Washington: US President Donald Trump has made a series of sensational claims alleging wholesale corruption of American elections, including that China meddled in the 2020 presidential poll and stole the data of 220 million voters, in an extraordinary prime-time television address ahead of November’s midterms.
Trump claimed his country’s elections were “worse than any Third World country” and could not continue as they were, warning that the country risked having “a stolen election again”. That referred to his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and rigged against him.
Simultaneously, the Trump administration declassified and published dozens of files that it said proved Trump’s claims about the vulnerabilities of US elections. This masthead has not yet examined the trove of documents.
But CNN, which said it had reviewed all the documents, reported that they largely discussed vulnerabilities that had been known for years and were already reflected in a 2021 intelligence community assessment. The declassified documents did not support the conclusion that any previous election results – including in 2020 – were manipulated, CNN reported.
In his address, Trump claimed the People’s Republic of China illegally acquired the personal data of 220 million American voters over several years starting in 2020, in what was “believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history”.
The data included names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences and other sensitive data, he said, “presenting an unprecedented election security nightmare”. He said China assigned a data exploitation unit specifically to the project.
Furthermore, Trump claimed that Beijing engaged in activities to undermine his first term and influence the results of the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election.
That included efforts to use Chinese contacts in large US companies to influence corporate leaders to turn against Trump, he said, or pay American journalists to write negative articles about him. He did not provide any examples.
“They fought like hell not to have Donald Trump to win,” Trump said. “The reason they wanted me to lose is because they knew I was wise to them.”
The president accused China of attempting to influence the election to shift public opinion, but did not explicitly accuse China of interference, which generally is used to denote compromising the voting process or counting of ballots.
In addition, Trump alleged that “members of the deep state” – usually taken to refer to spies and members of the intelligence community – actively worked to suppress and downplay the extent of “China’s election meddling”.
In one of the most sensational moments of the speech, Trump claimed that his administration recently discovered significant numbers of “burn bags” containing documents with information given by former president Barack Obama. The bags were supposed to be burnt, but it did not happen, Trump claimed.
He did not provide evidence for these claims, but said he was commissioning the director of national intelligence, the Department of Justice, the FBI and the CIA to investigate the matter, fire those responsible and bring criminal charges against them if appropriate.
Trump also reiterated previous, debunked claims that electronic voting machines used in the US were liable to be attacked and interfered with by American adversaries. He said the documents his administration had declassified would prove this.
He also alleged that at least 278,000 non-citizens or dead people were on US voter rolls across the country. The real number was higher, Trump claimed, but some Democrat-run states did not share their voter registration rolls.
A new White House portal on election integrity reveals FBI director Kash Patel has been tasked with investigating “alleged fraud by a large-scale voter registration operation in Michigan”, relating to a Democratic get-out-the-vote organisation in that state.
Trump used the prime-time address to demand Republicans in Congress pass a piece of legislation called the SAVE Act, which would introduce requirements for voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship when they enrol to vote, and show photographic ID at the polling booth. Currently, arrangements differ from state to state.
Passing the legislation before the midterm elections is now Trump’s singular domestic priority, and he recently refused to sign a major housing affordability bill in protest at Republicans’ failure to get the SAVE Act passed.
“China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections,” Trump said in his speech on Thursday night (Washington time). “Evidence of fraud has been buried. Hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls.
“And yet we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail.”
Trump had telegraphed the speech days in advance, and it was known that he would air fresh claims about election integrity and interference. Some major television networks such as NBC and ABC did not take the speech live, leading Trump to say they should have their broadcast licences revoked.
His decision to again denounce the legitimacy of the 2020 election attracted criticism in the hours before his address, including from Republicans.
“We can’t re-prosecute that campaign,” said Republican senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina on Thursday. “Any time you’re looking back, you’re not looking ahead. I’m looking ahead to these elections and the president should as well.”
The US intelligence community – under leaders appointed by Trump in his first term – concluded in early 2021 that no foreign actor attempted to interfere in the 2020 election.
An assessment published by the National Intelligence Council said: “We have no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 US elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results.”
Trump delivered the speech from the East Room of the White House, where he had an audience of about 50 people that included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Acting Attorney-General Todd Blanche, several other cabinet officials, Patel and the acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte. They broke into applause at the end of Trump’s remarks.
The leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, said Trump’s televised address was a pathetic attempt to deny that he lost the 2020 election. He said Trump had lost the support of American families through the rising cost of living and the war against Iran.
“Rather than pivot his policies, he is working to rig the midterms before a single vote has even been cast. We won’t let him,” Schumer said. “Democrats will fight like hell to make sure every American voter can cast their ballot freely, without obstruction or interference from Donald Trump.”
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.From our partners
Trump airs sensational claims about ‘meddling’, data theft and fraud in US elections
