization of our elections, and the paper trail that exists for all of our votes, and the variety of methods by which Americans can vote are all guardrails.”
10:35 pm ET
Trump says states where China hacked election data will be notified
Joey Garrison
Trump said his administration is in the process of notifying states that had election data compromised by China in the 2020 election.
Yet surprisingly, Trump did not single out Georgia at any point in his remarks. The FBI this year opened an investigation into Georgia’s 2020 election results.
“We’re taking swift action to ensure that sensitive voter data is better protected, so we can never be bought, we can never be hacked, and we can never watch a stolen election again,” Trump said.
Trump also said his administration is reaching out to governors, U.S. senators and members of Congress that have “potential issues” with cyber vulnerabilities with the election systems in their states. “If you look at voting today, it’s im such bad shape in so many states, and we are committing to fix it,” Trump said.
The president said the Department of Homeland Security is set to notify every state about noncitizens who are registered to vote in their states.
10:20 pm ET
‘The President lies’: Nevada officials rebuke Trump’s voter statements
James Powel
LAS VEGAS – Nevada officials swiftly rebuked statements made by President Trump during the speech.
Trump stated that the Department of Homeland Security identified 278,000 noncitizens who are registered to vote in federal elections. Nevada is one of four states where DHS said that noncitizens were found on voter rolls, according to a draft news release reported on by Politico.
“Today’s announcement from the President and Department of Homeland Security is the latest chapter in a predictable playbook crafted intentionally to undermine faith in our elections,” Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, a Democrat, said in a news release. “As Nevada’s Chief Elections Officer, it’s my job to call balls and strikes – so when the President lies, I am obligated to call him out.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat running for governor against incumbent Republican Joe Lombardo, echoed Aguilar in a news release issued after the speech.
“What’s really happening here is clear. President Trump is trying to sow doubt about the integrity of our elections to illegally expand his own power over our state’s right to administer elections as enshrined in the Constitution,” Ford said.
USA TODAY has reached out to Lombardo for comment.
California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are the other states mentioned in the draft release, according to Politico.
10:16 pm ET
Hakeem Jeffries calls Donald Trump an ‘unhinged … failed president’
Terry Collins
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries took to social media, calling President Donald Trump “unhinged” after the president’s primetime speech Thursday, in which Trump warned that U.S. elections are vulnerable to foreign interference in an effort to cast doubt on the integrity of U.S. elections as the crucial midterm elections approach in less than four months.
“Donald Trump is a feeble, unhinged conspiracy-peddling 80-year-old failed President,” Jeffries said in a post on X. “The economy is a disaster under this guy and the American people know it.
“Pathetic,” Jeffries, the Democratic caucus leader, concluded.
10:15 pm ET
From China meddling to election machine vulnerabilities, a look at highlights of Trump’s address
Josh Meyer
President Donald Trump touched on a wide array of issues in his speech July 16, from accusing China of meddling in U.S. elections to defeat him to calling out significant domestic election vulnerabilities.
Here are the highlights of what Trump said in his primetime address, based on what the president said are classified U.S. intelligence documents he has ordered declassified:
China’s election meddling and cover-up
- China tried to undermine the 2020 election in myriad ways, including compromising U.S. voter data, with 220 million voter files stolen, and clandestinely influencing U.S. business leaders and journalists.
- U.S. in raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020 showed China’s attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden.
U.S. intelligence agencies’ cover-ups
- U.S. intelligence agencies including the CIA covered up information about China’s efforts and intentions to undermine Trump’s political fortunes, including suppressing and downplaying the extent of its actions.
- Significant CIA and National Security Agency reports about China’s election targeting were kept out of presidential briefings.
Vulnerabilities in election infrastructure
- The U.S. election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines, is easily compromised – and has been compromised. Centralized election-related data repositories are most vulnerable to exploitation.
- Intelligence assessments show that adversaries, including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea can compromise U.S. election infrastructure.
Venezuela
- The CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot to digitally rig elections in favor of the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela.
Cover-up of fraud and noncitizen voters at the state level
9:59 pm ET
Sen. Warner: Trump is ‘trying to undermine our confidence in our system’
Terry Collins
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said President Donald Trump’s speech Thursday was an attempt to undermine the nation’s election integrity.
