Live: Trump prime-time address expected to cover election denial claims

US President Donald Trump gives a prime-time national address about newly declassified intelligence on investigations into elections and voting machine vulnerabilities.

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Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 11:36am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 11:36am

Intelligence chiefs 'fully confirmed' authenticity of evidence, Trump says

Trump says the documents released today have been gathered by the White House Government Transparency Taskforce and the Intelligence Advisory Board.

He says the nation's intelligence agency chiefs have "all personally reviewed the findings".

"We [have] ... fully confirmed their authenticity."

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 11:35am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 11:35am

Trump says US aware voting machines 'extremely exposed' to attacks

By Hanan Dervisevic

Continuing his speech, Trump says the documents being released today will prove the US government has "long known" that voting machines are vulnerable and "extremely exposed" to an attack.

He adds that the machines are "terrible" and a "cyber threat aimed at the very heart of our democracy".

"All we want is honesty in our elections and reporting," Trump says.

"Great damage has been done to our country. Our elections were left vulnerable.

"This cannot be allowed to continue. Every American should be able to agree that we deserve the most secure election system in the world."

Key Event

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 11:32am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 11:32am

Trump declassifies intelligence on election infrastructure vulnerabilities

By Elissa Fitzgerald

On to the main event now.

Trump says "no country can be great without fair and honest elections".

"You have to trust your country, because if there can be no trust, there can be no greatness," he says.

He says the electoral voting system "falls catastrophically short" of trustworthy.

"Tonight I am announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure," he says.

"This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes, like, levels never thought possible, the hacking, exploitation and foreign interference."

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 11:27am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 11:27am

Trump claims 'zero' illegal immigrants to US this term

By Elissa Fitzgerald

The president has shifted his focus to immigration now.

He says "zero" illegal immigrants have been admitted to the US in the past 14 months.

"That is zero. Nobody thought it was possible," he said.

He doesn't say where this number has come from, but the most recent numbers from the Department of Homeland Security show at least 2,745 people were at large in June.

That's not accounting for those who slipped past the detection of immigration enforcement entirely, either.

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 11:18am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 11:18am

Trump spruiks economic policies

By Elissa Fitzgerald

Trump is discussing his government's economic record, saying his policies have brought down the cost of living.

"This week, it was announced that inflation saw the largest monthly decline in six years," he says.

US consumer inflation slowed more than expected in June as energy prices retreated, but the moderation was not enough to convince financial markets that another interest rates increase would be off the table this year.

Tuesday's report by the Labor Department, which also showed underlying inflation subsiding last month, will give officials at the US central bank breathing room when they meet later this month, economists said.

However, they cautioned that June's Consumer Price Index data had been overtaken by the recent escalation in hostilities between the US and Iran.

Without providing evidence, Trump says Americans are now paying the lowest prices in the world for prescription medicines.

– with Reuters

Key Event

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 11:07am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 11:07am

Trump is speaking now

By Elissa Fitzgerald

The video feed has just flicked on to show US President Donald Trump ready and waiting to begin at a podium.

"Good evening. Before we begin, I'm proud to report that our country is safer, stronger and far wealthier than it has ever been before," he says.

"We are doing great."

He starts with his view of the state of the nation he inherited from his predecessor, Joe Biden.

"The whole world was laughing at us as a nation, but not any more," he says.

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:58am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:58am

Stand by for Trump

By Elissa Fitzgerald

The president is due to start speaking in a few minutes.

Stay tuned and we'll bring you updates from his address.

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:55am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:55am

Trump could raise war on Iran in speech

By Hanan Dervisevic

While we aren't 100 per cent sure of everything Trump will speak about during his prime-time address, there is speculation he may talk about Iran.

At his last presidential address in April, he said the US would accomplish its Iran war objectives "very shortly".

But recent days of back-and-forth attacks by the US and Iran across the Middle East and in the Strait of Hormuz have shredded the interim deal to pause the fighting.

