Donald Trump

Alternet -  US President Donald Trump has used a rare nationwide prime-time address to again claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen, US voting machines cannot be trusted, and a “deep state” conspiracy has covered it all up. However, the declassified documents the White House released alongside the speech do not support those claims.

….Critics say Trump is clearly setting the stage to delegitimise the vote, so he can contest the result if it doesn’t go his way.

Trump claimed his explosive allegations were backed up by a set of intelligence documents, which were newly declassified and posted on the White House website.

Trump said these documents revealed foreign interference in the 2020 election, Chinese access to voter data, and a cover-up by “rogue bureaucrats”. He also claimed illegal ballots were manufactured for his opponent, Joe Biden, and that more than 278,000 non-citizens were enrolled to vote.

Most of this is not new. Trump has made versions of these claims since his election defeat in 2020. More than 60 courts have rejected Trump’s claims of fraud in the election. Audits and recounts in contested states, including some run by Republicans, also confirmed the results.

Thom Hartmann -  Last night, Donald Trump essentially told us exactly what he will do this November. When reports start coming in that the Democrats are winning this fall, he will send in the troops.

He’ll point back to last night‘s speech and tell the nation:  “I told you so. I warned you. They rigged the election for the Democrats and now I have to stop it.”

He’ll mobilize ICE and the National Guard’s “Rapid Reaction Force” that he’s assembled over the past six months to seize ballot boxes and crush the inevitable “insurrection” — protests in the streets against his seizing ballot boxes — by “left-wing communist radical domestic terrorists.”

He’ll declare a state of emergency, invoke his NSPM-7, and blame it on a foreign country and/or “Antifa.” He’ll declare protesting a crime, and tear gas will fill our streets.

The New Republic -  Not even President Trump’s own election fraud guy could back up his claims that votes in the last three general and midterm elections were tampered with in any way.

“Can you acknowledge that there were no votes changed in 2020?” MS NOW’s Vaughn Hill asked John Solomon, an election interference conspiracy theorist who now sits on the White House’s election task force, after Trump’s speech Thursday night.

“All I can acknowledge is what the intelligence shows. I only know—the intelligence community has zero evidence that … a foreign power flipped the vote in 2020, ’22, or ’24,” Solomon replied.

“And you’re able to acknowledge that Venezuela has not tampered with voting machines in the United States?”

“No, the intelligence is very clear: They did it on their own machines,” Solomon said before fleeing the scene.