“As an American, I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed that the President of the United States tried to speak to the whole nation with a whole series of falsehoods, accusations, I believe, aimed at trying to undermine confidence in our system,” Warner told MS NOW talk show host Jen Psaki.
The senator said Trump’s comments come as a prelude because if America has a “free and fair election in 2026,” he and his allies will lose the midterm election in “a dramatic fashion.”
Warner said this is a time when Americans have to come together to protect their right to vote.
“If we simply blow this off as another Donald Trump rant, we do that at our own peril,” Warner said.
Warner said that in the past 10 years, his committee, in a bipartisan manner, has reviewed and investigated all of the allegations the president brought up.
“The irony of all of this is most of the accusations he’s making about 2018 and 2020, Donald Trump’s appointees were in charge of the intelligence community,” Warner said. “Why didn’t they find any of these so-called allegations?”
Warner urged his Republican colleagues, if they have any dignity, to speak up and “tell the truth.”
9:47 pm ET
Trump calls for SAVE America Act passage
James Powel and Zachary Schermele
President Trump called for the passage of the SAVE America Act, the voting restrictions bill that has stalled in Congress.
“How easy is that to do, unless you want to cheat,” Trump said. “The only reason you wouldn’t do it is if you want to cheat.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson is attempting to pass a version of the bill through the budget process. However, it’s not clear that it has the votes to pass in the Senate.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who is retiring, previously said he’d refuse to vote for the larger budget bill if it includes elements of SAVE. “It’s a waste of time, and it’s an exercise in futility,” he said.
9:44 pm ET
Trump says DHS review found over 250K noncitizen voters
Sarah D. Wire
President Donald Trump said a “stunning investigation” by the Department of Homeland Security of state voter rolls and public records identified 278,000 noncitizens who are registered to vote in federal elections.
“Since Democratic states refuse to share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher than that,” Trump said.
Trump called it indefensible.
The combination of state data and public records that DHS used isn’t immediately clear.
The Justice Department demanded voter rolls from all 50 states within the last two years. At least 17 Republican-led states provided the voter information. But officials in many states — led by both Republicans and Democrats — refused, citing privacy laws against sharing the personal information and the lack of federal authority over the lists.
The DOJ then sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for the unredacted lists. It has lost all 15 lawsuits that have been resolved. Many have since been appealed.
Recently federal judges have blocked the Trump administration’s newly modified Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, which combines citizenship data and other sensitive data with information from the Social Security Administration to create a clearinghouse that they say Congress has expressly prohibited.
In one late June case, a federal judge blocked its use saying the administration was knowingly providing inaccurate data to states that are now “actively” and “haphazardly” purging purported noncitizens from voter rolls.
“The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wrote in a 75-page ruling. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”
9:38 pm ET
Trump calls for ABC, NBC broadcast licenses to be revoked
Joey Garrison
In an extraordinary move, Trump called for the Federal Communications Commission to revoke ABC’s and NBC’s television licenses for choosing not to broadcast his primetime address.
Trump accused the networks of not wanting to “reveal” the election fraud that he alleged in his speech
“They and others in the media are part of a plot. They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason,” the president said. “They want to keep it going. They want to protect the radical left.
“Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses,” he added. “They use our public, multi-billion-dollar-in-value airwaves for absolutely no money. They pay nothing. All we want is honest in our elections and honesty in reporting.”
Trump in September 2025 floated directing the FCC ‒ whose chairman Brendan Carr is a close Trump ally ‒ of pulling broadcast licenses over negative coverage of him. He later backed off the push.
9:34 pm ET
US elections ‘worse than any third-world country,’ Trump says
Fernando Cervantes Jr.
As President Trump accused China of “meddling” in the 2020 election, he also said elections in America are “worse than any third-world country.”
“This is worse than any third-world country. There’s no third-world country that has elections like we have,” Trump said.
Trump was defeated in 2020 by former President Joe Biden and has continued to push unsubstantiated allegations and debunked theories to assert that his defeat was due to fraud.
Research shows U.S. elections have only a minute amount of fraud and that illegal voting that does occur does not change outcomes. A study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University found only 3 votes out of every 1 million cast were fraudulent.
