Trump's speech offered a preview of his next moves on elections

Voting rights experts parsed the roughly half-hour speech for the executive actions it foreshadowed. In their reading, his Thursday night primetime address contained hints of where he might take his whole-of-government approach to asserting control over American elections.

Throughout the address, the president peppered his remarks with orders to various law enforcement and government agencies, many of which are staffed with controversial loyalists. He instructed the Department of Justice to open investigations into what he called foreign interference, and told federal agencies to coordinate with one another on what he described as securing the vote before November.

Trump also ordered the Department of Homeland Security to notify states about any noncitizens on their list of registered voters, and subsequently direct states to remove ineligible voters. Election officials in both parties noted that voter-roll maintenance is a function the Constitution assigns to the states, not to the federal executive.

Trump characterized these executive efforts, however, as mere complements to overhauling election security through passing the SAVE America Act in Congress. He returned repeatedly to the legislation, casting the executive moves as stopgaps until lawmakers act.

The speech drew immediate legal skepticism. Voting rights groups pointed out that the president has tried, and largely failed, to change election rules by decree before, and predicted the newly previewed actions would meet the same fate in court.