Former President Donald J. Trump and Home Speaker Mike Johnson are anticipated to make a joint announcement on Friday about “election integrity,” a broad time period typically utilized by Mr. Trump and different Republicans to forged doubt on elections the get together misplaced.
The remarks, scheduled to happen at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s non-public membership and residence in Palm Seashore, Fla., will come as Mr. Johnson faces criticism from the precise over his dealing with of points similar to help to Ukraine, and a risk to his speakership from a high Trump ally, Consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Neither Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, nor Mr. Johnson has publicly elaborated with regards to the announcement, however the former president has made his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him a significant focus of his 2024 marketing campaign.
At rallies and marketing campaign occasions, Mr. Trump continues to declare falsely that he received in 2020, referring to the election as “rigged” or “stolen.” He repeatedly pushes baseless assertions of voter fraud and, with out proof, accuses Democrats of dishonest.
In a press release launched by the Biden marketing campaign, Consultant Bennie Thompson, a Democrat of Mississippi, known as the anticipated announcement a “sham” and criticized Mr. Trump for repeating his election lies.
“Donald Trump and Mike Johnson don’t care about election integrity,” Mr. Thompson mentioned. “They care solely about serving to Trump’s marketing campaign of revenge and retribution to regain energy in any respect prices.”
Mr. Johnson performed a big function in supporting Mr. Trump’s false declare that he received in 2020, recruiting Home Republicans to signal a authorized transient that supported a lawsuit looking for to overturn the election outcomes. He repeated claims about voter fraud in interviews, and he supplied Republicans with arguments that some used to object to certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021.
Nicely forward of Election Day this November, Mr. Trump — who faces prison prices associated to his efforts to overturn the 2020 race — has already tried to sow doubt in regards to the 2024 election. He routinely insists at his marketing campaign rallies that Democrats can’t presumably win in November with out dishonest and has extra not too long ago urged his supporters to end up in droves to make sure that his vote whole is “too massive to rig.”
As he and his marketing campaign took over the Republican Nationwide Committee earlier this yr, Mr. Trump backed a brand new chair, Michael Whatley, who he believed held views about election fraud extra according to his personal. Such fraud is exceedingly uncommon regardless of Mr. Trump’s insistence on the contrary.
Mr. Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, was chosen because the committee’s co-chair. Final month, she informed NBC that she believed the get together was prepared to go away the 2020 election within the “previous,” at the same time as Mr. Trump continued to re-litigate it on the stump. And she or he has mentioned that Republicans must encourage supporters to vote early the place authorized, at the same time as her father-in-law denounces the observe.
This yr, Mr. Trump has inspired the Republican Nationwide Committee to ramp up its investments in so-called election integrity initiatives, like coaching ballot watchers and submitting lawsuits over election procedures each earlier than and after Election Day.
Republicans in key battleground states have additionally since 2020 pushed for elevated restrictions on voting, together with legal guidelines requiring identification at polling locations and extra limits on mail-in voting and early voting, practices which have tended to favor Democrats in latest cycles.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked each practices, arguing often that mail-in voting is rife with fraud and that elections must be restricted to “one-day voting.” Different outstanding Republicans, significantly in battleground states, have mentioned that the get together must encourage the observe in an effort to chip away at Democrats’ benefits.
As speaker, Mr. Johnson has made a public present of his continued assist for Mr. Trump, at the same time as the previous president has undermined a few of his legislative efforts. His predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted after a right-wing insurrection, resulting in days of chaos as Home Republicans struggled to choose a substitute.