9:34 pm ET
Trump says China ‘fought like hell’ against him
Josh Meyer
President Donald Trump said in his White House address that China has been trying to make sure he didn’t get elected — or reelected — long before the 2020 election that he alleges was hacked by Beijing to help his rival, Joe Biden.
“The cover-up of this colossal security breach is even more disturbing in light of the additional information showing that China engaged in other election-related activities to undermine my first administration and our 2020 campaign,” Trump said. “They did not want, they just didn’t want it, (and) they fought like hell not to have it, Donald Trump to win, and for good reason.”
Trump said that CIA reporting “explicitly stated” that in mid-2018, the Chinese Communist Party’s policy was to “leverage all domestic and foreign elements in an effort to reduce Trump’s votes and to make him resign or prevent his re-election.”
Also, in mid-2018, Trump said, China was working to influence the results of the U.S. midterm elections, and later the results of the 2020 presidential election itself. Separately, he said, in mid-2019, “the Chinese government’s strategy against the United States was focused on undermining domestic confidence in the U.S. president.”
9:32 pm ET
Here are Trump’s ‘major areas of concern’
Terry Collins
President Donald Trump said during his speech that there are “five major areas of concern” over election integrity and foreign interference among the documents the White House will release.
He said they show that over a period of years, starting with the 2020 election, China is believed to be the largest compromiser of election data in history in the acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and political party preferences needed to register to vote, as well as being involved in other nefarious activities.
The president said that intelligence has shown that China has created a data exploitation unit.
Another set of Trump’s statements refers to “a deep state” to actively suppress and downplay the information of China’s election meddling, covering it up from both “the president and the American people, like nobody thought was possible.”
He said U.S. intelligence began uncovering this in 2020, that tens of millions of voters’ data were bought, stolen, or hacked by China, and those responsible kept it secret and hidden, and did not inform Congress.
Trump later pushed for Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act, which remains stalled in Congress as the SAVE Act continues to face scrutiny from voter rights groups and experts. Among the concerns is a fear that married people who changed their surnames might have trouble proving they’re eligible to vote.
9:27 pm ET
Trump: US elections infrastructure vulnerable to foreign interference
Joey Garrison
President Trump said Americans have for years been “blatantly lied to” about the security of election infrastructure including voting machines and ballot counting systems.
The claims echo those Trump has previously made, but the president cited a new intelligence assessment that he said states, “We judge that the Untited States adversaries, including at a minimum Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, as well as non-state groups, have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure.”
“That’s some statement, isn’t it,” Trump added.
9:22 pm ET
Trump announces declassification of documents
James Powel
President Trump announced the release of documents regarding alleged “meddling” in the 2020 election by China. He said the documents were gathered by the White House Government Transparency Task Force and the staff of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.
Trump also said the work was reviewed by “top intelligence agency chiefs.”
The White House published a website with the documents.
9:18 pm ET
Trump says ‘deep state’ kept China intelligence concealed from him
Joey Garrison
President Donald Trump accused the so-called “deep state” within the U.S. government of concealing information he claims showed China meddled in the 2020 election.
“Those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information secret and hidden,” Trump said in an extraordinary accusation against his own intelligence community when he was president in 2020.
“They did not disclose to me as president or to anyone else, and to the best of our knowledge, they did not inform Congress – in fact, all they kept saying is, ‘This is the most secure election in the history of our country,’ ” Trump said.
9:08 pm ET
Trump begins remarks, declaring US is ‘safer, stronger’ than ever
Joey Garrison
Trump began his remarks in the White House East Room shortly after 9 p.m. ET saying the nation is “safer, stronger and far wealthier than it has ever been before.”
Trump said he “inherited an economic and social disaster,” claiming he took a “dead country” to one that is the “hottest country in the world.”
The president went on to tout his massive tax cuts that passed in the “Big Beautiful Bill,” the strong stock market, his administration’s efforts to lower drug prices and the recent launch of new “Trump accounts” for newborns.
