Democrats are not planning a formal, coordinated response to President Donald Trump’s prime-time address Thursday night, instead relying on individual lawmakers and staff to fact-check the speech. His address is widely expected to focus on irregularities and long-debunked allegations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
NOTUS spoke with a dozen members of the minority party to get a better idea of their plans to rebut the president on the issue, which has little evidence supporting it but remains a major focus of Trump’s as the midterms approach.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Democrats’ Senate deputy whip, told NOTUS that “a lot of people will be rebutting” Trump’s claims, but added that the public should listen “most carefully to Jon Ossoff” after the speech. Several right-wing publications and commentators claimed this week that Trump would use the speech to call Georgia’s 2020 election — which Ossoff ultimately won — “illegitimate,” a claim the White House later disputed.