Thursday, July 16th: Donald Trump used an Oval Office address to recycle debunked 2020 election claims.
After his address, election experts, elected officials, and media commentators across the country have reached the same conclusion: Trump’s address lays the groundwork for an extraordinary abuse of power heading into the 2026 midterms.
Response from Lauren Groh-Wargo, Fair Fight CEO:
“We just watched a desperate president try to build a case for interfering in an election he’s afraid his party will lose. Every claim he made has been rejected in court, in Congress, by election officials, and at the ballot box. He’s not confused about the facts – he’s manufacturing a reason to abuse his power.
“Trump has thrown everything at the wall to tilt 2026 in the GOP’s favor, and none of it has worked. Now, he wants Americans to believe our elections are broken so he can claim the power to render them moot – along with our right to elect our own leaders.”
Elected Officials
Virginia Senator Mark Warner: “The greatest danger to our elections right now is false narratives seized upon here at home as a pretext to convince Americans their elections cannot be trusted – or worse, to justify unprecedented federal intervention in elections that the Constitution entrusts to the states.”
Connecticut Senator Jim Himes: Himes warned, [Donald Trump] was “setting the basis” for federal officers “seizing ballot boxes” in November’s midterms.
Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: “Tonight seems to be the ceremonial kickoff of President Trump’s campaign to interfere in the November election.”
California Rep. Sam Liccardo: “This is the pretext for Trump’s authoritarian takeover of our electoral system [...] It’s that familiar playbook — ask any citizen of Hungary, Russia, etc. Anyone who cooperates in this scheme must be prosecuted for seditious conspiracy.”
Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi: “He’s reviving conspiracy theories about mail voting, pushing voter suppression, and laying the groundwork for an unprecedented federal takeover of our elections.”
Connecticut Rep. Jahana Hayes: “I think the President is trying to preemptively get involved in the upcoming elections.”
Kentucky Rep. Morgan McGarvey: “To me, this is clearly pretext. He is doing this to try and undermine the faith in our elections in America.”
New York Rep. Joseph Morelle: “This is a pretext for the president, I think, calling into dispute the 2026 elections”
Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read: “For more than a year, the federal government has escalated their attempts to interfere with how states administer elections. The president’s speech on Thursday made it unmistakably clear he is once again laying the groundwork to dispute the results of the election if he doesn’t like the outcome.”
Election and Legal Experts
Ty Cobb, Former White House Attorney: “Well, I think tonight’s speech is intended to add the predicate that he needs to declare an emergency at or about the time of the elections [...] As you know, Steve Bannon and Todd Blanche have suggested that there will be ICE agents at the polls. I think that that’s a virtual certainty.”
Ari Berman, National Voting Rights Correspondent for Mother Jones: “I am still very concerned that this speech is intended to lay the groundwork for the administration to interfere in the midterms and that his speech is going to ratchet up pressure to interfere in the midterms [...] Trump keeps talking about the 2020 election, A because he’s a petty narcissist who can’t get over his defeat, but B because he wants to create the predicate to interfere in the midterms. And I believe that’s what this speech was ultimately all about.”
Penny Brown Reynolds, Georgia Democratic secretary of state candidate: “Everything that [President Trump] is doing is a pretext: a pretext to interfere in the upcoming elections … because he knows that he’s losing”
Ken Martin, Democratic National Committee Chair: “Trump and Republicans continue to lay the groundwork for interfering with the midterm elections in an attempt to cling to power. There’s one simple reason for this brazen power grab: Republicans know they’re going to lose the midterms.”
Ron Brownstein, Senior Political Analyst: “I mean the backdrop for this speech has been a consistent drumbeat of efforts by the administration on a variety of different fronts to assert unprecedented federal control and interference in the administration of the election. So far, they have been stopped by courts, but I think that last night’s speech was a very clear signal that, in addition to pushing for this legislation in Congress, there’s going to be more unilateral action from the executive branch between now and November, trying to shape the playing field in a way that benefits Republicans.
Remember This
Trump’s address comes after two years of failed efforts to tilt the 2026 election in his party’s favor. The key provisions of his March 2025 and March 2026 executive orders to try and seize control over elections and suppress Americans’ votes were blocked in federal court.
The SAVE Act – the sweeping voter suppression bill Republicans have tried to pass three separate times since September 2024 – has failed on each attempt, most recently in June 2026, even with GOP majorities.
Trump has also personally pressured Republican-controlled states to redraw congressional maps mid-decade to lock in partisan advantage, a push that has faced legal challenges and public backlash. Despite all of it, polling and off-year results continue to show his party without the cushion it needs heading into November.
Our previous post catalogues the specific conspiracy theories – Venezuela-Dominion, voting machine manipulation, foreign interference narratives, and the network of election deniers now placed inside federal agencies – that Trump and his allies repeat ad nauseam.
Don’t get distracted by the noise. Be ready to vote.
Fair Fight Team
Denigrating voting machines, agencies, jurisdictions and states is clearly libel or slander. So are many of his rants and many have standing. Trump is reportedly worth $4-8 billion, so $8 B seems a good damage plus penalty to start. The question is what the Supreme Court will do, or must we wait.
Thank you, Fair Fight!