President Donald Trump delivered a scathing report Thursday night, announcing the release of documents he said show Chinese hackers gained access to American voter information during the 2020 election, bolstering his push for stricter election security and voter verification measures.
During his remarks, the president touted nationwide declines in crime, the economy, border security and a thriving military. But the star of his speech was the previously classified documents gathered by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, which he said showed China gained data on 220 million American voters and worked to influence the results of past elections, including 2020.
“America is back and doing really well, but we still have a major challenge that must be urgently addressed,” Trump said. “Because no country can be great without fair and honest elections.”
Based on Department of Homeland Security investigations, Trump said the states from which voter information was leaked will be notified, and efforts to strengthen their election systems and prevent future breaches will begin immediately.
“This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare,” he said. “The intelligence even shows that China assigned a data exploitation unit specifically to this new project, compounding the travesty.”
The documents also show China attempted to influence the 2020 election to ensure he lost, Trump said. He claimed the Chinese government paid journalists to write negatively about him, sought to distribute ballots for Joe Biden, used social media to sway public opinion and carried out other influence operations.
“The reason they wanted me to lose is because they knew I was wise to them, charged them billions and billions of dollars worth of tariffs, and built the strongest military anywhere in the world,” Trump said.
Immediate Investigations and a Hunt for Answers
Additionally, he said China’s “meddling” was purposefully hidden from him and the American people. The president is now directing the National Intelligence Office, the Department of Justice, the FBI and the CIA to investigate this further.
Trump also noted the documents will highlight that voting machines remain vulnerable to interference from other foreign powers.
“As one assessment states, we judge that the United States adversaries, including at a minimum, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, as well as non-state groups, have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure,” he said.
He also pointed to specific instances of alleged voter fraud in Michigan and California, of which he claimed evidence was purposefully “buried.” Trump said he is also calling for further investigation into what he described as an “election vulnerability” in Democratic states.
“This intelligence underscores why we must take urgent action to ensure that our own system can never, ever be hacked or compromised like it was in the past,” Trump said.
What Now? Trump Says the SAVE America Act
The president stressed that he is not unveiling this information to undermine the public’s trust in the election system, but to “earn that confidence by confronting voters and correcting them.”
Congress has continued to take the heat from Trump’s repeated demands to pass the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act to prevent future election “corruption.”
Now, the president is also calling on every voter to take action.
“I ask you to pick up your phone tomorrow, call your representatives in the House and Senate, and demand that they pass the SAVE America Act without delay,” he said. “Together, we will restore faith and confidence in our country, and we will be bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”
