During a primetime address to the nation, U.S. President Donald Trump said that his administration uncovered profound vulnerabilities in the U.S. election system.
Trump said that these vulnerabilities had been exploited by the Chinese regime to seize American voter data.
“Put together, these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it,” Trump said.
Concurrent with the speech, Trump announced that many previously classified documents spanning from January 2020 to June 2026 that support the claims would be declassified and released to the public.
Here are some key takeaways from the address.
According to the president, the files show that China obtained sensitive voter information for 220 million Americans.
According to Trump, intelligence assessments suggest that the Chinese regime, beginning in 2020, carried out “what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history—resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files.”
The information contained in these files includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, “and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote, and engage in other nefarious activities,” Trump said.
In his speech, Trump said that China began a targeted operation to undermine his public standing and electoral prospects in 2018.
“In mid-2018, the Chinese Communist Party’s policy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the U.S. president in an effort to reduce the U.S. president’s votes and make him resign or prevent his reelection,” Trump said, citing U.S. intelligence.
At the same time, U.S. intelligence found, “China was working to influence the results of the U.S. midterm elections, and later the results of the 2020 presidential election itself.”
According to the same report, “separately, in mid-2019, the Chinese government’s strategy against the United States was focused on undermining domestic confidence in the U.S. president.”
Trump also said intelligence reports indicated that the U.S. intelligence community (IC) had long-running concerns about potential vulnerabilities in U.S. voting machines.
“For years, Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot-counting systems,” Trump said.
The president cited a declassified IC assessment stating: “We judge that U.S. adversaries, including at a minimum Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, as well as non-state groups, have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure.”
Trump alleged that some of the declassified documents indicate that IC members hid election security information, including from the president.
“Members of the Deep State in our intelligence agencies worked to actively suppress and downplay information about the extent of China’s sinister election meddling—covering it up from both the President and the American People.”
Trump cited the seizure of voters’ records by China.
“U.S. spy agencies began learning about the compromise of voter registration files in 2020, when they discovered that tens of millions of voters’ data in 18 states had been bought, stolen, or hacked by China. Yet those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information hidden,” he said.
—Joseph Lord
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