Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) accused President Donald Trump of preparing a narrative to challenge the November election results if he loses, alleging that his repeated election-fraud claims are part of a broader strategy.
On Saturday, Slotkin criticized Trump in a post on X, saying his focus on alleged election fraud is intentional and designed to influence how voters view the results.
"Trump has spent months talking about election fraud that doesn't exist. That's not an accident," she wrote. "When he loses in November, he wants the story already written before a single vote is counted. Don't let him rewrite what actually happened."
In a video shared alongside the post, Slotkin said Trump's repeated mentions of Michigan and Detroit were part of an effort to build a narrative ahead of the election.
"The president has name-checked Michigan and Detroit a number of times just in the past six months," she said. "And tonight, I think, was just a continuation of a book that he's writing that sort of lays the story out so that when he loses in November, he can claim that he didn't."
She added, "He can claim that he actually won. He's laying the story out."
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other officials also pushed back on Trump's election claims. Gov. JB Pritzker (D-Ill.) wrote on X, "There's nothing wrong with our elections, but there is something wrong with Donald Trump."
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) called Trump's election security speech the "ramblings of a mad king" and said his claims were "make-believe," while accusing him of trying to undermine confidence in the election before votes were cast. "He needs to rig the election before one vote was cast," Newsom said.
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene also questioned Trump's "rigged and stolen" election remarks, calling the renewed fraud debate a "big shiny object" distracting from other issues.