8:52 pm ET
‘We won, and he lost’ in 2020, Kamala Harris says before Trump speech
Joey Garrison
Ahead of President Donald Trump’s primetime speech, former Vice President Kamala Harris took a preemptive strike at Trump’s baseless claims that he won the 2020 election.
“Before the president gets on television tonight to peddle lies and conspiracy theories, here is what you need to know,” Harris said in a post on X. “The 2020 election was not stolen. We won, and he lost.”
Harris was Joe Biden’s vice presidential running mate in 2020 when the Biden-Harris ticket defeated Trump. Four years later, Harris ‒ then the Democratic presidential nominee ‒ lost to Trump in the 2024 election.
8:33 pm ET
What is the SAVE Act, and where does it stand?
Terry Collins
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America, Act is a federal bill that would change how Americans register to vote and could be a topic President Donald Trump touches upon during his primetime speech Thursday night.
A controversial bill backed by Trump, the SAVE Act would require individuals to provide proof of citizenship upon registering to vote in federal elections. It would also prohibit universal mail-in voting nationwide. The bill currently remains stalled in Congress as the SAVE Act continues to face scrutiny from voter rights groups and experts. Among the concerns is a fear that married people who changed their surnames might have trouble proving they’re eligible to vote.
The bill passed the GOP-led House of Representatives on Feb. 11, but still faces uncertainty in the Senate. Previous versions of the bill failed to gain traction in both chambers last year. This latest iteration, which builds on the 2024 version by adding a voter ID provision, must get 60 votes in the Senate to pass.
Trump is furious that the bill hasn’t become law. The president tried to tie the legislation to a landmark bipartisan 21st Century Road to Housing Act, an affordable housing bill that became federal law July 11 after sitting on the president’s desk since June 29.
Trump said in a July 10 Truth Social post that he wouldn’t sign the housing bill because Congress hasn’t passed the SAVE America Act.
“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump said.
8:16 pm ET
What US intelligence has assessed about China and US elections
Joey Garrison
Multiple reports, including from Reuters and CBS News, suggest Trump could use his remarks to allege foreign interference in the 2020 election by China.
The National Intelligence Council has previously concluded China did not meddle in the 2020 election but considered doing so.
In March 2021, Avril Haines, director of national intelligence in the Biden administration, released a report that said the intelligence community had “high confidence” that China did not try to interfere with the 2020 U.S. election but considered ‒ though never deployed ‒ attempting to change the outcome of the election.
In the end, China did not view either a Biden or Trump win as being advantageous enough to risk getting caught, according to the council’s March 2021 report on foreign threats in the election.
But the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber expressed a “minority view,” detailed in the same report, that China took some steps to undermine Trump’s reelection chances, primarily through social media and public statements.
A separate intelligence report from 2020, declassified in 2022 but still heavily redacted, found that Chinese intelligence officials analyzed election voter registration data from multiple states to conduct public opinion analyses of the 2020 election, CBS reported.
Following the 2022 midterm elections, the National Intelligence Council released a report in 2023 that found China “tacitly approved” efforts to influence a handful of midterm races involving members of both political parties. But the same assessment said China “refrained from authorizing a comprehensive campaign to influence the midterms in favor of one U.S” political party.
8:16 pm ET
Schumer: Trump is trying to ‘rig the midterm elections’
Fernando Cervantes Jr.
In a video posted on X, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said that President Donald Trump’s speech Thursday would be “full of grievances and blatant lies.”
Schumer continued, calling the president a “weak” and “flailing” leader with an “unpopular agenda.” Schumer said Trump would “pull out every stop to cheat, to undermine the right to vote, rig the midterm elections in his favor.”
Trump’s speech Thursday comes as he continues to struggle in the polls, potentially giving Democrats a helpful hand in regaining control of Congress in November’s midterms.
In a post on X earlier Thursday, Schumer also called Trump’s speech tonight a “threat against the election he’s afraid to lose in November.”
“Trump knows he can’t defend Republicans’ disastrous record, so he’s trying to discredit voters who will judge it in November,” he continued.
8:08 pm ET
Speech audience could include Cabinet members: Report
James Powel
CBS News, citing unnamed “sources familiar with the matter,” reported that the audience for the speech is expected to include members of Trump’s Cabinet.
