The Dictatorship
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In the weeks after Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020the people Trump appointed to run the Department of Justice, cybersecurity agencies and intelligence departments all said the same thing — the election was fair, legitimate and free of major fraud or foreign interference.
In his second term, Trump, a Republican, has tried to use the levers of power to rewrite that well-settled history, something that he’s expected to try again on Thursday night with an address to the nation.
He has already appointed loyalists who have echoed his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and made clear he expects everyone to follow his lead.
Supporters of President Donald Trump carry flags and signs as they parade past the Capitol in Washington, after news that President-elect Joe Biden had defeated the incumbent in the race for the White House, in Washington, Nov. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Supporters of President Donald Trump carry flags and signs as they parade past the Capitol in Washington, after news that President-elect Joe Biden had defeated the incumbent in the race for the White House, in Washington, Nov. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
In an indication of how fealty to Trump’s lies has become a litmus test for his administration, many of his nominees have steadfastly refused to directly answer the question of who won in 2020, preferring to tersely note that Biden, a Democrat, became president. Jay Clayton, Trump’s nominee to become the next national intelligence director, was the latest to repeat that formula in his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
“He had the most electoral votes,” Clayton said of Biden. “He was declared the winner.”
“And who has the most electoral votes? Is it the person who wins or the person who loses?” asked Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat.
“That’s your characterization,” Clayton responded. “I’m not going to continue to do this.”
The president has embraced baroque conspiracy theories about an international cabal that penetrated U.S. voting machines that have led to libel suits against his allies when they’ve repeated the claims.
Ahead of his speech, Trump has teased “really big news” and said “it doesn’t get bigger, because without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country.”
Election experts fear another round of falsehoods.
“There has been six-plus years of consistent findings from the intelligence community and from everyone who’s looked at it that there was no foreign interference in 2020, and our voting systems were secure and accurate,” said Victoria Bassetti of States United, a nonpartisan group supporting the state officials who run elections. “I suppose the president could come up with some new assertion or new conclusion. It would fly in the face of all the evidence.”
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa., as he arrives to speak during a roundtable at the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit, Wednesday, July 15, 2026, at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa., as he arrives to speak during a roundtable at the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit, Wednesday, July 15, 2026, at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Huge range of reviews find same thing: No major fraud
There’s been an enormous amount of reviews of the 2020 election. Trump and his allies lost dozens of court cases challenging the results, sometimes before judges the president appointed himself. Numerous audits, recounts and investigationsincluding several by Republicansfound no major problems with the vote or count.
Trump’s own attorney general at the time, William Barr, said there were no signs of significant frauda statement that earned him Trump’s ire. Trump’s appointee to run the agency that watches for cyberattacks on American election infrastructure, Chris Krebs, declared that the 2020 election was secure and there were no signs of tampering — which led Trump to fire Krebs and demand an investigation of him upon returning to power in 2025.
An intelligence assessment released in the early days of the Biden administration but completed on Jan. 7, 2021, in Trump’s last days in office, found no foreign tampering with vote totals or election equipment in 2020. And, last year, Trump signed a federal document as part of a regular review of possible foreign influence in elections that declared “there has been no evidence of a foreign power altering the outcome or vote tabulation in any United States election.”
‘Untold taxpayer resources’ reinvestigating the election
Since returning to office, Trump has launched a review of the 2020 vote. Federal agents have seized voting records in Democratic-run Fulton County, Georgia, and Republican-run Maricopa County, Arizona — two major metropolitan swing state counties that figured prominently in 2020 conspiracy theories.
Trump tapped Kurt Olsen, a prominent lawyer in the world of election conspiracy theorists, to head the probe. Olsen was previously sanctioned by the Arizona Supreme Court for false statements in a lawsuit he brought to challenge the 2022 loss of an Arizona governor’s race by one of Trump’s allies.
“He has committed untold taxpayer resources,” said David Becker, a former Department of Justice lawyer who now leads the Center for Election Integrity & Research. “They’ve found nothing.”
A search warrant affidavit filed in the Fulton County case was full of old, debunked conspiracy theories about the vote in the county. The FBI reassigned hundreds of analysts to go through the material.
A worker returns voting machines to storage at the Fulton County Election preparation Center Nov. 4, 2020, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)
A worker returns voting machines to storage at the Fulton County Election preparation Center Nov. 4, 2020, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)
Conspiracy theories have led to libel cases
Still, election conspiracy theorists have been buzzing — as they have ever since Election Day in 2020 — that Trump is about to reveal irrefutable evidence of massive election fraud.
One version alleges that Venezuela and possibly other countries manipulated U.S. voting machines to deprive Trump of a victory. Venezuela’s former president, Nicolas Maduro, is currently awaiting trial in Manhattan on federal charges of drug trafficking after the U.S. military took him from that country’s capital.
Those theories have led to massive payouts in libel lawsuits brought by voting machine companies and others. Fox News paid $787.5 million to settle one lawsuit over it airing those claims and others on the air in late 2020. Conservative networks Newsmax andOne America News have also reached settlements with voting companies over airing those allegations.
A Denver jury found that Mike Lindell, a prominent election conspiracy theorist who Trump this week endorsed as a Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota, defamed an employee with a voting machine company by calling him a traitor.