US strikes intensified yesterday against a widening set of targets, including a ship it accused of breaking its blockade of Iranian ports. Iran then retaliated by firing on US allies in the region.

In an interview with Fox News this week, Trump said strikes would continue "until I say that is enough".

He also said the US intended to expand its strikes on Iran to energy targets and key infrastructure.

"Next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges," he said.

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:50am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:50am

How this debate could play out

By Elissa Fitzgerald

When we look at US civics through an Australian lens, one detail that invariably stands out is that voting is not compulsory.

There's a long-held belief in the US that this actually benefits the Republican Party.

Democratic strategists will tell you that higher overall voter turnouts will benefit their party.

That’s because, even at elections where not many people vote, Republicans consistently turn out at substantially higher rates, and that wins them elections.

Let's take a look at the 2024 presidential election as an example.

Modelling by the data-driven political science publication On Data and Democracy suggests about double the number of Democrats stayed home, compared with Republicans.

Voters with a registered party affiliation don’t necessarily always vote in that direction, but it’s a fairly good indicator of what Democrats could stand to gain with higher voter turnouts … or what Republicans stand to lose.

Lisa Hill, a professor of politics at the University of Adelaide, has written a comprehensive paper on the risks of Trump's rhetoric. Here’s how she explains it:

"For those who believe that their votes will be stolen, bothering to vote at all becomes a waste of time and energy," she writes.

"It is well established that corruption and low levels of trust in and support for government depresses electoral turnout."

We may need to wait until the mid-term elections in November, or even the presidential election in 2028, to see if any Trump's claims about 2020 election result have any effect.

But in the meantime, we have plenty of food for thought.

Key Event

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:41am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:41am

Democrats warn Trump's intelligence officials against misleading Americans on elections

By Hanan Dervisevic

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, including  Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, have sent a letter to leaders in the US intelligence community urging them to take a stand if Trump attempts to "mislead" Americans in his primetime address.

"The President is within his authority to declassify intelligence," the Democrats wrote.

"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."

The letter was addressed to CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence William Pulte and National Security Agency Director Joshua Rudd.

– with AP

Key Event

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:32am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:32am

Georgia Democrats put forward prebuttal

By Brad Ryan in Washington DC

The election-battleground state of Georgia often features in Donald Trump's claims about voter fraud.

He fiercely fought Republican leaders there who pushed back on his claims after the 2020 election. He was recorded telling one of them over the phone: "I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have."

Trump and many of his allies were later charged in Georgia with offences related to election interference, but the case never made it to trial.

Democrats from the state are pre-empting the revival of Trump's old claims. Senator Jon Ossoff said Trump was taking steps that represented "a real and live threat to voting rights in the United States right now".

He told MS NOW:

"I expect him to use whatever he puts out there on Thursday as a pretext, either for some attempted unconstitutional use of federal power to interfere in the election, or to give his proxies and loyalists in state and local jurisdictions some cover for whatever they might attempt, or to lay the groundwork for challenging the result."

On X, Georgia’s other Democratic Senator, Raphael Warnock, said Trump had used the presidency to make billions of dollars: "And he wants to talk about fraud?"

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:22am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:22am

White House says speech 'will shock you'

By Brad Ryan in Washington DC

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt sparred with reporters who had questions about Donald Trump's speech at a media conference today.

NBC journalist Garrett Haake raised the dozens of recounts, lawsuits and audits that had confirmed the result of the 2020 election, which Trump is expected to talk about in his speech.

He asked: "Why is the president unable to let this go?"

Leavitt said the media had "refused to acknowledge" the concerns of "tens of millions of Americans" about the sanctity of elections, and told him:

"You're jumping ahead to a conclusion in this speech before even hearing it yourself.

"You should report on the president's speech and the findings that he is going to reveal in this speech with a little bit of honesty and a little bit of integrity, because it will shock you if you have an honest eye.

