President Donald Trump is preparing to deliver a prime-time speech that will focus on voting machine security and alleged efforts by foreign nations to influence U.S. elections, two senior administration officials told MS NOW. The text of the speech is not final, but the president is also expected to release declassified intelligence documents on both subjects.

The address follows a year of internal disagreement between different administration factions over how to satisfy the president’s demands for information bolstering his false claim that he won the 2020 election. It is not clear whether the president will present any credible new evidence that the 2020 election was stolen. 

The push to declassify and release documents is being driven by Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, and John Solomon, a former journalist who has frequently amplified election-fraud claims to mass audiences, according to multiple individuals familiar with the process. Solomon signed a contract with the White House in June as a special government employee to help determine which classified documents to release. Both men were elevated into their respective positions that month.

This effort comes after extensive reviews by the U.S. intelligence community under both the Trump and Biden administrations found no credible evidence calling the 2020 election into question.

Access to the president has “loosened” in recent months, according to one administration official, as Trump has increasingly leaned on aides and senior officials willing to spread conspiracy theories about 2020.

“It’s that network [of people] that is the real f***ing problem,” said the administration official, who, like others who spoke with MS NOW for this story, was granted anonymity given the sensitivity of the issue. “They try to put bits and pieces together and then make these conclusions. Everything I have seen, it’s not what’s there.”

The administration official added: “I’ve never seen any intelligence that an adversary hacked or changed or flipped votes.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, urged people to wait for the speech. “As usual, anonymous sources are speculating about what President Trump will say during his speech on Thursday evening,” she told MS NOW. “The truth is, nobody knows yet what President Trump will ultimately say, which is why everyone should tune in.” 

The two senior administration officials cautioned that Trump could still revise the address and that its contents could change before its expected Thursday night delivery. The speech was initially planned for Monday night; that afternoon, a meeting was held at the White House to discuss it. 

At that meeting, according to two officials, participants discussed Chinese and Venezuelan government efforts to influence the 2020 election, along with the security of U.S. voting machines.

For years, election deniers have spread a long-debunked conspiracy theory involving the Venezuelan government hacking American voting machines. A review by the National Intelligence Counsel compiled during the first Trump administration and released in March 2021 deemed the claim “not credible.” Now, with just over 110 days until the November midterm elections, that theory may be raised again by the president.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Trump teased the address, declining to offer specifics but promising it will include “really big news” and warning that the country “has to shape up.” 

A White House task force has been reviewing thousands of intelligence and law enforcement documents related to election security for possible release, according to senior administration officials. They said CIA Director John Ratcliffe and his staff are participating in the process, as well as Pulte and Solomon.

Intelligence assessments, including those compiled by the intelligence community in the final year of Trump’s first term, drew a clear distinction between influence and interference by foreign actors. Intelligence officials determined that influence campaigns happened in 2020, including social media activity by Iran and China aimed at weakening Trump, and by Russia aimed at denigrating then-candidate Joe Biden. But intelligence officials concluded that China did not interfere — a term defined as activity aimed at technically compromising voting systems and manipulating votes to affect the outcome. 

Former senior Intelligence officials told MS NOW that declassifying and releasing potentially thousands of raw documents to the public is dangerous and could sow confusion and erode public trust in elections. The influence campaigns by China, Venezuela, Russia and Iran — along with the allegations of interference — were already investigated exhaustively after the 2020 election by judges, congressional committees and intelligence and law enforcement leaders. 

Some former and current officials also fear the release could expose the sources and methods behind the underlying intelligence. One former senior intelligence official described the mood inside the intelligence community as white-knuckled, amid fears the release could undermine the credibility of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement.

Recommended

Pulte and Solomon remain at the center of the effort. On Sunday, a video posted on social media showed Pulte sitting beside Trump at his golf club in Virginia. 

Sources also told MS NOW that Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who Trump onboarded last fall as the White House director of election security and integrity, has focused much of his attention on alleged Venezuelan efforts to interfere in U.S. elections. Last month, Olsen joined the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida, where an ongoing criminal conspiracy investigation is underway into allegations that various actors sought to undermine Trump’s electoral prospects.

Georgia’s 2020 results, and the Senate runoffs that followed, are also expected to feature in the documents under consideration, according to two people familiar with the plans. The release is expected to include interviews and materials gathered across law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Former senior intelligence officials, including several who served in Trump’s first administration, called the planned release irresponsible, saying that if anyone had an interest in preventing the use of classified intelligence documents to spread false 2020 election claims it would be Ratcliffe. They noted that the material was thoroughly reviewed at the time — including by Ratcliffe, then the director of national intelligence. 

Ratcliffe “had access to virtually every piece of intelligence, credible or not,” said a former senior national security official who served during Trump’s first term. “But there was nothing that would come anywhere near actual interference with election systems in the 2020 election — it’s complete and utter bull****.”

On Jan. 7, 2021, as director of national intelligence, Ratcliffe argued that the intelligence community assessment did not “fully and accurately” reflect “the scope of the Chinese government’s efforts to influence the 2020 U.S. federal elections.” He did not, however, assert that China had changed any vote totals or interfered with critical infrastructure.

The 2021 National Intelligence Council assessment was unambiguous on that point. “We have no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 US elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results,” it found. The assessment added that it “would be difficult” for foreign actors to “manipulate election processes at scale without detection by intelligence collection” due to the physical and cyber security monitoring around voting systems and election audits.

The intelligence community presented its assessments of the available intelligence to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles last year, according to the administration official familiar with the deliberations over raw classified material.

The official said that the White House was aware of the intelligence community’s assessments related to the vulnerabilities of voting machines, but opted to not release its conclusions — a move which, this official said, prevented key agencies in the federal government from working with states and localities over the last several months to ensure fixes to any potential vulnerabilities, including outdated election software or internet access.

The administration official and former national security officials who spoke to MS NOW said there is no evidence that foreign adversaries have been able to successfully exploit such vulnerabilities and change vote totals. Members of the intelligence community are now watching for the “next shoe to drop,” one former national security official said.

The intelligence, an administration official said, does not show what Pulte and Solomon claim.  

”The intelligence just doesn’t say what you want it to say. I’m sorry,” they said.

Vaughn Hillyard

Vaughn Hillyard is a senior White House reporter for MS NOW.

David Rohde

David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.

Jake Traylor

Jake Traylor is a White House correspondent for MS NOW.