Will Trump's primetime speech help him challenge the midterm elections?

Americast

Friday, 17 July 2026 - 34 minutes

Donald Trump has used a primetime address to strengthen his longstanding claim that the 2020 US presidential election was stolen. In a speech lasting around twenty minutes - which some of the major US TV networks chose not to air live - the US president made several claims about election integrity in America. The president has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and foreign meddling in the contest that he lost to Joe Biden. Speaking from the White House on Thursday evening, he announced the publication a series of declassified documents which he says contain evidence of election interference from foreign states including China. He also made claims about the reliability of the country’s electronic voting systems. Sarah and Anthony get together to debrief the national address and discuss whether it could help Trump pass his SAVE America Act, which would require people to provide ID and proof of citizenship to vote.HOSTS:
• Sarah Smith, North America Editor
• Anthony Zurcher, North America CorrespondentGET IN TOUCH:
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• Or use #AmericastThis episode was made by George Dabby and Alix Pickles. The technical producer was Jonathan Baker. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.If you want to be notified every time we publish a new episode, please subscribe to us on BBC Sounds by hitting the subscribe button on the app.You can now listen to Americast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Americast”. It works on most smart speakers.US Election Unspun: Sign up for Anthony’s BBC newsletter: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68093155Americast is part of the BBC News Podcasts family of podcasts. The team that makes Americast also makes lots of other podcasts, including Newscast. If you enjoy Americast (and if you're reading this then you hopefully do), then we think that you will enjoy some of our other pods too. See links below.Newscast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p05299nl
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