Indeed, he didn’t allude to evidence that anything actually swung votes or changed the results of elections.
And after the speech, conservative journalist John Solomon, who worked with the White House on releasing the documents, acknowledged that the intelligence community had “zero evidence that a foreign power flipped a vote in 2020, 2022 or 2024” — a pretty striking admission next to Trump’s years of claims.
A big warning about Trump and the 2026 election
But that doesn’t mean the speech wasn’t significant. It is — as a potential statement of intent.
Given Trump’s history of falsely claiming elections that don’t go his way are rigged — and the violence that resulted on January 6, 2021 — his decision to give this speech less than four months ahead of an election that looks really tough for the GOP should send shivers down the spine of the American body politic.
Trump didn’t preview a heavy-handed effort by the federal government to get more involved in election administration around the country — things like upending voting procedures or putting troops at polling places — as some of his critics have feared.
But he did seem to preview another episode of claiming elections were stolen.
“Put together, these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it,” Trump claimed. “It is not defensible.”AD