Becker noted there has been a clear pattern over the six years of election conspiracy theories surrounding Trump’s loss. Conspiracy theorists, including Trump himself, make sweeping allegations in public, sometimes with what seems to be massive reams of documentation from elaborate election databases. But they’ve lost regularly in court, where the threshold is whether there’s any factual basis to the claims.
He suggested that anything new from Trump on elections be subjected to that same scrutiny.
“If someone’s alleging a crime that occurred six years ago, we shouldn’t be responding to their claims,” Becker said. “We should be demanding they meet the burden of proof.”
The Dictatorship
Trump Administration Removes Mentions Of Slavery From Site Of George Washington’s House In Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday replaced an exhibit on slavery at the site of President George Washington’s home in Philadelphia with a version that historians say whitewashes the nation’s history.
The new exhibit was installed in the same area where the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776.
“Overnight, under the cover of darkness, the federal government removed panels at the President’s House that told a thorough history of Philadelphia,” Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said. “It was allowed to do this by the decision of the federal court, but that it did so at night shows it understands this action is shameful, that it violates community trust.”
The original panels were put in place in 2010 and told the story of how nine slaves lived in the home along with George and Martha Washington in the 1790s, when Philadelphia was briefly the nation’s capital.
The changed exhibition comes as President Donald Trump has made dismantling diversity and inclusion initiatives a priority in an aggressive campaign to overhaul some of America’s most sacred cultural, historic and educational institutions.
Trump issued an executive order in 2025 that called for federally owned or controlled historic sites to not display information to “disparage Americans past or living” and to focus on the “greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.”
The directive has raised concerns about sanitizing and erasing dark sides of American history.
Trump has continued a broadside against culture he deems too liberal. In March, Trump revealed his intention to force changes at the Smithsonian Institution with an executive order that targeted funding for programs that advanced “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology.” He has also pressured organizations outside of the government, including universities, to take similar actions with the stated aim of eliminating what he says are discriminatory practices.
The Trump administration began removing the old panels earlier this year, but a lower court forced the federal government in February to stop while the city appealed. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 3rd Circuit of Appeals reversed that and ruled July 3 that the work could continue.
The three-judge panel praised the plans for the replacement installation, writing that they were “full of historical context,” despite objections from historians and city officials that the content appears whitewashed.
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The Interior Department told The Associated Press Wednesday in a statement that the new “panels are full of historical context and highlight the momentous events that took place in the President’s House and the other sites at Independence National Historical Park.”
“They acknowledge the evils of slavery, including its injustices and hypocrisies, and, by telling the stories of the nine slaves that Washington kept in the President’s House, remind us of their essential humanity,” the statement said.
The new panels still include information on enslaved people who lived in the home and details on the abolitionist movement, how the Constitution treated slavery, the end of slavery in Pennsylvania and how Washington and his successor, John Adams, viewed and treated slavery, as well as information about the 20th century Civil Rights movement.
However, the replacement panels do not include some of the detail in the earlier ones, such as a map of slave trade routes and a timeline on slavery. They also avoid critical headlines such as “The Dirty Business of Slavery.”
The city of Philadelphia had sued the federal government over the removal of information previously included in the panels. It argued that the federal government must consult with the city before making changes to the President’s House Site. Justice Department lawyers argued the administration alone can decide what stories are told at National Park Service properties.
Parker said the city intends to seek a rehearing “on serious legal issues” presented in the appeals court decision.
Michael Coard, an attorney and founder of Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC), said the Philadelphia-based history preservation group continues to work on legal strategies opposing the Trump administration’s changing of the panels.
ATAC joined the city’s lawsuit.
Trump is attempting to rewrite history, Coard told reporters Wednesday near the site.
“What if there’s a president next time who doesn’t like the Liberty Bell because the Liberty Bell was used by abolitionists to support the end of slavery?” he said. “What if there’s a president who doesn’t like the Statue of Liberty because too many immigrants come in? Do we remove the Statue of Liberty?”
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Williams reported from Detroit.
WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.
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.
AP AUDIO: Trump is expected to make election conspiracies a focus of his national address
AP correspondent Ed Donahue reports on President Trump’s speech tonight and what he is expected to say.
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.
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 Democrat Joe 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.
Election security experts say America’s decentralized voting system, with the power over elections residing with the states instead of the federal government, is a strength. Americans vote in more than 10,000 different jurisdictions with different rules, making the nations’ elections extraordinarily complicated but safe from widespread fraud.
No credible intelligence has emerged showing that the vote count in 2020 was manipulated by foreign actors. Repeated audits and reviews — manyrun by Republicansincluding 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.
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 BLN.
Conservative commentator John Solomon, who joined the White House staff last month and was seated in the East Room for Trump’s speech, later told MS NOW that “the intelligence community has zero evidence that someone has flipped – that a foreign power flipped — a vote in 2020, ‘22 or ’24.”
But, he added, “We’re not through all the documents.”
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 BLN did not air Thursday’s remarks live but carried them in full on their streaming services.
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, accused them of being “part of a plot” and suggested their broadcast licenses be revoked.
Networks typically — but not always — carry presidential addresses to the nation live. In 2022, when 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 BLN.
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Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Lisa Mascaro and Will Weissert in Washington, Ali Swenson and Jocelyn Noveck in New York and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
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