The heads of the Department of Homeland Security, CIA and FBI and the director of national intelligence were among those invited to attend the speech, according to the outlet.
Trump said Wednesday that acting director of national intelligence Bill Pulte has broad permission to declassify records, including those tied to the 2020 election, even though his close ally is only at the intelligence helm for a short time.
Contributing: Reuters
8:00 pm ET
Moreno says he was ‘briefed’ on speech
Fernando Cervantes Jr.
Only hours away from Trump’s speech from the Oval Office, Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said he was “briefed” on what Americans could expect from the president’s remarks.
In a post on X, Moreno said the speech would be the “most important Oval Office address since the Cuban Missile Crisis.”
“I would encourage every American to tune in tonight to the President’s speech,” Moreno said. “The time for complacency with China is over.”
In the days leading up to the speech, Trump has teased that he plans to make “a very big announcement” on “free and fair elections,” but also said he would talk about several other topics.
Reports from Reuters and CBS News suggest Trump could use his remarks to allege foreign interference in the 2020 election by China.
The White House has weighed Trump disclosing sensitive intelligence regarding China’s ability to interfere with U.S. elections, Reuters reported, citing four people with knowledge of the discussions.
Trump is also expected to cite information to support alleged vulnerabilities in voting infrastructure that could expose the U.S. to foreign interference in elections.
7:48 pm ET
Chinese government denies interfering in US elections
Josh Meyer
The Chinese government on July 16 told USA TODAY that it “has never and will never interfere” in U.S. presidential elections – despite past claims by President Donald Trump that Beijing wanted to help Democrat Joe Biden defeat him in 2020.
“China has all along adhered to the principle of non-interference in other’s internal affairs,” Liu Chang, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said in a statement.
“The U.S. election is an internal matter of the U.S.,” Liu said. “Its outcome is determined by the votes of the American people. China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the U.S.”
A declassified 2021 U.S. intelligence assessment found that while China, Russia and other countries attempted to meddle in the 2020 election, there was no indication that any foreign actor altered voter registration, ballots, tabulation or reported results.
The statement came before Trump’s speech, which a GOP senator indicated would be at least partly about China.
In April 2020, seven months before his election loss to Biden that November, Trump told Reuters that the Beijing government would “do anything they can” to make him lose and that it preferred his Democratic rival.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang responded with a similar public denial at the time, adding, “we hope the people of the U.S. will not drag China into its electoral politics.”
7:42 pm ET
White House press secretary says findings will ‘shock’ Americans
Joey Garrison
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at a Thursday briefing with reporters said the election findings Trump will present in his address to the nation will “shock” Americans who “have an honest eye listening to the president tonight.”
She declined to elaborate on the nature of the claims, but said everything Trump says will be “backed by facts and by evidence that will be provided this evening.”
“We should have the safest and most secure elections in the history of the world, and what the president will be speaking about tonight will show you that perhaps that is not the case,” Leavitt said.
Six years after his 2020 election loss, Trump is still pushing unsubstantiated allegations and debunked theories to assert Democrats and Joe Biden stole the election from him. Yet the president often relies on theories that independent reviews long ago discredited.
Numerous courts, election audits and even Trump’s own election specialists in the Justice and Homeland Security departments found no evidence of voting-machine tampering, foreign interference or widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Trump filed 62 lawsuits in court contesting the results in the weeks after the 2020 election, with each failing.
7:16 pm ET
Massie: ‘We won all the damn elections’
Phillip M. Bailey
Leading up to the 2026 midterms, President Trump has looked at several levers to thwart a forecast Democratic “blue wave” this fall.
Chief among them being a redistricting arms race nationally that has pressured Republican-controlled state legislatures to change their congressional maps mid-decade.
But even some GOP lawmakers are questioning the logic of the president’s crusade, which relies heavily on unsubstantiated voter fraud claims.
“I don’t think the problem is that our elections aren’t secure because we control the House, Senate, White House and to some degree we control the Supreme Court,” Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, who lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed contender, said July 16 on MS Now.
“So I ask my Republican colleagues, why are you complaining about election fraud?” he added. “We won all the damn elections.”
Massie said the real problem is that Trump has failed to fulfill promises made during the 2024 elections on fiscal responsibility, making the country healthier and putting U.S. interests first.
