WASHINGTON — President Trump appeared poised to question the security of U.S. elections with a planned prime-time speech Thursday night, eliciting fears from Democrats and voting rights advocates that he is planning yet another play for federal control over voting in November’s midterms.

The exact reason for the speech has not been disclosed by the White House, with Trump only characterizing it to reporters this week as “really, really big news.” He confirmed it would have to do with “free and fair elections.”

The Washington Post reported, citing sources, that Trump planned to argue that there are vulnerabilities in the nation’s election infrastructure and claim that China had accessed U.S. voter data. The White House declined to confirm any such details Wednesday.

The announcement of the speech set off concerns among the president’s political opponents, as well as elections experts and voting rights advocates, that Trump could again escalate claims that the nation’s voting system is vulnerable to domestic fraud and foreign attacks.

He has previously said that Republicans should “nationalize” election administration, a job that falls to the states under the Constitution, and has pressured his party to tighten federal voting rules.

“We don’t know anything about what he might say … or what he might try to do with his very limited powers, as the president, over elections,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research. “I expect we’re going to hear a lot of rehashed and debunked claims.”

The president could potentially use new claims to argue that the nation is facing an emergency in upcoming elections that necessitates further federal intervention into voting, Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Administration Committee, which has oversight of elections, said in an interview with The Times.

“This is going to be the rationale for declaring a national emergency,” Morelle said. “It’s transparent that he is creating the emergency and he’s creating the evidence out of whole cloth to suggest there is an emergency.”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, which oversees federal elections, told The Times on Wednesday that Trump was using a known playbook to “[sow] doubt about the outcome before a single vote has been cast.”

“All signs show that tomorrow’s speech will be more of the same: debunked conspiracy theories offered up not because they’re true, but because chaos and doubt are the only cards he has left to play,” Padilla said.

The speech, which Trump announced on social media Monday, comes four months ahead of midterm elections that will determine whether his party retains legislative control in Washington.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt dismissed news reports about what Trump might say in the 6 p.m. PDT speech as speculation, and said “nobody knows yet what President Trump will ultimately say.”

The address also comes as Trump’s ceasefire with Iran has fallen apart, renewing expectations for increased gas prices, and his approval rating on the economy has steadily dropped. On Tuesday, it also became public that Trump had paid $5.6 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll, as ordered by a jury that in 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.

“What we’re going to be talking about Thursday is, it doesn’t get bigger,” Trump told reporters who asked Tuesday about the speech. “Because without free and fair elections you don’t have a country.”

Trump has spread baseless claims of widespread election fraud for years. But his prioritization of his claims about the voting system — even as much of the nation’s attention is on cost-of-living issues — has been on particularly clear display in recent days.

He has aggressively lobbied reluctant Republican senators to pass his voter ID legislation, refusing to sign a bipartisan housing bill over it; he fired all remaining members of the bipartisan U.S. Elections Assistance Commission; and his Justice Department said it would send election monitors to six states.

Since the midterm primaries began, Trump has also sown doubt about election security — chiefly in California, where he suggested Democrats had cheated or attempted to in the gubernatorial and Los Angeles mayoral primaries.

Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, whose state was often at the center of Trump’s 2020 fraud claims, said the president’s speech posed a threat to voting rights.

“I expect him to use whatever he puts out there on Thursday as a pretext, either for some attempted unconstitutional use of federal power to interfere in the election,” Ossoff said Tuesday on MS Now, “or to give his proxies and loyalists in state and local jurisdictions some cover for whatever they might attempt, or to lay the groundwork for challenging the result.”

Any effort to federalize or take over elections would face serious legal obstacles, said Nahal Kazemi, a Chapman University law professor. Although Congress can pass laws regarding election administration, as it did with the Voting Rights Act, the executive branch doesn’t play a role in running elections.

“You run into essentially a brick wall that is the Constitution, which makes very plain that states run elections,” Kazemi said.

