The Dictatorship
What Americans should take away from Trump’s speech on election interference
Foreign adversaries have been working for years to divide Americans, and especially to undermine public trust and confidence in our democratic system. On Thursday night, President Donald Trump gave these efforts a tremendous boostnot to alert Americans to danger but to build a case for his takeover of our elections.
In some respects, the president’s speechwas a big yawn. But it’s worth considering what he did and didn’t say to understand where we are and where things may be headed.
Here are my key takeaways:
1. The intelligence specter that wasn’t.Despite breathless buildup by the White Housebefore the speechthe big reveal was that China hoovered up voting lists and contemplated some kind of influence operation in the 2020 presidential election … and the 2016 election and the 2018 midterms and every election since. This has been reported by the U.S. intelligence community frequentlyover the past 10 years. The critical thing is that China didn’t carry out interference operationswhich also has been previously known and widely reported.
2. The speech was purposely confusing.The president talked about the Chinese acquisition of voter databases without mentioning that anyone can buy voter information in most states. That, followed by the suggestion that the Maduro regime manipulated voting tabulations in Venezuelain 2020, implied that China has done something similar here. The intelligence is unanimousthat it didn’t.
Since Trump returned to office last year, his administration has set about deliberately sabotaging the capacity of the federal government to protect our election infrastructure.
3. The speech was massively hypocritical.Since Trump returned to office last year, his administration has set about deliberately sabotaging the capacity of the federal government to protect our election infrastructure. Some examples: It gutted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (or CISA)the principal agency tasked with working with the states to counter foreign threatsto elections, especially threats to the integrity of voting machines. It cut support to the states for shoring up election defenses. And this month the administration dismantled the leadership of the Election Assistance Commissioneffectively putting it out of business four months before the midterms. In other words, the U.S. president, suddenly having discovered that foreign adversaries are interested in influencing our elections, gave a primetime address declaring an emergencythat he largely created. (Reminds me of when I was governor and had a pardon application involving a volunteer firefighter who was also an arsonist — he started fires so he could be the hero who put them out.)
4. The president’s big idea is to nationalize our elections.He used that very term months ago. Doing so would make our system far more vulnerable than it is today. The genius of the current structure is its decentralization — there are more than 8,000 separate election systems spread over 50 states and localities, a tall order for even the most determined hacker. One centralized system residing on servers in Washington would be an easier target — and much more tempting. The truth is that the president doesn’t really want to protect the existing system, he wants to own it.
5. Amazingly, Russia was barely mentioned in the speech, even though Russia has consistently been the most aggressive foreign meddler in our elections over the past decade.In 2016, Russia not only propagated reams of disinformation designed to divide Americans and sow distrust in our institutions but actually hacked the Democrats and selectively released data designed to denigrate Hillary Clinton and promote Trump. As the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Marco Rubio (yes, the same Marco Rubio holding several roles in the current administration), unanimously concludedthe Russians’ unmistakable intention was to elect Donald Trump. The only hoax involving this episode is the assertionthat it is a hoax.
The most well-documented instance of election interference in recent American history was Trump’s 2020 call to the secretary of state of Georgia asking him to “find” 11,780 votes.
6. Notorious election interference went unmentioned.Even as the president gave a primetime address purporting to call attention to election interference, it should not be forgotten: The most well-documented instance of election interference in recent American history was Trump’s 2020 call to the secretary of state of Georgia asking him to “find” 11,780 votesone more than necessary to reverse that state’s results and, with it, the national outcome. A lecture by this guy on the sanctity of elections is like being called ugly by a toad.
7. The SAVE Act non sequitur.In his peroration, the president suggested the solution to the election integrity problems he had identified, mostly involving Chinese exfiltration of U.S. voter lists, is the ill-named SAVE America Act. The SAVE Act is an old-fashioned voter suppression project. It has nothing whatsoever to do with data hacks or voting machine manipulation; it’s akin to pushing to invade Brazil in response to Pearl Harbor.
8. At its heart, the speech was downright ominous. It’s apparent that the president was sowing unfounded doubtand is laying the groundwork for declaring some kind of emergency this fallto justify nullifying election results he doesn’t like. Potential actions could include deploying the military or immigration agents at polling places, seizing voting machines, partisan officials refusing to certify results or some combination of these.
There is a serious threat to our elections in 2026 — and to democracy itself — but it’s not the Chinese, Venezuela, noncitizens voting or mail-in ballots. It’s Donald J. Trump.
Angus King is an independent U.S. senator from Maine. Since taking office in 2013, he has been a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He caucuses with the Democrats.