![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/President-Donald-Trump.jpg\" "\\"President")
\nUS President Donald Trump speaks about election security during an address to the nation from the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on July 16, 2026. (Photo \/ Reuters)<\/p>\n
\nUS President Donald Trump speaks about election security during an address to the nation from the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on July 16, 2026. (Photo \/ Reuters)<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n \t<\/a> \t<\/a> \t<\/a> \t<\/a> \t<\/a> \t<\/a> <\/a> \t\t\t \t<\/a><\/p>\n Republicans facing difficult political environment as midterms approach<\/p>\n WASHINGTON, D.C. (TIP): US President Donald Trump declassified intelligence on Thursday, July 16, that he said showed Chinese interference in US elections, reviving his long-running attacks on election security despite a US intelligence assessment that found no evidence Beijing affected the 2020 vote that he lost, says a Reuters report.<\/p>\n The 25-minute prime-time address underscored Trump\u2019s effort to make election security a central political issue ahead of November\u2019s midterm elections, when his fellow Republicans will be defending their slender congressional majorities.<\/p>\n Trump used his remarks to again press Republicans in Congress to pass legislation imposing new voter identification and citizenship requirements, despite longstanding findings that voter fraud in US elections is rare. The bill has stalled in the Senate amid fierce Democratic opposition.<\/p>\n Trump said the declassified documents would reveal \u201cshocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure.\u201d But many appeared to show the opposite, or were not related to US election infrastructure at all.<\/p>\n The speech came at a challenging political moment for Trump and Republicans, with his approval rating weighed down by the unpopular Iran war and high energy prices. Trump only briefly mentioned the war at the outset, saying the US was \u201cwinning big,\u201d while listing a series of domestic accomplishments, including tax cuts and his immigration crackdown, before turning to election security.<\/p>\n The President said he was declassifying sensitive information that showed China had illicitly acquired 220 million US voter files, including names, addresses and other data used to register to vote.<\/p>\n He asserted that members of the US intelligence community deliberately suppressed information about the extent of China\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n His allegations contradict an unclassified 2021 US intelligence community assessment that found no indications any foreign actor attempted to alter or succeeded in altering \u201cany technical aspect\u201d of the 2020 presidential election vote, including voter registrations, ballots, tabulations, or results. That assessment was conducted under John Ratcliffe, then Trump\u2019s director of national intelligence and now his CIA director.<\/p>\n The report also found China had pursued an effort dating to at least 2008 to collect information on US voters, public opinion, political parties, candidates, and top government officials, likely aiming to use the material to predict election results.<\/p>\n Two people familiar with the matter said that US voter data obtained by China was not confidential \u2013 voter files are routinely purchased by political consultants \u2013 and could not be manipulated.<\/p>\n Ahead of Trump\u2019s speech, some White House officials expressed concern that disclosing the China information could be misleading, sources told Reuters.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s harsh language about China risked rocking a relationship that has steadied following last year\u2019s costly trade war. Trump hopes to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in September about improving trade relations.<\/p>\n Before Trump began speaking, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy, Liu Chang, said in response to a request for comment, \u201cChina has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the US.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has spent years raising doubts about electoral outcomes, falsely asserting that his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged. He has also advanced other false claims, including that mail-in balloting is rife with fraud, voting machines are vulnerable and non-citizen voting is widespread.<\/p>\n Numerous courts and vote recounts found no evidence of large-scale fraud in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n Trump said the documents would reveal serious weaknesses in election security. But many either appeared to be inconsistent with that assertion or were unrelated to US election infrastructure:<\/p>\n One CIA document, prepared last month, concerned Venezuela\u2019s election, not America\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cWe assess that vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to compromise election results,\u201d another document said.<\/p>\n A third document, produced by the CIA, detailed efforts by Chinese spies to target Biden\u2019s campaign and noted that Beijing \u201cdoes not currently intend to covertly interfere to try to sway the outcome of the election,\u201d although it said China might later decide to do so.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump\u2019s shocking \u2018bombshells\u2019 about China are totally bogus,\u201d Democratic Senator Mark Warner, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement during the speech.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact is our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that China did not even try to change a single vote in the 2020 election.\u201d<\/p>\n While Trump cast US elections as highly vulnerable, he did not provide evidence of any actual votes in 2020 that were altered or manipulated.<\/p>\n Two of the three major US television networks and CNN decided not to broadcast the prime-time address on their primary platforms, eschewing a practice typically reserved for major addresses on issues of national import.<\/p>\n Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has sought to expand federal power over the administration of elections, which legally resides with state governments under the US Constitution.<\/p>\n Trump used his speech to again call on congressional Republicans to advance a bill, the SAVE America Act, that would require photo ID to vote and proof of US citizenship to register and would significantly curtail mail-in voting.<\/p>\n Democrats and voting-rights advocates say the legislation is intended to suppress legitimate votes.<\/p>\n The Bill has passed the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives several times with a simple majority, but it does not have the 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster in the Senate.<\/p>\n Some Republican leaders have urged Trump to focus on issues that matter most to Americans, including high living costs, rather than focus on the 2020 vote.<\/p>\n Democrats need to flip only three Republican seats to take a majority in the 435-seat US House of Representatives. They face an uphill battle to win a majority in the 100-seat Senate with critical races unfolding in Republican-leaning states. Opinion polls show majorities of US voters opposed to the Iran war and unhappy with Trump\u2019s stewardship of the economy. \t<\/p>\n \t<\/a> \t<\/a> \t<\/a> \t<\/a> \t<\/a> \t<\/a> <\/a> \t\t\t \t<\/a><\/p>\n \t
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(Source: Reuters)<\/p>\n
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