When it comes to concerns about foreign interference, experts say there is little evidence of other countries attempting to hack systems or change votes. Instead, foreign actors have largely operated via disinformation campaigns, as the U.S. determined had occurred in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

“Of the information that is available to us now, there’s no reason to be alarmed about the possibility that a foreign adversary is going to take over election systems,” said Kazemi, who has studied foreign election interference.

One of the things that helps make American elections generally secure, she said, is that they are not centralized but are run by thousands of counties. Hacking into so many voting systems would be extraordinarily difficult for a foreign adversary, she said.

Jenny Farrell, executive director of the League of Women Voters of California, said California “takes elections security extremely seriously” and has one of the most secure systems in the country, subject to strict voter verification measures and intense chain of custody and auditing procedures.

Democrats have worked with elections experts in recent months on attempts to assure the public that U.S. elections are safe and secure. They have also tried to counter claims by Trump that mail ballots and voting machines are unreliable.

A slew of 2020 election reviews, including by Trump’s first administration, concluded that Trump lost and Biden won. Election experts say there is no evidence that widespread fraud determined the outcome of the election.

A judge also found that claims pushed by Trump and his attorneys that the company Dominion Voting Systems manipulated votes cast through its machines in favor of Biden were untrue.

It was 2:35 am et Sunday.

The phone rang, yanking me out of deep slumber.

Calls like these are never good.

In the split second before I answered the phone, my mind traveled to the obvious place for any journalist who covers Capitol Hill and gets a call at that hour.

LINDSEY GRAHAM, SOUTH CAROLINA SENATOR WHO ROSE FROM SMALL-TOWN ROOTS TO GOP POWER BROKER, DIES AT 71

Surely it was about former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

McConnell has been out of service and nowhere to be found for weeks — after being hospitalized with an unspecified illness. The internet was rife with conspiracy theories and conjecture. And, considering the dearth of information, I suspected the worst.

My longtime colleague Jodie Curtis was on the line when I picked up. Jodie is a senior figure at Fox, forced into weekend overnight assignment editor duty because of an illness. Jodie calling to tell me that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was dead.

“Graham?” I asked incredulously. “Not McConnell?”

Emerging from my stupor, I instinctively presumed this might be about the infirm, Kentucky Republican. You’d have better odds presuming that overnight call was about McConnell than hitting an exacta wheel at Churchill Downs.

My instincts immediately kicked in.

What if this was psy-ops by the Russians, Chinese or Iranians. A rouse. A hoax. A hack.

I told my colleague to just wait a moment while we confirmed. It would be easy to get this wrong.

Back in the 1990s, lawmakers “killed” comedian Bob Hope on the House floor, prematurely announcing his death during special orders speeches. Yours truly – and everyone else in Washington – prematurely reported the death of the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH). She suffered from a catastrophic brain aneurism. Yet after they removed the Congresswoman from life support, she continued to live for a few hours before dying.

However, it became clear that Lindsey Graham was indeed dead. I was quickly on the air. When asked about the shock of Graham passing, I invoked a Native American adage: Death comes. And it’s always out of season.

Lindsey Graham was gone. But who would succeed him on Capitol Hill?

Think all in the family. At least for now.

Sens. Katie Britt (R-AL) and Tim Scott (R-SC) both implored the late senator’s kid sister Darline Graham to follow her brother. President Trump believed it would be a fitting tribute to the senator. So did South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) – who was in charge the appointment.

“It’s my honor to ask his sister to finish his work now,” said McMaster.

Darline Graham is a political neophyte. Lindsey Graham adopted his sister after their parents died – and Darline was a teenager.

“Lindsey has always been there for me. And now I will be there for him,” said now Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC).

Lindsey Graham was his sister’s caretaker. Now she’s the caretaker of his Senate seat until January.

But who’s next?

South Carolina has a small Congressional delegation. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) quickly excluded himself from the immediate running, noting the importance of remaining in the House. Plucking one of South Carolina’s House GOP members and appointing them to the Senate is a problem for the narrow Republican majority. The Constitution bars appointments to the House. So McMaster would have diminished the GOP’s slim majority had he picked a House member to fill in for Lindsey Graham. It would take months to conduct a special election to fill the vacant House seat.

