(WASHINGTON) — Democrats on Thursday offered their prebuttal to President Donald Trump’s prime time address that they expect to focus on the 2020 election. 

Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, whose home state has been the target of many of the administration’s election challenges, told reporters Thursday, “If the president declares Georgia’s elections illegitimate, or if the president declares Georgia’s sitting United States senators illegitimate, he is declaring Georgia voters illegitimate. It’s Donald Trump who tried to defraud Georgia voters in that election.”

Ossoff is up for re-election in November and his seat is being targeted by Republicans as a possible pickup opportunity. He predicted that Trump would use his speech to rehash challenges to the 2020 election that failed in court.

“Here’s what’s going to happen tonight: the world’s most famous sore loser will deliver a prime-time presidential sour grapes address to pursue his six-year-old grievances about the 2020 election, while his war in the Middle East spirals out of control and the cost of living continues to rise for Americans across the country,” Ossoff said.

In a White House briefing Thursday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt was tight-lipped about what the president would say besides that he will discuss “protecting the integrity of our elections.” 

When pressed by a reporter about concerns from some Republicans that the president was litigating past elections that could turn off some swing voters, Leavitt said that Trump would focus on secure elections as key to American democracy. 

“I’ve seen a lot of reporting and, frankly, misreporting about what the president will say. I think the American people will be relieved to hear what they are hearing from the president of the United States and his commitment to transparency and the focus on the integrity of our elections tonight,” she said.

When later pressed by ABC News’ Rachel Scott about the political concerns of some Republicans, Leavitt said only that people should wait until they’ve heard the speech.

Outgoing Republican Sens. Thom Tillis and John Cornyn and Rep. Thomas Massie said Trump looking back on the 2020 elections is not a productive message for the party as it heads into the upcoming midterm cycle.

Asked if he thought Trump focusing on the 2020 election going into the midterms was a good messages for Republicans, Tillis said, “No, not at all. Look, we can’t re-prosecute that campaign. Anytime you’re looking back, you’re not looking ahead and I’m looking ahead to these elections, and the president should as well.”

Massie said that the White House was “trying to convince the American people the problem is the elections” rather than other issues they are concerned about.

“The problem is not that we didn’t win the elections. The problem is that we broke our promises when we got here … So, it’s a ruse because they’re trying to convince the American people the problem is the elections. The problem is the people that they’ve elected.”

Cornyn said that he wasn’t pleased with Jay Clayton’s answers on the 2020 election during his Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing to be Trump’s director of national intelligence on Tuesday when he refused to answer who won.

“I thought a lot of it was pretty silly,” Cornyn said of Clayton’s performance. “I don’t know why we’re still talking about the 2020 election on either side of the aisle. We got important work to do and I think the most important is coming up here in the midterms. “In the meantime, to continue to do the people’s work, and when we’re talking about what happened six years ago, I don’t think we’re doing them any favors.”

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said Trump’s speech could influence how he votes on Clayton. 

“If Donald Trump does what I expect and makes outrageous claims and uses those claims as an attempt to interfere in the elections, boy oh boy, more than ever do you need somebody in that role that’ll take truth to power,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer  told reporters that Trump is “scared to death that he will lose in 2026” and is trying to change the subject. 

“The bottom line is, if Trump wants to win the American people over, instead of the bulls— that he’s peddling about 2020, he ought to focus on lowering people’s costs, getting rid of the chaos in administration, getting rid of the corruption,” Schumer said.

ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — A key GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee whose vote is needed to secure acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation as the next attorney general said Thursday that he will require Blanche to sit down with victims of deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein before he can vote for him. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., announced the new condition during a hearing Thursday where one of the witnesses was Epstein victim Dani Bensky.

Facing a potentially rocky confirmation, Blanche made a brief attempt to meet with Epstein survivors on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon. 

He and his team arrived at a Senate Judiciary Committee office where they sat for about half an hour, but no one joined them.

“I rearranged my schedule to try to meet with them,” Blanche told ABC News after leaving the office. “I’ve been here waiting. It didn’t work out, so we’re going to see if there’s a way we can meet either later today or sometime soon.”

“There’s nothing newsworthy about this fact because the Department of Justice will always meet with victims or their representatives, and if those victims or their representatives have evidence that anybody committed a crime, whether it has to do with Jeffrey Epstein, anybody else that was associated with Jeffrey Epstein, or anybody else, we will of course move forward and investigate and prosecute,” Blanche said.

Bensky testified in Thursday’s hearing that Blanche has never responded to repeated attempts to reach him to sit down and recount her story. 

“Blanche was willing to say that he would meet with [Epstein victims] and counsel — I understand the restriction that counsel has to be present,” Tillis said. “I expect that meeting to occur before I vote to vote out of this committee and I’m trying to get to yes. But this is a very important part of getting to yes.”

“There should not be any reason why, based on what Mr. Blanche said yesterday, if he said that he would do it today, then he can certainly do it over the next two weeks,” Tillis added.

Blanche told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing Wednesday that he would be happy to meet with victims but initially said he couldn’t meet with them personally if they were represented by legal counsel, before correcting himself later in the hearing. 

“I never said I can’t meet with them. I said if they were represented, I had to meet through counsel,” Blanche said. “But of course, I can meet with them. I’m the acting attorney general of the United States, so yes, I can.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Joe Biden announced in a video message on Wednesday that he has written a book which is set to be released after the November midterm elections.

The book is titled “Promise Me, America” and is out on Nov. 17. 

Biden said the book is about the decisions he made as president and touches on response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy, “restoring our democracy” after Jan. 6, and conflicts in Afghanistan and Ukraine. It will also discuss why he chose to run for re-election and his decision to step aside.

“Most of all, it’s about my faith in the promise of America. The promise we made to those that have come before us and to honor their sacrifice,” Biden said. 

The book’s release, which will come two weeks after the midterms, could pull attention back to the former president just as Democrats hope to keep it fixed on President Donald Trump’s record, with promotional efforts risking distraction.

The former president said since he’s left office, he’s been spending time with his family and getting treatment for his prostate cancer, which he says has been going “really well.”

In the summer of 2024, Biden dropped his presidential bid after a widely criticized debate performance that prompted questions about his mental fitness. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who has detailed her run for office in a memoir, “107 Days,” said that it was “recklessness” to allow Biden to make the decision alone on running for re-election.

Former first lady Jill Biden wrote in her memoir “View from the East Wing,” releases last month, that she was concerned her husband might have been drugged ahead of his debate performance.

Joe Biden’s two earlier books include “Promises to Keep” and “Promise Me, Dad,” a memoir on his older son Beau who died of brain cancer.

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