The Latest: Trump delivers primetime address to the nation

President Donald Trump addressing the nation Thursday on topics that include elections and voting machines, revisiting long-debunked conspiracy theories about his 2020 defeat to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump's vague allegations included a rant against one of his favorite targets: 'members of the deep state.' He claimed that intelligence agencies covered up China's attempt to disrupt U.S. elections. But Trump appointed the very people who led those intelligence agencies in 2020. Indeed, Trump was given the assessment from those agencies on Jan. 7, 2021, that no foreign country tried to change vote totals or fake ballots in the election. There's no record of him objecting to the findings at the time. Now, of course, Trump has restocked the leadership of intelligence agencies with people who echo his often-debunked allegations about elections.

In his speech on election security, the president said the U.S. is 'winning big in Iran and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly.' He ran through a long list of what he said were his administration's accomplishments. ABC, NBC and CNN decided not to air the remarks live. CBS said it was 'airing a special report' during the address.

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut and Democratic lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee sent a letter to CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel and others ahead of the address: 'The President is within his authority to declassify intelligence, but if he does so in a way that is intended to mislead Americans about the most basic foundation of our democracy and that may compromise sources and methods, it is incumbent on you to stand up for the agencies you lead.'