Trump's Primetime Address Is One More Piece of His Campaign to Rig the Election in His Favor

WASHINGTON, DC — Tomorrow night, Donald Trump will take to the airwaves to recycle lies about the 2020 election that his own Justice Department, dozens of recounts, and every leading intelligence agency in the country have already rejected. This speech is a pretext to make it harder for Americans to vote this November, because this administration is doing everything in its power to ensure Republicans stay in power, voters be damned.

“Trump is going on primetime television tomorrow night to gaslight the American people because he can't win a fair fight,” said Abhi Rahman, spokesperson for Try and Stop Us. “He's spent six years telling the same lie, and now his administration is engaged in a whole-of-government effort to justify blocking millions of Americans from the ballot box to rig an election Republicans are likely to lose in his favor. He's rigging the game at voters' expense, abusing his power to pocket billions of dollars while doing nothing to address his affordability crisis. Trump and Republicans are counting on voters to get discouraged and stay home this fall. But come November, they'll be sorely disappointed.”

Tomorrow's speech is the latest move in a coordinated effort to put the White House in charge of who gets to vote:

Days ago, Trump fired or forced out all three remaining commissioners on the Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency that helps states run elections and certifies voting machines, after previously trying to order the commission to decertify voting machines used by states across the country.

The pattern is so aggressive that even Republican officials are pushing back. After the DOJ threatened Idaho's Republican secretary of state with criminal liability over noncitizen voting, the state attorney general's office fired back, telling the DOJ to stop its threats.

And we already know the ending: a sweeping anti-voting bill that would block millions of eligible Americans from voting if it became law, with Trump's allies openly saying tomorrow's address is designed to make the pressure to pass it overwhelming.