President Donald Trump’s staff convinced him to tone down the primetime speech he gave on election integrity Thursday evening, after critics alleged it would make false claims about “stolen” elections.
Leading up to the address, Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) demanded TV networks censor the speech, raising fears that Trump would say unproven or disproven claims about voter fraud, in light of his position that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
On Thursday night, Trump made a speech outlining concerns that declassified intelligence documents indicate China meddled in the 2020 election, a move he said was covered up by the “deep state” in the United States. The president’s speech was “pretty vanilla” compared to some of his previous claims, and followed counsel from his team to “not to be crazy,” according to Politico.
President Trump used a primetime address Thursday night (July 16) to revive disputed claims about election security, including assertions CBS News rated false, misleading, exaggerated or unsupport...