Trump speech lays groundwork for him to tamper with midterm results, critics warn

Donald Trump addresses the nation in the East Room of the White House in Washington DC on 16 July 2026. Photograph: Saul Loeb/CNP Pool/Shutterstock View image in fullscreen Donald Trump addresses the nation in the East Room of the White House in Washington DC on 16 July 2026. Photograph: Saul Loeb/CNP Pool/Shutterstock Trump speech lays groundwork for him to tamper with midterm results, critics warn Democrats and advocates sound alarm at Trump rehashing false claims about 2020 election in his primetime address Democrats and voting rights groups say Donald Trump’s primetime speech making unverified claims of Chinese interference in the 2020 election are the clearest sign yet that the president is laying the groundwork to tamper with the results of November’s midterms. The upcoming elections to decide the balance of power in Congress and many state legislatures will be a major test of Trump’s appeal to voters two years after he resoundingly beat the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris to return to the White House. With polls showing that the president is disliked by majorities of voters and his Republican allies are at risk of losing their control of the House of Representatives, the president’s Thursday evening speech rehashing allegations about the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden sparked fears he was already looking for ways to ensure November’s results are in his favor. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the House administration committee, which includes federal elections in its jurisdiction, called the president’s speech “pathetic and unserious rantings” that served as “a pretext to undermine the results in November by casting false doubt on the integrity of our democratic systems”. Trump makes unverified claims of China ‘election meddling’ as critics fear ploy to challenge midterm results Read more “Real election security is not about helping one politician save face. It is about making sure every American citizen can cast a ballot freely and have it counted fairly,” Morelle said. The Georgia senator Jon Ossoff, who is the most imperiled Democratic facing re-election in November, said he heard Trump “signaling his unmistakable intent to attack these elections and our voting rights, just as he tried to throw out our votes and seize the presidency in 2020”. The administration of elections falls to the states, and in a joint statement, the nation’s 24 Democratic governors said: “It’s deeply alarming that President Trump continues to try to undermine free and fair elections. No amount of lies and conspiracy theories can change the fact that our country’s elections have repeatedly been proven to be safe and secure.” Cisco Aguilar, chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said: “That was some bullshit.” In his speech, Trump repeated his demand that Congress pass the Save America Act, which would ban mail-in ballots nationwide and impose new identification requirements on voters when they register and report to polls. But the meas