President Donald Trump speaks in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Washington about concerns over election fraud. (Saul Loeb/Pool via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump used a primetime address to the nation Thursday to again raise doubts about the results of past elections, reviving a subject he’s long used to deny his loss in the 2020 election.

Trump began Thursday night with a stark warning about what he described as flaws in the voting system and said he was releasing previously classified documents related to the 2020 and 2018 elections.

“America is back and doing really well, but we still have a major challenge that must be urgently addressed, because no country can be great without fair and honest elections,” he said.

He said all Americans should be assured their elections are free of cheating and interference.

“Unfortunately, the system we have today falls catastrophically short of that standard,” Trump said.

Trump used the remarks to justify his push to pass a strict voter ID bill in Congress.

Primetime presidential addresses are typically reserved for major milestones or nationally significant events.

Trump last did it in April to speak on the Iran war, a month after it started. He said then that the U.S. would accomplish its objectives “very shortly” and that “the hard part is done, so it should be easy.” The war, however, has dragged on and strikes between the U.S. and Iran have intensified this week.

Trump also delivered a politically charged primetime speech in December in which he sought to blame the challenging economic climate on Democrats.

Some networks did not air it live

At least some TV networks said Thursday they would not carry the speech live but would air it on their streaming services. ABC, NBC and CNN decided not to air the remarks live but to carry them in full on their streaming services and break into network coverage as needed.

CBS said it was “airing a special report” during the address, but it wasn’t clear if the network would carry it live.

Trump called out the media outlets for not carrying it live and accused them of being “part of a plot.”

Networks typically but don’t always choose to carry presidential addresses to the nation live. In 2022, when then-President Joe Biden delivered a primetime address full of warnings about Donald Trump and his adherents’ “extreme ideology,” the networks did not carry it live.

In 2014, the major networks chose to stick with their primetime programming instead of airing an address by then-President Barack Obama on his plans for immigration reform.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday afternoon seemed to be still trying to persuade networks to carry the remarks live, saying, “I think that the mainstream media should air the president’s speech and allow the American people to draw their own conclusions from it.”