"Everything he is saying will be backed by facts and by evidence that will be provided this evening."

CNN's Kaitlan Collins asked why nobody had been charged if there was such evidence.

"Well, he hasn't revealed it yet," said Leavitt.

"He hasn't declassified the documents yet. And you will see what he says tonight and then we'll move forward appropriately."

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:17am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:17am

Some US networks will not take the speech live

By North America correspondent Lauren Day

Presidential addresses to the nation are usually reserved for important national issues: wars, significant policy shifts, global pandemics.

So when it became clear this one would focus on election integrity, and quite possibly Donald Trump's debunked claims about the 2020 election, TV networks had to grapple with the ethics of taking the speech live.

As the US's Poynter Institute for Media Studies put it:

"On one hand, he's the president. What he says is news. On the other hand, if he is going to make baseless accusations, don't news outlets have a responsibility to ensure viewers aren't exposed to lies and baseless conspiracy theories?"

There are precedents for TV stations opting against live coverage of presidential addresses they assess as too political.

In 2022, some major networks declined to carry a primetime address by Joe Biden, in which he accused Trump and MAGA Republicans of trying to take the country backwards.

And in 2014, some outlets chose not to air Barack Obama's primetime address on his executive actions on immigration.

Of the four major US networks, two have so far said they won't run tonight's speech on their main free-to-air channels. America's ABC and NBC will limit the live broadcast to their streaming platforms.

CNN said it would monitor the speech for news but limit the live broadcast to its website and subscription streaming channel.

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:10am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:10am

Why is Trump talking about the 2020 election?

By Elissa Fitzgerald

It may have been six years ago, but experts say US President Donald Trump's relentless focus on the 2020 election isn't about looking back.

It's a strategy aimed at justifying new voting restrictions such as the SAVE Act, reinforcing party loyalty ⁠and energising supporters ahead of November elections that will determine control of Congress, according to two White House officials and two people familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters in May.

By casting the 2020 election as illegitimate, he is also laying the ​groundwork to challenge Republican losses and undermine Democrats if they win back power, multiple election experts said.

"He's not looking back; this is about the midterms," said Alexandra Chandler, an election expert at the nonpartisan advocacy organisation, Protect Democracy.

"He's trying to create a ​fog of disinformation with this.

"So then if he dials it up further with federal interference, the public will not react as surprised."

– with Reuters

Key Event

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:01am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 10:01am

Public should question the 'means and motives'

By Elissa Fitzgerald

So, voting integrity. That old chestnut.

US President Donald Trump has for years tried (and failed) to produce any evidence that a meaningful amount of election interference occurred in 2020 to influence Joe Biden's win.

Dozens of lawsuits have collapsed, and even Republican-led audits have ruled out claims that interference took place.

As two elections experts have written this year for New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, modern elections are proven to be secure and accurate.

"Any new claim from the federal government to the contrary should be met with extreme skepticism," Derek Tisler and Lawrence Norden wrote.

"The public should question the means and motives of political appointees advancing these claims.

"Putting forth manufactured or misleading intelligence to justify official actions should be considered an outrageous abuse of power.

"And the public must strongly reject any efforts to use misleading claims to undermine future elections."

Key Event

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 9:48am

Fri 17 Jul 2026 at 9:48am

Trump will give a national address shortly

By Elissa Fitzgerald

Good morning.

US President Donald Trump says he has "really, really big news", and he's about to give a prime-time national address to tell the world.

What's it about, you might be asking?

While we don't know the specifics, whispers around the White House are that it will concern newly declassified intelligence on investigations into US elections and voting machine vulnerabilities.

"Our country has to shape up," the president told reporters on Tuesday.

"What we're going to be talking about … it doesn't get bigger. Because without free and fair elections, you don't have a country.

"We'll be discussing other things, too, but it's going to be a very big announcement."

Trump's address is scheduled to begin at 11am AEST.

Stay tuned and we'll bring you all the updates as they come to hand.