Appointing Darline Graham solves that problem.

Reps. Russell Fry (R-SC), Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Ralph Norman (R-SC) are all interested in running for the full term. South Carolina will hold a snap primary in mid August. The winner will face Democrat Annie Andrews in November. Lindsey Graham had just secured the Republican nomination for a fifth term last month.

President Trump’s influence will play an outsized role in who gets the nod. He’s already singled out Fry.

But the election will look a little different this fall. November will mark the first time since the mid-1950s that either Lindsey Graham or late, legendary Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) isn’t on the ballot in the Palmetto State.

The Senate met for the first time Monday afternoon since Graham’s passing.

“Lord, we remember with gratitude his commitment to the responsibilities entrusted to him and the many ways he sought to serve the people of this country. Give comfort, strength and peace to his family, friends, colleagues and all who mourn his passing,” prayed Senate Chaplain Barry Black.

The Senate shrouded Graham’s desk with a black cloak. A bouquet of white roses rested on the desk, signifying a new beginning without a Senate titan.

“The halls of the Senate already feel empty without him,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD).

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Well wishers left notecards and flowers outside Graham’s office in the Russell Senate Office Building.

Senators praised Graham’s tenacity.

“He didn’t want to just argue about things. He wanted to actually solve things,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) on Fox.

Even until the end.

Over the weekend, Graham appeared to forge a deal on a Russia sanctions measure.

“This could be well, this could well be the end of the war in Ukraine. It could put all the pressure on Russia to finally end their illegal war of aggression,” predicted Sen. Angus King (I-ME).

Lindsey Graham first won a seat in Congress in 1994 as part of the “Republican Revolution.” That’s the historic class which flipped control of the House for the first time in 40 years. Graham and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) are the only members from that 1994 class still serving in Congress.

Graham earned a national profile barely four years after arriving in Washington. House GOP leaders tapped Graham to serve as one of the House “managers,” prosecuting articles of impeachment for President Clinton in the Senate.

“Impeachment is not about punishment,” argued Graham before the Senate in January, 1999. “Impeachment is about cleansing the office.”

Three years after that, Graham left the House. He became one of 100 in the Senate. But his colleagues conceded that the institution felt hollow at just 99.

“I am comforted by the knowledge that in the end, he has just changed his address. And that one day, Mr. President….” said Thune on the floor, pausing for ten seconds. “We will laugh together again.”

The Leader’s voice then cracked as he fought back tears.

“Mr. President, I yield the floor,” Thune whispered.

By Tuesday afternoon, Darline Graham became the 2,022nd senator in American history. But the first to immediately succeed her brother.

“He always said that his greatest accomplishment was the way that Darline turned out,” said Britt.

“I’m glad that there will be another Sen. Graham and that Darline will serve with us,” said

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE). “That’ll allow for some continuity.”

Graham’s passing leaves a Congressional chasm.

“It will be difficult to pass anything without Sen. Graham because he’s been such a significant voice in the Senate,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY).

It’s unclear if any of that will fall to the Senate’s newest member.

LINDSEY GRAHAM’S SISTER CARRIES ON LATE SENATOR’S WORK, BECOMING SOUTH CAROLINA’S FIRST FEMALE SENATOR

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Darline Graham joined her brother’s side when he briefly ran for President in 2015. She says Lindsey taught her how to ride a bike while growing up.

“He would hold on to the bicycle as I pedaled. And he’d run along beside of me. Give me a big push and shout ‘Keep pedaling! Keep pedaling!’ said the new senator. ” And then he was the one who comforted me when I stopped pedaling and fell off the bicycle.”

Today, Darline Graham is again hopping onto that bicycle to finish Lindsey Graham’s term.

You can almost hear the late senator, in his “upstate” twang shouting to his sister “Keep pedaling! Keep pedaling!”