2026 has been a difficult year for President Donald Trump. He is losing a deeply unpopular war. Gas prices are still painful. Federal law enforcement officers have killed multiple people in cold blood. His approval numbers have reached historic lows ahead of this fall’s midterm elections.
In his address to the nation Thursday, Trump returned to a favorite topic: conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election. The president made sweeping claims about a broad Chinese campaign to access voter records, agitate against his candidacy and interfere in the election. But the claims are not borne out by the evidence, including the intelligence documents he declassified as “proof.” The speech was a desperate attempt to undermine confidence in our democratic system and lay the groundwork for an unprecedented and illegal attempt to control elections from the White House itself.
The U.S. intelligence community, researchers and journalists have recognized China as a threat for years.
Americans who might be confused about the president’s claims should know a few things. First, the U.S. intelligence community, researchers and journalists have recognized China as a threat for years. China is one of our country’s most advanced cyber adversaries and is constantly probing IT systems of the U.S. government, the private sector and influential individuals for vulnerabilities. Beijing also deploys influence operations to attempt to change American policy in its favor.
However, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s 2020 Election Threat report assessed with high confidence (the highest level of confidence assigned) “that China did not deploy interference efforts” — attempts to change voter rolls or tallies — “and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US presidential election.” The same report included a moderate-confidence “minority view” from the national intelligence officer for China that Beijing “took at least some steps to undermine former President Trump’s reelection chances, primarily through social media and official public statements and media.”
Throughout his speech, Trump couched his claims of widespread Chinese influence and interference activities as “attempts” that China was “working on,” or influence that China “sought,” because even he knows his allegations are not borne out by the evidence.
The documents he declassified don’t show some conspiracy by the intelligence community to hide information from the president. They show intelligence professionals doing their jobs: assessing sources, debating the reliability of reports and making judgment calls about when it is necessary to publicly sound an alarm. Disagreement is not a sign of a cover-up, as the president alleged, but a hallmark of intelligence professionals doing their jobs. Disclosing every detected foreign influence campaign, no matter how minor, would risk seriously undermining the American people’s confidence in our elections — exactly as the president did this week.
Second, regarding Chinese accession of voter information, Americans should know that basic voter rolls are public information, and detailed voter files — along with lots of other personal details — can be purchased online for a fee. It’s not shocking that our adversaries are weaponizing the United States’ lack of individual privacy protections and a lucrative market for data brokers to compile detailed pictures of American voters.
Trump and his acolytes believe any election he and his allies win is free and fair, while those they lose are fraudulent and corrupt.
This information might be used to inform Chinese policy or target Americans with propaganda, but it doesn’t mean that Beijing ever had access to voting machines or internal vote tabulation systems, or successfully interfered in the outcome of U.S. elections. Even the documents Trump released confirm that it did not.
Third, the intelligence community is constantly probing the security of U.S. voting systems and cataloging attempted breaches by our adversaries. All digital systems contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by bad actors, and the documents Trump declassified show efforts to keep abreast of those vulnerabilities and to work with state and local election administrators and cybersecurity experts on addressing them. Ironically, though Trump claimed that the United States “deserve[s] the most secure, honest and fair election system anywhere in the world,” he fired most of the people keeping it that way and disbanded the teams they worked on. Our defenses are down, and our adversaries — including China — are celebrating.
Finally, voters should remember who was president in 2020: Trump. If he had serious concerns about Chinese election interference and influence during his first term, he made no moves to raise them. That would be a dereliction of his duty to keep our nation secure. But the past six years have taught us that neither this president nor his allies are seriously concerned with the security of elections — they are concerned only with the outcome. Trump and his acolytes believe any election he and his allies win is free and fair, while those they lose are fraudulent and corrupt.
While Trump’s speech was embarrassing, it nevertheless must be taken seriously as preparation for a new election interference campaign. The White House and Republican operatives continue to float ideas like invoking emergency powers to seize control of election administration from the states, which is unconstitutional, or sending law enforcement to the polls, which is illegal. All the while, they denigrate our intelligence professionals and undermine trust in the democratic process.
As the midterms approach, it’s critical that the American people stay vigilant and recognize Trump’s speech, and any actions that follow, for what they are: a cynical ploy to weaponize a serious national security threat as a pretext to deprive us of our rights.
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