President Trump will speak to the country tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, and much of the national press has already decided what he is going to say. He has not said it yet.
Trump has kept the specifics of his primetime address close to the vest. On Tuesday he told reporters the speech would deliver "big news" on voting machines and election integrity, along with other subjects he declined to preview.
"It's really, really big news, and our country has to shape up," Trump said. "What we're going to talk about Thursday, it doesn't get bigger because without free and fair elections, you don't have a country."
That was apparently enough to set off a wave of anonymously sourced reporting. The Washington Post, citing two people said to be briefed on the plan, reported that Trump will point to vulnerabilities in voting machines and argue that problems persist in the nation's election infrastructure. The paper acknowledged the plans are fluid and could still change, which is another way of saying nobody outside the President's team actually knows.
The White House made that point directly. "As usual, anonymous sources are speculating about what President Trump will say during his speech on Thursday evening," press secretary Karoline Leavitt told NewsNation. "The truth is, nobody knows yet what President Trump will ultimately say, which is why everyone should tune in."
The Post reported the address follows a confidential White House briefing on Monday reviewing findings from the administration's reexamination of older FBI files, including material tied to the 2020 election.
Sources familiar with the matter told CBS News that part of the speech is expected to touch on previously unreported allegations of Chinese interference in American elections, including a claim that China compromised U.S. voter data and that the CIA knew and withheld the information from Trump during his first term. Those allegations have not been independently confirmed. The intelligence community's 2021 public assessment concluded with high confidence that China did not attempt to change the outcome of the 2020 election, though a minority view held with moderate confidence that Beijing worked to oppose Trump's reelection through social media and official messaging. Trump's allies have long argued those same agencies have a poor track record and deserve scrutiny rather than deference.
Questions about voting machines and ballot security have been central to Trump's argument about the 2020 race for years. Election officials have insisted their systems are secure, and numerous audits and court proceedings did not produce evidence to support claims that the outcome was altered. Trump and his supporters remain unconvinced and say the country deserves a fuller accounting.
The timing is notable. The speech lands just over 100 days before midterm elections that will decide control of both chambers of Congress. Democrats and allied advocacy groups are warning that the President is laying groundwork to challenge the fall results, a charge the White House rejects. Critics grew louder after Trump last week removed several members of a bipartisan election administration commission, though the administration's push on election-integrity questions has been running for months.
Earlier this year the FBI searched a Georgia election office and seized voter records. The operation drew attention because then Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present. Gabbard told lawmakers in February she took part at the President's request and spoke with Trump during the search.
The episode resurfaced Wednesday when Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, pressed Jay Clayton, Trump's nominee to succeed Gabbard, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Ossoff asked Clayton who won the 2020 election, a question Democrats have used repeatedly with Trump nominees, and about Gabbard's role in the raid. Clayton sidestepped both.
An internal FBI memo obtained by the Post indicated Director Kash Patel sent hundreds of agents in recent weeks to help the bureau's Atlanta field office work through 700 files by July 17.
Trump has said he will cover "other things too" beyond the election material.
One open question is whether Americans will even see the address live. Natalie Korach of Status reported Wednesday night that none of the major networks would say whether they plan to interrupt programming to carry the speech. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr suggested they should. Asked by NewsNation's Leland Vittert whether broadcasters have a responsibility tied to their licenses to air it, Carr said broadcasters have an obligation to operate in the public interest.
Whatever Trump says tonight, the public will be able to judge it for themselves. That is more than can be said for the anonymous sourcing that has dominated the coverage leading up to it.
