President Donald Trump is making a primetime address to the nation that's expected to include discussion of election issues. The Republican president has long insisted he won the 2020 election, even though the very people he appointed to oversee it said the count was accurate and he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
The president is scheduled to speak Thursday, July 16, at 9 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. MT. KUER will carry live coverage, find a station near you, watch the video feed above or ask your smart speaker to "Play KUER."
This term, Trump has appointed people who support his election falsehoods and launched a review of 2020 voting. There's a wide and deep record of investigations by Republicans as well as nonpartisan groups that show Trump lost the election. The president hasn't revealed what he'll say in his speech but 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.”
In Utah and neighboring Idaho, the Department of Justice has stepped up pressure on top election officials to turn over voter data to the federal government. Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said she received a letter “sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution.” The Idaho Attorney General's Office responded to their own letter with: “Stop threatening your friends in Idaho.” Both states are Republican-led.
