Trump pushes debunked election lies, demands SAVE America Act in primetime speech

President Donald Trump used a primetime address Thursday to resurrect debunked claims about the 2020 election, allege sweeping foreign interference in voting and pressure Congress to pass the anti-voting SAVE America Act.

But despite years of claiming that the election was stolen, he presented no evidence that any entity, foreign or domestic, manipulated votes or registration records, or in any way altered the outcome of the 2020 election. In fact, he didn’t even assert it.

In a disjointed speech, Trump claimed China obtained 220 million U.S. voter files and accused intelligence officials — whom he termed the “Deep State” — of concealing election threats. And he suggested electronic voting systems had previously been compromised. 

Trump also announced that his administration would declassify intelligence documents supposedly backing his claims.

In fact, the U.S. intelligence community previously concluded that no foreign actor attempted to alter voter registration, ballot casting, vote tabulation or the reporting of results in 2020. Federal agencies also rejected claims that Venezuela, China or other foreign governments controlled voting equipment or manipulated vote totals.

Trump nevertheless described the newly released material as “brand new and irrefutable information” and said his administration would notify states about alleged vulnerabilities before the midterms.

Then he pivoted to pushing SAVE, his pet legislative project that election experts call “the most restrictive voting bill ever.” 

“Addressing this crisis of election security demands that Congress must pass the SAVE America Act,” Trump said. “The only reason you wouldn’t do it is if you want to cheat.”

The massive anti-voting bill, which has stalled in the Senate, would require voters to show photo identification and provide documentary proof of citizenship. Trump also demanded an effective end to mail voting, falsely calling the practice “inherently corrupt.”

In pushing SAVE, Trump has regularly claimed — falsely — that illegal voting by noncitizens is widespread in U.S. elections.

During his speech Thursday, the president went further, saying that an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had identified 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections.

He then directed DHS to notify states about these supposed noncitizens on the voter rolls and order their removal. 

Trump also called for federal investigations, firings and possible criminal charges against officials he accused of suppressing intelligence.

“Today, I’m asking the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, the FBI and the CIA to investigate how and why such crucial information was hidden,” Trump said. “To investigate how and why information about China’s election meddling and related security breaches was suppressed, and to fire those responsible for the cover-up.”

Despite Trump’s claims, even John Solomon — a conservative columnist and conspiracy theorist who recently took up a temporary White House post probing classified information on elections — had to admit the files didn’t indicate a foreign government changed Americans’ votes.

“I only know the intelligence community has zero evidence that a foreign power flipped a vote in 2020, 2022 or 2024,” he told MS NOW’s Vaughn Hillyard. 

Asked whether the 2020 election results were accurate, Solomon said: “I’m still researching.”

Voting advocates, Democrats pan speech

Democratic lawmakers, election experts and pro-voting advocates were unimpressed by Trump’s conspiracy-addled oratory.

Election law expert Rick Hasen called the speech “underwhelming” and said Trump’s supposed “bombshells” failed to establish the one thing that would matter: that any illegal vote was cast or any election system was compromised.

“What Trump did NOT do was even purport to show a single ineligible voter voted in the 2020 election, or that any voting machines were actually compromised, voting machines or voter registration databases breached, or election results inaccurately reported,” Hasen said. “Overall, this was an underwhelming announcement delivered with low energy that changes nothing about how state and local election administrators should run elections.”

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said Trump was using the same old lies about the 2020 election to justify interfering in future elections.

“Tonight, Americans watched Donald Trump air old grievances and desperately try to justify his assault on free and fair elections with lies about the 2020 election he lost,” he said. “Trump and Republicans continue to lay the groundwork for interfering with the midterm elections in an attempt to cling to power. There’s one simple reason for this brazen power grab: Republicans know they’re going to lose the midterms.”

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, rejected Trump’s claims shortly after the speech.

“Trump’s shocking ‘bombshells’ about China are totally bogus,” Warner wrote. “The fact is our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that China did not even try to change a single vote in the 2020 election.”

NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the address authoritarian and noted that the president does not control state-run elections.

“There’s no evidence that calls into question the results of the 2020 election,” Johnson said. “The President of the United States has no authority over our elections.”

Democratic Association of Secretaries of State Chair and Nevada’s top election official Cisco Aguilar offered a more succinct assessment of Trump’s address. 

“That was some bullshit,” he said.

Declassified files tell different story

Journalists and experts who began reviewing the newly released documents noticed that some of the records appeared to contradict Trump’s central claims that China sought to interfere in the 2020 election against him.

Journalist Sam Stein noted that one intelligence assessment stated Chinese cyber actors targeted Joe Biden’s campaign for intelligence gathering, but also concluded that China “does not currently intend to covertly interfere to try and sway the outcome of the election.” 

Will Sommers also pointed to another declassified document showing that Russia — not China — was the only country assessed to have taken steps targeting the U.S. election process in 2020.

“Russia was the only country trying to meddle in American voting systems,” the document concluded.

Garrett Archer, a former senior elections analyst at the Arizona secretary of state’s office, likewise said the records did not support Trump’s assertion that China hacked election infrastructure.

“And so far the documents confirm it was only publicly available data,” Archer wrote. “China did not hack a live state or county [voter registration database].”

Instead, Chinese actors downloaded historical voter registration information that “is publicly available for download from commercial websites,” according to one of the files.

Meanwhile, CNN’s Zachary Cohen noted that the documents largely recycled information that has been known for years or was already reflected in the intelligence community’s 2021 assessment.

“The documents Trump is referring to right now, and CNN has reviewed all of them, largely discuss vulnerabilities that have been known for years and/or are reflected in the 2021 US intel community assessment,” he wrote. “None of the declassified information supports the claim that any previous election results — including the 2020 presidential contest that Trump lost — were manipulated by foreign interference or fraud in a way that would’ve changed the outcome.”

Matthew Kupfer contributed to this reporting.

This breaking news story has been updated with additional details throughout.