Fact-Checking Trump’s Address on Chinese Election Interference

Much of President Donald Trump’s address to the nation about Chinese election interference cited newly declassified documents, but at several points he made claims on matters already known before the release of the new material.

Contrary to speculation ahead of the speech, Trump did not outright assert that Chinese interference in the 2020 election determined the outcome in favor of Joe Biden. Rather, at several times in his address, Trump focused on what the Chinese government was capable of or had attempted to do in its effort to influence U.S. elections.

1. ‘Chinese Government Wanted the U.S. President to Lose’

Trump said, “The Chinese government wanted the U.S. president to lose the next election,” referring to the 2020 election.

A 2020 U.S. intelligence report appears to support that claim.

“We assess that China prefers that President Trump – whom Beijing sees as unpredictable – does not win reelection,” an August 2020 report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said. “China has been expanding its influence efforts ahead of November 2020 to shape the policy environment in the United States, pressure political figures it views as opposed to China’s interests, and deflect and counter criticism of China.”

2. ‘Fought Like Hell’

What China wanted to accomplish and what China actually accomplished in previous elections might still be in dispute.

Trump said that documents show China meddled in the 2018 midterm elections and then, in 2019, turned its attention to the 2020 election.

Trump said, “Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China’s activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden.”

Trump also said, “They did not want — and they just didn’t want it. They fought like hell not to have it, Donald Trump to win, and for good reason.”

This would seem to contradict a March 2021 joint report of the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security, released during the early months of the Biden administration. According to the report, China considered trying to influence the presidential election but did not deploy an operation comparable to Russia’s meddling in 2016. It concluded that no evidence supported the claim that a foreign government manipulated any election results.

However, Trump asserted several times that documents show entrenched federal employees, or the “deep state,” willingly suppressed information about Chinese election meddling from being presented to the president, Congress, and the public.

3. ‘220 Million U.S. Voter Files’

Trump asserted, “The People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files.” He cited newly declassified documents for his claim. 

The number would encompass almost all registered voters in the United States. In 2024, there were 234.5 million individuals registered to vote across the U.S., according to the Election Assistance Commission.

He added, “That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities, which is exactly what was happening.”

Some state voter information is readily accessible, while other information requires special access. Various states have different rules about who can access voter registration data, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some states only make it available to campaigns or researchers for a fee. Voter names are generally widely available. Public information is frequently used by political campaigns, and while clearly vulnerable to foreign access, that is not an entirely new development.

4. ‘Revocation of Their Licenses’

Trump noted that the broadcast networks ABC and NBC declined to cover the primetime address and said that “fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses.”

“They use our public multi-billion dollar-in-value airways for absolutely no money. They pay nothing,” Trump said.

“In a rare move, NBC and ABC fake news have both said that they would not cover this speech. They knew what it was about because of the fact that they don’t like the topic, because they know how corrupt our system is, and they don’t want to reveal it.”

NBC and ABC are networks of local affiliate TV stations that carry their programming. Therefore, the networks themselves do not hold broadcast licenses with the Federal Communications Commission.

Importantly, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in the cases of Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969) and CBS v. FCC (1981) that there is not a First Amendment right to scarce public airwaves, recognizing the FCC’s authority to regulate broadcasters.

However, even revoking the licenses of affiliate stations would involve a lengthy legal process with the FCC.