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.
“I think [Democrats] have to rebut it, but context very much matters, and the context is that he’s King Lear,” Schatz said.
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Ossoff’s office told NOTUS that he is not planning a formal response, but the senator told reporters ahead of the speech that he expects Trump to rehash “debunked conspiracy theories.”
“Tonight, Donald Trump, the world’s most famous sore loser, will deliver a prime-time presidential sour-grapes address to pursue his 6-year-old grievances about the 2020 election while his war in the Middle East spirals out of control and the cost of living continues to rise for Americans across the country,” Ossoff said.
“If the president declares Georgia’s elections illegitimate, or if the president declares Georgia’s sitting United States senators illegitimate, he is declaring Georgia voters illegitimate,” Ossoff added.
Fred Hicks, a political strategist based in Georgia, told NOTUS that he is not yet aware of any coordinated response but anticipates Democrats like Ossoff and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) to fundraise and message heavily off of the president’s speech in the weeks ahead.
Hicks said he also expects Trump to spotlight Georgia throughout his remarks; Trump and several others are currently seeking millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees in the state over the criminal election-interference case that was dismissed in November. Hicks said he hopes Democrats will emphasize that Republican leaders in Georgia certified former President Joe Biden’s victory after three separate recounts.
Warnock told NOTUS that he is still in the process of deciding how best to respond to Trump’s televised address.
“I’ve been talking to folks about this,” Warnock said when asked whether he is planning any public messaging or fundraising pushes over the speech.
Rachel Cohen, a spokesperson for Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, also told NOTUS that Warner’s office plans to fact check the president’s statements in real time throughout the speech.
The office shared a memo Wednesday summarizing findings by the intelligence community discounting claims of election tampering ahead of the address.
“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that if he spreads compulsives that have been debunked time and time again, that we have to push back,” Warner told reporters Thursday.
Warner clarified that he does not expect any new information from Trump on election safety or validity in the speech, emphasizing that research by the intelligence community has repeatedly found evidence of election “influence operations” but not “interference.”
“If there was some jaw-dropping new piece of intelligence, I’ve been chair of the committee and vice chair of the committee, I’m Gang of Eight … then we’ve got a real problem,” Warner said, referring to the group of congressional leaders briefed on highly classified intelligence matters.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will provide a rapid-response operation during Trump’s speech to debunk false claims and provide commentary, his spokesperson told Politico. Schumer’s office did not respond to a request for comment from NOTUS.
Still, other Democrats told NOTUS they aren’t too concerned about responding to a message from Trump that has been consistently rejected in court cases since 2020.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) told NOTUS that Trump’s plan to focus on election interference –– rather than on the cost-of-living concerns most important to voters ahead of the midterms –– will speak for itself.
“Americans really are fed up with the president who is focused on an election from six years ago when they’re struggling with putting food on the table, buying groceries,” Blumenthal said. “I think it’s going to fall of its own weight.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) agreed, telling NOTUS that he has no plans to “pre-but” Trump’s expected remarks, since the president isn’t going to address the issues that are actually impacting his constituents’ pocketbooks.
“Everything that’s been rumored as a topic of the speech is a distraction,” Kaine said. “Is he going to stop a war that is imposing massive costs? There’s a reason why people’s confidence in the economy is at its lowest.”
And Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico) told NOTUS that a national focus on the 2020 election will only remind Americans that the president lost the 2020 election and is still focused on it six years later.
“People across the country, they know how expensive everything is,” Luján said. “They know how hard it is to pay for food, pay for fuel, pay for a roof over your head. I’ll be surprised if the president talks about that tonight.”
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