“We’re wasting the opportunity we were given in these elections that we won – all of them,” he said.
7:02 pm ET
Trump, Vance at odds over midterms?
Phillip M. Bailey
Whether or not Trump can get the Save America Act through Congress, his second in command isn’t singing from the same hymnal when discussing the urgency about the midterm outcome.
“Of course we’re going to support the results of the midterm elections,” Vice President JD Vance said July 15 after a meeting with House Republicans.
“We think we’re going to win, but ultimately that’s up to the American people.”
The vice president’s comments stand in contrast with Trump’s, who said during an appearance earlier this year on a podcast hosted by former deputy FBI director Dan Bongino that Republicans “will never win another election” if the SAVE America Act isn’t passed before the fall contests.
Vance did allude to possible “cheating” that lawmakers should help avert, but he also acknowledged with less than four months until November “the process is already getting started” on the midterm elections
The vice president has been staking out his own pathway lately in what many political observers estimate is a lead-up to a 2028 presidential bid. Nearly a dozen sources close to the White House told USA TODAY that Trump isn’t sold on his VP being the next GOP nominee, however.
6:45 pm ET
Some Senate Republicans want to move on from 2020
Zachary Schermele
In the halls of the U.S. Senate this week, Republicans made no effort to hide their unease with Trump putting the 2020 elections in the spotlight again.
“We should talk about 2026 and not 2020,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
“My focus will be on the election that’s occurring in four months, rather than the one that occurred six years ago,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota.
That attitude seemed to be coming from the top of the Senate GOP.
“I don’t know what he’s going to say,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said July 15, calling elections that took place in 2020 a “closed issue.”
6:28 pm ET
Ossoff calls Trump ‘famous sore loser’
James Powel
Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff called Trump “the world’s most famous sore loser” in remarks made to a group of reporters ahead of the president’s speech on Thursday.
He called the address “presidential sour grapes” and said that the president would “reheat debunked conspiracy theories” about the 2020 election.
“If the President declares Georgia’s election illegitimate, or if the President declares Georgia’s sitting United States Senators illegitimate, he is declaring Georgia voters illegitimate,” Ossoff said.
Ossoff pointed back to Trump’s call to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger following the 2020 elections where Trump asked Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” that would overturn the election.
“It’s Donald Trump who tried to defraud Georgia voters in that election, Donald Trump who tried to commit election fraud,” Ossoff said. “It was caught on tape, and you should play the tape to your viewers today.”
6:09 pm ET
How to watch the presidential address
Saman Shafiq and Bryan Alexander
USA TODAY will stream President Trump’s address, which is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. EDT.
ABC and NBC confirmed to USA TODAY that they will air the speech on their respective streaming platforms rather than broadcast it live on their networks. CNN said in a statement to USA TODAY that it will monitor the speech for “news developments” and stream it on its website and streaming platform.
USA TODAY has reached out to Fox News and CBS on how they will disseminate the address but has not received responses from them.
The address is also expected to stream live on the White House’s website and YouTube channel.
This post has been updated with new information
6:07 pm ET
Trump’s polling woes continue
Fernando Cervantes Jr.
President Trump’s speech comes as he continues to struggle in the polls.
On Thursday, a new Washington Post/Ipsos poll found Trump’s approval rating at 37%, similar to his performance in the same poll in April. Among registered voters, Trump’s approval rose slightly, sitting at 40%.
Voters continue to express displeasure on two issues in particular: the economy and the Iran war. According to the Washington Post/Ipsos poll, 65% of respondents said they disapproved of the president’s handling of the economy, while 69% said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the Iran war.
Respondents’ economic outlook was bleak, as the poll found that only one in five Americans believed the economy would improve in the next year, while almost half of respondents believed the U.S. economy would get worse in the same period of time.
The poll was conducted between July 8 and 13, with 2,648 respondents. The margin of error was plus or minus 1.9 percentage points.
Trump’s polling woes have continued through the week, as the most recent Economist/YouGov poll released on Tuesday, July 14, found the president’s approval rating sitting at 37%, only a few percentage points above his worst rating in either of his terms in the White House.
