In his speech, Trump referred to a possible hacker attack on the US elections and criticized him for stoking voter fears

The country’s election infrastructure is vulnerable to cyberattacks by foreign actors, President Donald Trump said in a prime-time address Thursday night, citing a series of documents he declassified – but offering no evidence that widespread interference actually took place or influenced the election outcome.

Democrats and advocates quickly criticized the comments as one more try by Trump to give Republicans an advantage in crucial midterm elections and sow distrust in the results Burn of the members of the election support commission, demands of its administration for state voter rolls, an implementing regulation Limitation of postal voting and more.

Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and some non-state groups “have the ability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure,” Trump said, citing one of the documents compiled by the White House and intelligence officials. The document said the authors did not know whether opponents were planning to interfere in the election.

Trump claimed that voter rolls in at least 18 states were “purchased, stolen or hacked by China” ahead of the 2020 election. The attempted interference methods ranged, he said, from influencing voters to attempting to produce fraudulent ballots in favor of Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

Standing behind a lectern at the White House, Trump said the People’s Republic of China carried out the “largest election data compromise in history” during the 2020 election and said in different words that China illegally accessed the personal data of tens of millions or up to 220 million voters.

“Our goal in disclosing this information is not to undermine trust in (elections), but to gain that trust by addressing vulnerabilities and fixing them very, very quickly,” he said. “And that’s exactly what we do.”

Trump announced he would immediately declassify five sets of documents that he said proved foreign interference in the 2018 election and midterms as well as “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure.”

“Equally troubling is that this important information has been covered up and hidden from you, the American people, for many years,” he said.

He claimed that the election vulnerabilities were known to members of the “deep state,” which included top members of the intelligence community, and that they were working to conceal “the extent of China’s sinister election interference,” including during his time as president before and during the 2020 election.

He also accused Biden’s Justice Department of scuttling any investigation into the matter and preventing its disclosure.

The documents were published on whitehouse.gov website Thursday evening.

Trump also said the vulnerabilities were another reason for passage of the SAVE America Act, a law that in its various versions would restrict voter access by adding requirements for registering and voting, including photo IDs. The bill stuck in the U.S. Senate does not provide funding for election security infrastructure.

Effects on the intermediate examinations

Many Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, said the comments were not about the 2020 cycle but were ultimately intended to undermine confidence ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

“Trump knows he has lost American families,” Schumer said in a statement following the address. “He knows he has made their lives more expensive, endangered their friends and families with an unnecessary war, and embarrassed the country on the world stage. And instead of changing his policies, he is working to rig the midterm elections before a single vote has even been cast. We will not let him.”

Former Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris wrote shortly before Trump’s speech that he wanted the American people to believe that his vote didn’t matter.

“He wants you to lose faith in our election system so you stay home this November,” she wrote on X. “He knows how dissatisfied the American people are and he wants to make sure you don’t vote.”

Say election forecasters The most likely outcome of the midterm elections is that the GOP retains control of the U.S. Senate and Democrats gain a majority in the House of Representatives.

Chinese attempts at interference

During his roughly 25 minutes of remarks, Trump avoided explicitly repeating his debunked claims that the 2020 election was rigged, only hinting at it at one point.

“We are taking rapid action to ensure sensitive voter data is better protected so we can never buy it, hack it and never see a stolen election again,” he said.

Instead, Trump said the documents showed that US elections were “vulnerable to manipulation and theft.”

He said China tried to interfere in voter registration and sway public opinion against him by paying U.S. journalists “large sums of money to write more negative articles about him.” He did not say that this was the reason he lost the election and he did not name the journalists.

According to the Election Support CommissionVoter rolls are sometimes commercially available and can often be obtained through a public records request.

Trump said another set of documents revealed a plan by a group of voters in Muskegon, Michigan, to submit fraudulent voter registrations. He didn’t say the scheme, that was discredited, impacted all votes counted in Michigan in the 2020 election.

In a statement, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said elections in the state were “safe and secure.”

“Any other proposal seeks to undermine the fundamental rights of our voters,” she said.

Trump also claimed that 278,000 non-citizens in the US were registered to vote, citing a Department of Homeland Security report released shortly before his speech. That number could be higher, he claimed, because Democratic-led states have not shared their voter information.

White House documents released Thursday point to a one-page department document that cites a “review” of voter information in four states: California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada. No specific data is referenced.

Throughout his speech, Trump took aim at the media, including NBC News and ABC News, both of which said they would not broadcast his speech live. CBS eventually aired part of his speech in a special report after it began.

Claims 2020

Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election began almost immediately after his defeat.

Trump and his allies filed dozens of lawsuits challenging the election results. almost all of them were dropped or thrown out for lack of evidence.

The post-election campaign culminated in the attack by Trump’s supporters on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, attempting to disrupt Congress’ certification of the Electoral College results. A US House of Representatives committee is investigating the attack completed Trump was responsible for the incitement by knowingly lying to his supporters about the election results.

The investigation also found that Trump tried to operate the Justice Department’s resources and his influence among state Republicans to overturn the results.

Trump was also federally indicted for his conduct leading up to the riot. That prosecution was dropped when he won the 2024 election. After returning to office last year, Trump also pardoned everyone convicted in connection with the attack.

Democrats defend themselves: “Completely wrong”

Immediately after Trump’s comments, Democrats criticized the president’s claims about Chinese election interference.

Virginia Senator Mark Warner said in a post on X that the “shocking ‘bombs’ over China are complete nonsense.”

“The fact is that our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that China did not even attempt to change a single vote in the 2020 election,” he wrote. “A single consensus opinion suggested that China may have attempted to influence voters’ opinions… but that has been public knowledge since 2021.”

During his speech, Trump raised doubts without evidence about the integrity of the Los Angeles mayoral race and the state’s recent gubernatorial race.

California’s primary election took place on Tuesday, June 2, but election officials may take about a month to finish counting votes. The lengthy process is a result of the state’s enormous population as well as its reliance on mail-in voting.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom joined other Democratic officials in saying the speech, which he called “ramblings of a mad king,” was about the midterm elections.

“Even before a single vote has been cast, he is already laying the groundwork to rig this election and convince YOU not to trust the results if they don’t go his way,” he said. “Don’t fall for it.”