‘That was some bull****’: Here’s the fallout you need to know after Trump’s speech pushing long-debunked election lies

• Election chiefs gathered in South Dakota at the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) conference told Democracy Docket reporter Matt Cohen that Trump’s remarks were a “disservice to the country.” Even Republican election officials declined to back Trump’s false claims.
  
  
• Read more about what secretaries of state had to say in our exclusive report.
  
  
• “They had nothing”: Elections experts say Trump’s speech signals panic, and none of the information newly declassified by the White House yesterday shows or even suggests that votes or registration records have been changed or manipulated in any election.
  
  
• Also, voting and cybersecurity experts strongly pushed back on Trump’s assertions that China accessed U.S. voter registration data, with one saying “everyone has this data.”

➤ Here’s what secretaries of state told us

Trump’s speech had no proof — but the ending was a massive warning

• Trump’s speech was packed with recycled 2020 grievances and had zero new evidence. But buried at the end was a directive every voter should be paying attention to before the 2026 midterms, as Marc points out in his new video.

➤ Watch Marc’s full video

Michigan election fraud cited in Trump speech had no impact on votes

• Trump presented the episode as an example of the kind of large-scale voter fraud that he has railed against for years. However, the case has been known for years, and fraudulent registrations tied to the incident were voided before the 2020 election.

➤ What debunked claims did Trump cite?

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin threatens to prosecute election chiefs who refuse voter roll demands

• Mullin threatened top election officials in all 50 states and D.C. with criminal charges if they do not comply with the Trump administration’s demands to feed their voter rolls through a flawed federal database.
  
  
• His remarks were a major escalation in the administration’s attempt to assert federal control over state voter rolls and their election procedures.

➤ More on what Mullin said

Mullin wasn’t done: He said states need to purge rolls or lose their election security funding

• The DHS secretary’s attempt to condition election security support from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on increased federal oversight of voter rolls marks another effort by the Trump administration to expand the executive branch’s limited authority over state election procedures.

➤ The latest on Mullin’s threat

Oops! Trump DOJ failed to follow basic rules in losing bid to join voter purge case, court finds

• A federal judge Thursday rejected an attempt by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to rush into a GOP-backed lawsuit seeking more aggressive voter purges in California.
  
  
• The judge, appointed by Trump, found that department attorneys filed their motion without following basic court rules or consulting the state.

➤ How the Trump DOJ messed up

DOJ keeps losing in voter roll cases

• Desperate for any kind of win, the DOJ took a victory lap in Connecticut when a federal judge simply ordered the state to respond to its voter roll lawsuit. But months later, that same Trump-appointed judge denied the DOJ’s demand for the state’s unredacted voter rolls.
  
  
• It’s the department’s 16th straight loss, without a single win.

➤ Womp womp

Right-wing group asks Supreme Court for access to state voter rolls

• The Public Interest Legal Foundation — a conservative legal group known for promoting voter roll purges — is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to force Hawaii to hand over its statewide voter file. If the Court takes up the case, it could potentially help the anti-voting group gain access to other states’ voter rolls.

➤ What is the group arguing?

Texas appoints new secretary of state ahead of 2026 midterm elections

• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has appointed a new secretary of state just three months before midterm elections featuring multiple high-stakes congressional races, putting to rest reports that a far-right former state lawmaker could land the job — a nomination that the outgoing secretary was rumored to oppose.

➤ What you need to know in Texas