Trump to Give Address on Elections     07/15 06:22

   President Donald Trump will deliver a primetime address this week that he 
says will include a focus on elections, suggesting he could revisit 
long-debunked conspiracy theories about his 2020 defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. 
The speech comes as he's escalated calls for Republicans to pass tighter 
federal voting rules for November's midterm elections.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump will deliver a primetime address 
this week that he says will include a focus on elections, suggesting he could 
revisit long-debunked conspiracy theories about his 2020 defeat to Democrat Joe 
Biden. The speech comes as he's escalated calls for Republicans to pass tighter 
federal voting rules for November's midterm elections.

   The Republican president has been guarded about what he plans to say in the 
9 p.m. Thursday speech, scheduled as he confronts a collapsing deal to end the 
war with Iran. He also faces numerous domestic issues, including recent deadly 
shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Asked for a preview 
of the speech on Tuesday, Trump offered scant detail but said he has "really 
big news."

   "It doesn't get bigger, because without free and fair elections, you don't 
have a country," Trump said in the Oval Office. He refused to go further, 
saying he wanted to "save it" for the moment, though he also hinted he would be 
talking about a hodgepodge of issues.

   "We'll be discussing other things, too," Trump said, without elaborating. 
"It's going to be a very big announcement."

   Trump has used the power of the primetime presidential address -- typically 
reserved for milestones -- to deliver politically charged speeches before, 
including one in December when he sought to blame the challenging economic 
climate on Democrats. But Thursday's address seems poised to go even further, 
using the moment to amplify election lies before an audience of millions in an 
effort to boost Republican prospects before midterms that threaten to hobble 
Trump for the remainder of his term.

   On Monday, when asked about the speech, Trump repeated baseless claims of 
voter fraud in the Los Angeles primary race for mayor. During the interview 
with conservative outlet Newsmax, Trump said Republican Spencer Pratt lost his 
primary bid because of fraud, citing in part California's slow vote count.

   Federal prosecutors said they were opening fraud investigations in the state 
last month after Trump drew attention to the claim.

   The president's preoccupation with voting fraud and election security dates 
back at least to 2016, when he refused to say whether he would accept defeat to 
Democrat Hillary Clinton. After he won, he convened a voting integrity 
commission to support his claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the 
popular vote, though the commission disbanded without uncovering any such 
evidence.

   Four years later, after he lost the 2020 election to Biden, Trump again 
claimed cheating and zeroed in on the Democrat's narrow win in Georgia. Trump 
called the state's secretary of state and pressured him to "find 11,780 votes," 
just enough votes to overturn Biden's victory in the state. He, along with than 
a dozen allies, was indicted in the state though the charges were later dropped.

   Repeated audits and reviews -- manyrun by Republicans, including Trump's own 
then-attorney general -- have found no significant fraud occurred in 2020.

   Before winning in 2024, Trump was again laying the groundwork to claim 
cheating if he lost. After returning to office, he stocked his administration 
with officials who back his false claims of 2020 election fraud.

   Trump made voting regulation central in this term

   Frequently declaring that he won the White House "three times," Trump has 
made voting regulation a core issue during his second term, demanding 
legislation that would require voter ID and sharply limit mail-in voting. 
Facing midterm races that will decide control of Capitol Hill, Trump has 
stirred new claims to cast doubt on election results that could challenge his 
power in Washington.

   Earlier this year, FBI agents raided elections offices in Fulton County, 
Georgia, seizing materials from the 2020 election. Tulsi Gabbard, then Trump's 
director of national intelligence, traveled to Atlanta to oversee the execution 
of the search warrant.

   Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, campaigning in Georgia for Democratic Sen. Jon 
Ossoff and governor's candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, smiled Tuesday when asked 
about Trump potentially rehashing the 2020 election in his national address.

   He called it a strategy "for losers."

   "I think people are exhausted by having conversations about elections that 
happened six years ago, that we have the answer to," Moore said. "He continues 
to bring this up because he cannot get out of his mind that he actually could 
have lost."

   Beyond Georgia, Trump has widely taken aim at states that allow voters to 
submit ballots by mail. Trump said he called a U.S. attorney in California and 
demanded scrutiny of the governor's primary last month as votes were being 
counted.

   Last week, Trump ousted the remaining members of the federal Election 
Assistance Commission, a bipartisan panel that resisted his efforts to require 
would-be voters to document their U.S. citizenship before registering.