Trump's address is likely to cast new cloud over midterm elections

Analysis: Trump's address is likely to cast new cloud over midterm elections.

No one outside the White House knows what the president will say on Thursday. But there's no credible sign yet that he has compelling new evidence of voter fraud, and critics fear the address is part of a quickening effort to buckle trust in voting systems ahead of November's midterm elections.

Administration officials insist their only goal is to secure elections. "The work that we're doing is to make sure that we have fair and honest elections," Trump's nominee for attorney general, Todd Blanche, said in his confirmation hearing Wednesday.

The US government's own election security agencies under the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council concluded during Trump's first administration that the 2020 election was "the most secure in American history" and that "there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who has a measure of freedom after losing his primary in Texas to a Trump-endorsed rival, said: "I, frankly, am more concerned about the upcoming midterm elections than I am ... what happened in 2020, and obviously election integrity is very important. But I personally don't see any point in relitigating an election that occurred six years ago."

Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, said: "Privately, most elected Republicans in this building think the president has lost it and is dooming them to dismal losses this fall."