US President Donald Trump released intelligence on Thursday that he said showed Chinese meddling in the US election, renewing his long-running attacks on election security despite a US intelligence study that found no evidence that Beijing manipulated the 2020 vote, and he lost.
The 25-minute prime-time speech underscored Trump's effort to make election security a central political issue ahead of November's midterm elections, when Republicans will be defending their congressional majority and facing the possibility of losing control of one or both chambers.
Trump used his remarks to further pressure Republicans in Congress to pass legislation imposing new voter identification and citizenship requirements, despite longstanding findings that voter fraud in US elections is rare. The bill is stalled in the Senate among the opposition Democratic Alliance.
Trump said the leaked documents would reveal “an appalling threat to our election infrastructure.” But many appeared to reflect the opposite, or were completely unrelated to the US election infrastructure.
The speech came at a politically challenging time for Trump and Republicans, with his approval rating weighed down by the unpopular Iran war and high energy prices. Trump spoke briefly about the war at first, saying the US was “winning big,” while listing a series of domestic accomplishments, including tax cuts and his crackdown on immigration, before turning to election security.
The president said he was releasing sensitive information showing that China illegally obtained the files of 220 million American voters, including names, addresses and other information used to register to vote.
He also asserted that members of the US intelligence community were deliberately suppressing information about the extent of China's operations.
His allegations contradict a 2021 US intelligence community audit that found no signs that any foreign actor attempted or succeeded in altering “any technical component” of the 2020 presidential vote, including voter registration, ballots, tabulations or results.
The investigation was carried out under John Ratcliffe, then Trump's director of national intelligence and now his CIA director.
The report also found that China has pursued an effort since at least 2008 to collect information on American voters, public opinion, political parties, candidates and senior government officials, possibly with the intention of using that information to predict election results.
Two people familiar with the matter said the US voter data obtained by China was not classified — voter files are regularly purchased by political consultants — and could not be used.
Officials concerned with Trump's rhetoric can be misleading
Ahead of Trump's speech, some White House officials expressed concern that revealing China's information could be misleading, sources told Reuters.
Andrew Chang explains US President Donald Trump's call for Republicans to make elections 'national' ahead of the upcoming midterms and how it contradicts the rationale given by his press secretary. Photos provided by The Canadian Press, Reuters and Getty Images
Trump's tough language on China has threatened to shake relations that have been strong following last year's costly trade war. Trump hopes to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in September about improving trade relations.
Before Trump began speaking, Liu Chang, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy, responded to a request for comment: “China has never and will never interfere in the US presidential election.”
Trump has spent years raising doubts about the results of the election, falsely claiming that his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 was rigged. He also advanced other false claims, including that postal voting is rife with fraud, voting machines are vulnerable and non-citizen voting is widespread.
Multiple courts and recounts have found no evidence of massive fraud in the 2020 election.
'Trump's bombshells … are completely false': Senator
Trump said the documents would reveal major weaknesses in election security. But many seem to be either out of touch or out of touch with the US election infrastructure:
- One CIA document, prepared last month, concerns the Venezuelan election, not the American one.
- “We are assessing whether vote allocation systems will be difficult to use on a large scale to disrupt the results of the elections,” said another document.
- A third document, produced by the CIA, detailed efforts by Chinese spies to target the Biden campaign and noted that Beijing “currently does not intend to intervene covertly to try to sway the outcome of the election,” although it said China may make a decision later.
“Trump's 'bombshells' about China are completely bogus,” Democratic Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement during the speech.
“The truth is that our intelligence agencies have unanimously agreed that China did not even try to change a single vote in the 2020 election.”
Not on all major TV networks
While Trump described the US election as highly vulnerable, he did not provide evidence of any actual votes in 2020 being altered or misused.
Two of the three major US television networks and CNN have decided not to air the prime-time address on their main platforms, breaking from the practice of usually reserving major addresses for issues of national importance.
Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has sought to expand federal power over election management, which remains legally with state governments under the US Constitution.
In recent months, he has also pushed Senate Republicans to advance a bill, the SAVE America Act, that would require photo ID to vote and proof of U.S. citizenship to register and would greatly reduce mail-in voting. Democrats and voting rights advocates say the law is intended to suppress legitimate voting.
The bill has passed the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives several times with a simple majority, but lacks the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster in the Senate.
Some Republican leaders have urged Trump to focus on issues more important to the American people, including the high cost of living, rather than the 2020 vote.
Democrats need to flip only three Republican seats to take the majority in the US House of Representatives. They face an uphill battle to win a majority in the 100-seat Senate, with critical races underway in Republican-leaning states.
Opinion polls show a majority of American voters oppose the war on Iran and are unhappy with Trump's handling of the economy.
