WASHINGTON – Following President Trump’s speech on Thursday where he peddled lies about the 2020 election and attempted to sow doubt in the 2026 and 2028 elections, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke on the Senate floor to debunk the President’s lies about election security. Durbin also called out Republicans’ SAVE America Act, legislation which would make it more difficult for millions of Americans to vote.
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“In a 25-minute rant, the President alleged sweeping foreign interference in voting and railed against the so-called ‘Deep State.’ He was actually railing against his own Administration. You see the 2020 election was during his first term… [Trump’s election denialism] claims would be laughable if they weren’t so dangerous,” Durbin said.
“First, the President was famous for not reading and requesting shorter and shorter versions of a brief provided by our intelligence community each day. He alleges the ‘Deep State’ misrepresented what actually happened to hide the information from him. Second, his then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, whom President Trump now has leading the Central Intelligence Agency, made public remarks addressing all the concerns in 2020. It’s hard to hide information you publicly discuss in press conferences,” Durbin continued.
During his speech, Durbin also noted that President Trump claimed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had identified 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections.
Durbin continued, “Well, I sure want to see that evidence. I’m sure the American people do too. The President can’t produce it. It doesn’t exist… Election experts and state officials have called out this claim—one noting that it’s ‘wildly speculative at best’ and another saying that it’s based on ‘shoddy methodology,’ and predicting that ‘almost all... are actually citizens.’”
The U.S. intelligence community previously concluded that no foreign actor attempted to alter voter registration, ballot casting, or vote counting in 2020. Over 60 lawsuits, repeated audits, investigations, and reviews—many overseen by Republican officials—have all failed to uncover evidence of fraud affecting the results of the 2020 election. And, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database, there were just 77 cases of non-citizens voting from 1993 to 2023—out of the millions and millions of votes cast.
“So, then, why would the President host a primetime address attempting to resurrect these debunked claims? I’ll tell you: It’s exactly what he did in the months preceding the 2020 election that he sought to steal. He’s trying to lay the groundwork to justify rigging the results of the next election. That’s the real reason for all this political theater. President Trump and his Republican Party are struggling in the polls. They know their MAGA agenda is making life more expensive, communities less safe, and government more corrupt. And now we’re in a never-ending war. So, they’re now focused on reviving thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories to determine future elections before a single vote is cast,” Durbin said.
While the Senate continues to debate Republicans’ SAVE America Act, Durbin condemned the bill, which goes to extreme measures to disenfranchise voters, introducing burdensome registration requirements that even a REAL ID driver’s license alone may not meet. The bill would impose expensive administrative roadblocks, making it more difficult for married women, seniors, and low-income and rural Americans to be able to register to vote. It would apply immediately to the upcoming midterms—stirring chaos and creating confusion.
Durbin concluded, “We need to stop this effort immediately. We need to give the American people the last word in the election in November, not the President and his bizarre theories on who won in 2020.”
Video of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here.
Audio of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here.
