US President Donald Trump delivered a prime-time speech in which he accused China of interfering in the 2020 election and alleged “shocking vulnerabilities” in US election systems.
Trump, speaking from the White House on Thursday, repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and foreign interference during the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
In his half-hour speech, delivered three months before the midterm elections, he said he had declassified hundreds of intelligence files that supported his claims that Beijing tried to influence the election in Biden’s favor.
The US intelligence community has already concluded that China did not interfere in the 2020 election.
In response to his speech, China’s Foreign Ministry strongly denied allegations of Chinese interference in the 2020 presidential election, saying they were “entirely fabricated.”
Trump’s claims are “malicious slander” that have “long been proven to be baseless,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.
Trump spoke in front of several members of his leadership team during his speech, but reporters were unable to ask the president any questions.
In his remarks, he accused China of “illicit acquisition” of 220 million voter records including personal information.
Trump said voter data from 18 states had been “purchased, stolen or hacked by China” and accused “those who sounded the alarm” of failing to disclose the discovery to government officials or Congress.
Lots of voter data is accessible to the publicexternal and Trump presented no evidence in his speech that China used this information to change election systems or influence election results.
Hundreds of pages of intelligence documents were released by the White House during Trump’s speech, many of which were heavily redacted. The BBC is currently reviewing them.
Democrats, meanwhile, have accused Trump of trying to sow doubt about the security of the upcoming November midterm elections, which will decide control of Congress for the remainder of his presidency.
“Let’s be clear: In the United States, voters choose their leaders, not the other way around,” Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, said on social media after the speech.
“Democrats will fight like hell to ensure that every American voter can vote freely, without obstruction or interference from Donald Trump,” he added.
The president’s comments contradict previous US intelligence assessments. A 2021 report from the U.S. National Intelligence Council said it had “high confidence” that China did not interfere in the 2020 presidential election.
“We assess that China did not engage in interference efforts and considered, but did not engage in, influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the U.S. presidential election,” the report said.
He added that this was likely because China “did not view the election results as advantageous enough that it could risk a backlash if caught.”
Trump delivered the speech at the White House after the release of a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll, which showed his approval rating had fallen to 37 percent, with many voters pessimistic about the cost of living and the ongoing war with Iran.
Elsewhere in the speech, the president claimed that U.S. voting machines were “extremely vulnerable” to interference from foreign adversaries, including Russia, China and Iran.
The shortcomings of America’s election infrastructure are well documented. Some were addressed after the 2016 election won by Trump, after the U.S. intelligence community discovered that Russia had engaged in a concerted campaign of election interference that included hacking, social media influence and financing of on-the-ground election activities.
During his speech, Trump also alleged that an investigation by Michigan law enforcement uncovered a voter registration fraud scheme by a Democratic-affiliated group, but that the FBI stopped him from taking action before the statute of limitations expired.
“It was about paying, gambling and cheating,” he said, although he provided no evidence of vote changes or tabulations or hacking of voting machines.
Separately, Trump said the Department of Homeland Security had identified 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote. He did not say whether any of those people voted or had an impact on the outcome of the election.
At the end of his speech, Trump again called for passage of the SAVE America Act, which bans most mail-in voting, requires proof of citizenship for voter registration and a photo ID to vote.
This bill has been blocked in the Senate for months.
Trump has encouraged Americans to urge their representatives in Congress to support its passage, but unless Republicans are also willing to abandon long-standing Senate procedures, such efforts will almost certainly be doomed to failure.
The speech likely won’t help assuage Democrats’ concerns that Trump is trying to call into question the security of the upcoming midterms and the 2028 presidential election.
“The president is afraid of your power and he wants you to believe that your vote doesn’t matter,” former Vice President Kamala Harris wrote on X moments before Trump’s remarks.
“He wants you to lose faith in our voting system and stay home in November. He knows how unhappy the American people are and he wants to make sure you don’t vote,” she added.
In his speech, Trump also attacked media outlets, including ABC, NBC and CNN, that did not broadcast his speech live on television, saying they should have their broadcast licenses revoked.
After the 2020 election, Trump and his allies launched dozens of unsuccessful legal challenges to challenge Joe Biden’s victory, and no evidence of widespread fraud was found.