From the White House's East Room – where Barack Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 – Donald Trump delivered a 26-minute primetime address on Thursday, reviving familiar claims of foreign election meddling and accusing China of a “sinister” plot to sway the 2020 vote in Joe Biden’s favour.
Standing before members of his top team, the president said he had declassified hundreds of intelligence files that would reveal “shocking vulnerabilities” in US voting systems. But BBC Verify, which reviewed the documents, found no bombshell revelations and no evidence that interference or fraud changed the outcome of any previous election, including the 2020 contest Trump lost.
“Trump's declassified files show no evidence China interfered in 2020 election, contradicting his claims.”
Trump alleged that China carried out “the largest compromise of election data in history”, illicitly acquiring 220 million US voter files. He claimed that voter data in 18 states had been “bought, stolen or hacked by China”. The White House later published four sets of documents, including a statement by the “Government Transparency Task Force” dated 13 July 2026, which said voter registration rolls from at least 18 states had been compromised by China.
Yet many of the files were heavily redacted. What the documents do support is that China took steps to acquire voter data – some of which is already public or available for purchase – and explored ways to influence public opinion. That falls well short of the kind of election tampering Trump implied, and is smaller in scale than Russian actions in 2016, which received only a single mention from the president.
A previously released 2021 report by the US National Intelligence Council found with “high confidence” that China did not interfere in the 2020 election. Trump’s speech contradicted that assessment. In response, China’s foreign ministry strongly denied the allegations, calling them “entirely fabricated”. Spokesman Lin Jian said the claims were “malicious smears” that had “long been proven to be groundless”.
Democrats accused Trump of sowing doubts ahead of November’s midterms, which will decide control of Congress. Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer posted: “Let’s be clear – in America, voters choose their leaders, not the other way around.” Democratic governors signed a joint letter describing Trump’s claims as “deeply alarming”.
Trump did not present evidence that China used the data to alter voting systems or influence outcomes. Journalists were not allowed to put questions to the president after his address. The BBC is continuing to review the hundreds of pages of intelligence documents.