President Donald Trump told the country on Thursday night that China had acquired “220 million US voter files,” and that people who found out about it kept quiet. The 24-minute primetime address from the White House came about three months before the November midterms.
“The People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history,” Trump said. He claimed voter data in 18 states had been “bought, stolen or hacked by China,” and accused “those responsible for sounding the alarm” of not telling government officials or Congress. He said he had ordered the director of national intelligence and the FBI to establish the full extent of the alleged breach, and that federal authorities were notifying states whose data may have been exposed.
The White House put out hundreds of pages of intelligence documents while he spoke, many heavily redacted. They included a CIA report describing Chinese efforts to gather information on Joe Biden’s campaign. The same report said Beijing “does not currently intend to covertly interfere to try to sway the outcome of the election,” though it added that China could change course later. The BBC said it was still reviewing the files. Reuters reported that some White House officials worried the release could mislead.
The speech offered no evidence that votes were changed or the outcome altered. Trump also did not explain how Chinese access to voter files would have helped Biden win.
What intelligence agencies concluded earlier
A 2021 assessment by the National Intelligence Council said with “high confidence” that China did not interfere in the 2020 presidential election. “We assess that China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US presidential election,” the report said. It found no foreign actor tried to alter any technical aspect of the vote, including registrations, ballots and tabulation. It did describe Russian influence operations aimed at Biden’s candidacy. John Ratcliffe, now CIA director, was director of national intelligence when it was produced.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has called 2020 “the most secure in American history,” with no voting systems compromised. Dozens of court cases and repeated audits, some run by Republicans including Trump’s then-attorney general, found no significant fraud.
Voting machines, the SAVE America Act and the networks
Trump said US voting machines are “extremely exposed” to interference from Russia, China and Iran. He alleged that Michigan law enforcement uncovered a voter registration fraud scheme by a Democratic-affiliated group but was held back by the FBI until the statute of limitations ran out. “It was pay, play and cheat,” he said, offering no evidence of changed votes. He also said the Department of Homeland Security had identified 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote, without saying whether any had voted.
He closed by urging Americans to press Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register and photo ID to vote, and would ban most mail voting. The bill has sat stalled in the Senate for months.
ABC and NBC did not carry the address live on their main channels, and CNN offered it online. Trump said the networks should lose their licenses and called them “part of a plot.”
Reaction
“Trump’s shocking ‘bombshells’ about China are totally bogus,” said Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer wrote that “in America, voters choose their leaders, not the other way around.” Kamala Harris wrote on X shortly before the speech that Trump “wants you to lose confidence in our electoral system so you stay home this November.”
China’s foreign ministry called the claims “entirely fabricated.” Spokesman Lin Jian said they were “malicious smears” that had “long been proven to be groundless.” An embassy spokesperson, Liu Chang, said “China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the US.”
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll released before the speech put Trump’s approval rating at 37 percent.
Sources
- Donald Trump accuses China of meddling in US elections
- Trump alleges China meddled in 2020 election and questions voting security ahead of midterms
