Why in the world would President Donald Trump give a primetime speech rehashing claims about election fraud that took place six years ago when people are currently struggling to pay for groceries and gas after six years of Democrat inflation?

Well, the president addressed the economy and his many other achievements at the beginning of his primetime speech last night. In short, the country is much stronger than Leftmedia reporting suggests. Trump is fighting inflation, controlling immigration, reducing crime, and pushing back the advances of the Left’s sex cult.

But why the speech? We won’t have much of a country without secure elections.

“America is back and doing really well, but we still have a major challenge that must be urgently addressed because no country can be great without fair and honest elections,” President Trump said. “Every American deserves to know that when they cast their vote, that vote will be counted accurately in a system, and that is to make that system secure, one where cheating and interference are not just difficult but virtually impossible.”

Who could possibly argue with that?

Yes, that’s rhetorical. Democrats argue with that. They can’t stomach the idea of a country with honest and secure elections because it’ll make it harder for them to win. As Trump put it, “The only reason you wouldn’t do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad and your candidates are so pathetic that you can’t get away or can’t get elected any other way.”

Don’t take my word for it, or President Trump’s. Michigan Democrat Senator Elissa Slotkin recently said that, under the Republican-backed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) America Act, “It would be hard for any Democrat in any state to win any election.” What an odd thing to say.

The SAVE Act isn’t perfect, but its core components are voter ID and measures to ensure proper verification and counting of ballots. Slotkin thinks that would make Democrats lose? Interesting.

Back to Trump’s speech, he announced “the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure.” (Those documents are posted on the White House website.) He explained, “This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes [us] … to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference.”

Foremost is China’s interference, which Trump called “the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files.” He noted, “That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities. Which is exactly what was happening.”

Unsurprisingly, the always-honest Communist Chinese deny the allegations.

Then again, voter registration data is publicly available, often including name, address, and party. Trump didn’t explain why China’s acquisition was illegal, but much of the data is publicly available online. Maybe China acquired more than it should have.

Trump’s second item was that, though the data compromise was known in 2020, U.S. intelligence “kept the information secret and hidden.” That’s par for the course with the anti-Trump deep state.

Trump quoted the CIA: “In mid-2018, the Chinese Communist Party’s policy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the U.S. president in an effort to reduce the U.S. president’s votes and make him resign or prevent his reelection.” He was tougher on China than any president since Ronald Reagan in his first term, so it’s no surprise that the ChiComs would work against him.

Beyond that, he said, “Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020 yet buried by rogue bureaucrats stated that China’s activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden.” It’s important to note the words “raw intelligence” and “attempt.” The intel wasn’t conclusive, and it’s unclear whether the Chinese succeeded.

In any case, Beijing just won a major victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, which recently ruled that Chinese birth tourism and surrogacy is somehow a legitimate exercise of constitutional rights under the 14th Amendment. Just think of all the future “American” voters the Chinese Communist Party is birthing and training.

Moving on, Trump said, “The third set of documents we are releasing proves that for many years Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot-counting systems. Dishonest almost all. They’re vulnerable, and they’re easily compromised, and people within our government knew that. Tonight, we’re publishing a series of previously classified U.S. intelligence community assessments and other reports proving that our government has long known these machines are extremely exposed to attack.” He added, “As one assessment states, we judge that the United States adversaries, including at a minimum Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, as well as nonstate groups, have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure.”

This allegation has been an especially favorite target of the fact-checkers, not to mention makers of vote-counting machines. For many on the Right, that only reinforces their certainty.

However, we in our humble shop have been skeptical of Trump’s voting-machine charge from the get-go. There is virtually no evidence that vote totals were changed by machines. Even Trump didn’t allege in his speech that any votes were actually changed. Furthermore, I’ll once again note that an intelligence report is not an intelligence conclusion. The Steele dossier was an intel report, too.

We believe the real fraud of 2020 was in bulk-mail ballots and Big Tech/Leftmedia conspiracy over Hunter Biden’s laptop and the Biden Crime Family. That might have changed enough votes to alter the outcome.

Fourth on Trump’s list, there was much speculation before his speech that he was going to unveil evidence of voter fraud in Georgia, especially with the ramped-up investigation in Fulton County (Atlanta). Trump didn’t end up mentioning Georgia at all, so that mystery will wait for another day. I’ll only say that Georgia officials counted the 2020 votes three times, by machine and by hand, confirming the same result each time.

Trump did, however, point to voter registration fraud in Michigan, which he won in 2016 and 2024 but lost in 2020. “Some canvassers,” he said, “admitted to FBI agents that they signed voter registration forms in other people’s names, submitted fraudulent registration for people who did not exist, and received gift cards tied to their number of applications that they produced.” Joe Biden’s Justice Department killed the investigation.

Finally, Trump said, “According to the DHS review, state voter rolls, and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 noncitizens who are registered to vote in federal elections.” Democrats and Leftmedia outlets routinely assert that noncitizens don’t vote because it’s against the law (seriously, that’s essentially their reasoning).

But Trump lost in 2020 by a grand total of 43,000 spread across three states — Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Register some noncitizens in Phoenix, Atlanta, and Milwaukee, do a little funny voting counting, sprinkle in some mail-in fraud, and voila, Biden wins.

Trump summarized, “Hundreds of millions of U.S. voter files are in the hands of foreign governments. Our machines and ballot-counting systems are exposed to hacking, manipulation, and corruption. China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections. Evidence of fraud has been buried. Hundreds of thousands of noncitizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls, and yet we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship, tens of millions of ballots running aimlessly through the mail.”

Allegations aren’t proof, but still. Any hyperbole Trump offers is no less damaging than left-wing hyperbole about 2020 being the “most secure election in history.”

There are essentially two questions regarding fraud: Did it happen, and did it change the result? The Left argues that it didn’t change the result because it didn’t happen. It clearly did happen, though verification of mail-in ballots is woefully inadequate, so it’s very difficult to determine if fraud changed results.

“Every American,” Trump concluded, “whether you’re a Republican, Democrat, independent, or otherwise, should be able to agree that we deserve the most secure, honest, and fair election system anywhere in the world. Secure elections should be nonpartisan.” He proceeded to push for the SAVE Act, which was the real purpose of his speech.

On that, I’ll agree: Congress should get busy improving and passing the SAVE Act. Election integrity is a win-win.

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