Issue One and Former National Security Leaders Warn Against President’s Use of False Claims to Undermine Confidence in Elections

WASHINGTON – In response to tonight’s address by President Trump, Issue One issued the following statement:

“Tonight’s address was riddled with tired, debunked lies and distortions by President Trump in an attempt to usurp the Constitution and exert power over our elections. This isn’t about the 2020 elections – this is about 2026 and 2028,”  said Co-Founder and CEO Nick Penniman. “Americans shouldn’t lose sight of what’s happening. Every recycled falsehood about 2020 becomes another excuse to centralize authority over a process that belongs to the states — not the president. Our leaders should be strengthening public confidence by relying on evidence, respecting the Constitution, and listening to the experts who know the reality of foreign threats and election security.”

Former Congressman Reid Ribble (R-WI), former member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and member of Issue One’s ReFormers Caucus:

“It is unconscionable that a president would use his platform to sow distrust in our nation’s election process. Foreign adversaries benefit whenever Americans lose confidence in our democracy. No elected official should aid our enemies by pushing unsupported, debunked claims about elections that undermine public trust. Instead, our leaders have a responsibility to follow the facts, strengthen our election security, respect the Constitution, and let election officials do the jobs they’ve successfully carried out for decades in our state-run system of elections.”

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, a member of Issue One’s ReFormers Caucus: 

“As someone who spent my career protecting America’s national security, I know the difference between legitimate security threats and political narratives. Our intelligence professionals concluded there was no evidence of cyberattacks altering votes or changing outcomes in the 2020 elections. Recycling disproven claims about an election that took place six years ago doesn’t strengthen our security – it distracts from the real work of protecting the elections ahead. It is incumbent upon every elected and administrative official to push back against the president’s lies tonight.”

Issue One Director of Policy Michael McNulty:

“I’ve worked globally in over 30 countries to support free and fair elections, and I’ve seen how leaders seek to undermine confidence in elections to justify taking greater control over them. That’s why tonight’s speech is so concerning. Under President Trump, the U.S. risks backsliding from the very foundation of our nation: government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Let’s be clear: The biggest threat to our election security is President Trump’s attempt to use recycled, false claims to take over the process and tilt the playing field. Our elections remain safe, our election officials are trustworthy, and our technology is secure, verifiable, and auditable.”

Background:

Tonight’s speech fits a broader pattern that Issue One has described as the President’s “election takeover playbook“: first undermine public confidence in elections by reviving false or exaggerated claims about past elections, then use that distrust to justify expanding executive influence over the administration of future elections.

The Constitution is clear. The Election Clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 4) clearly allocates election authority to state legislatures, giving some ability to Congress to make laws related to elections. There is no election authority granted to the president.  Yet President Trump has obsessively sought to expand executive influence over election administration through executive actions, federal agency directives, lawsuits, appointment of election deniers in cabinet positions, and public pressure and harassment of state and local election officials.

The intelligence community’s findings are clear. Multiple U.S. intelligence assessments found no evidence that foreign actors altered the votes or changed the election outcome. At the same time, the Administration has weakened the very federal capabilities designed to defend elections from genuine foreign threats. If the Administration is truly concerned about protecting elections from foreign interference, its actions tell a different story.

Over the past 18 months, the Administration has weakened federal election cybersecurity support rather than strengthening it through the following actions:

• eliminating regional election security specialists,
• proposing to end CISA’s dedicated election security program,
• cutting information-sharing networks, and laying off hundreds of cybersecurity professionals, and
• just a few days ago, threatening to withhold disbursements of counterterrorism grant funding unless the states abide by a new set of measures.

America’s voting systems are secure, verifiable, and auditable. These systems undergo rigorous testing, certification, and security safeguards–including being disconnected from the internet during voting and counting. This technology is designed to strengthen the transparency and effectiveness of election administration and to enhance the accuracy and speed of counting compared to hand counting.

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Issue One is the leading crosspartisan political reform group in Washington, D.C. We unite Republicans, Democrats, and independents in the movement to fix our broken political system and build an inclusive democracy that works for everyone.