Jake Tapper wasn’t so moved by President Donald Trump’s televised address on Thursday, saying on CNN’s The Lead on Friday that the much-hyped speech was much ado about nothing.
“To be frank, it could have been an email,” Tapper said of the address. “There wasn’t much new evidence, and his big reveal was a series of newly declassified documents that he claimed had been hidden from him and the American people and that showed that the election system is, quote, ‘catastrophically short’ of the standard required.”
But as Tapper noted, an early CNN analysis of the declassified documents found that they reiterated U.S. election system issues included in a 2021 assessment from the U.S. intelligence community.
“Trump cited China allegedly obtaining hundreds of millions of U.S. voter files,” Tapper said. “But again, the 2021 intelligence community assessment alluded to this and found that China did not actually interfere in the 2020 election. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it seriously, but it’s just not the shocker we’ve been told.”
DHS chases voter fraud after Trump speech revives baseless election claims pic.twitter.com/6sD8pvTO4D
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) July 17, 2026
Tapper also called out Trump’s claim that the only reason a U.S. congressperson wouldn’t support his SAVE America Act was because they wanted to cheat.
“I mean, that’s just factually inaccurate,” the anchor said. “There are Republicans in the Senate who do not support this bill because it will make it harder for people to vote who are legal voters. They’re not looking to cheat. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is not looking to cheat. She’s looking to protect the rights of people who live in far-off places in Alaska to vote. And heads up, the SAVE America Act has basically no shot at passing. The president hasn’t even convinced all 52 Republicans in the Senate to support it.”
Tapper observed that it’s “pretty easy to imagine what Trump is going to say if Republicans lose big in the 2026 midterms,” adding that the president “did seem to be previewing a potential new episode of falsely claiming stolen elections” now that the 2026 midterms are underway.
He rolled a clip of Trump saying in his address on Thursday that America “must take urgent action to ensure that our own system can never, ever be hacked or compromised like it was in the past.”
To that, Tapper said, “There’s no evidence it was hacked or compromised to change an election. None. So I don’t know what the urgent action is.”
The Lead With Jake Tapper, Weekdays, 4/3c, CNN