Trump gives primetime speech on elections as White House alleges Chinese access to voter data

By Caitlin Yilek, Joe Walsh

Updated on: July 16, 2026 / 10:31 PM EDT / CBS News

What to know about Trump's speech:

• President Trump delivered a White House address focused on election security, as he continues to insist — falsely — that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
• In conjunction with the speech, the White House is releasing a trove of newly declassified documents.
• Parts of his speech touched on allegations that China accessed U.S. voter data and tried to influence the 2020 election. Claims that China sought to influence the election have long been a subject of debate, but U.S. intelligence agencies have said no foreign powers — including China — tried to interfere with ballots or vote-counting.
• The speech comes as Mr. Trump presses Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other changes.

2m ago

Fact Check: Trump's claims about noncitizens and dead people on voter rolls

By Caitlin Yilek, Ibrahim Aksoy

Claim by President Trump: "Hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls."

Rating: Exaggerated
Details: Election experts say votes cast on behalf of "dead people" are extremely rare, and the numbers are unlikely to affect the outcome of an election.

For example, The North Carolina State Board of Elections announced in April that it had identified "34,000 deceased individuals" on the state's voter rolls. However, the Board stated that the identification of those individuals on the state's voter rolls "does not necessarily indicate that illegal votes were cast in their names."

Non-citizen voting in U.S. elections is also exceedingly rare. The Center for Election Innovation & Research concluded that non-citizens voting in U.S. elections "arise from misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, or outright fabrications," and once an investigation by an individual state's secretary of state is concluded, "the number of alleged instances falls drastically."

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate revealed in March 2025 that the state had estimated 2,186 non-citizens registered to vote. But after a state-wide audit, the number dropped to "277 confirmed non-citizens." Of those, only 35 voted in the 2024 election.

Mr. Trump said Thursday a Department of Homeland Security review of state voter rolls and public records determined that approximately 278,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in federal elections.

Center for Election Innovation & Research Executive Director David Becker said: "We should take that with a great big grain of salt because the administration has not shown its work with regard to these at all."

"That's based on using commercial data that cannot be used. It's going to create a ton of false positives. I guarantee you, that data includes a ton of people, maybe even a majority of people, who are absolutely eligible voters, and states would probably be breaking the law if they remove those voters from the rolls," Becker said.



32m ago

Sen. Mark Warner says Trump's claims on voter files "not some great breakthrough"

By Caitlin Yilek
"The idea that somehow these countries are gathering voter files, these are publicly available. You don't have to hack into them. You can buy them," he said in an interview with CBS News, adding that other countries and "virtually every American company" buys voter files.

Warner also questioned why Mr. Trump did not mention Russia or Iran during his 25-minute speech. Both countries have engaged in similar efforts, with Russia seeking to promote the Trump campaign and Iran trying to denigrate the Trump campaign in 2020.



46m ago

Fact Check: Trump claims voting system falls "catastrophically short"

By Layla Ferris
Claim by President Trump: "Every American deserves to know that when they cast their vote, that vote will be counted accurately in a system, and that is to make that system secure. One where cheating and interference are not just difficult, but virtually impossible. Unfortunately, the system we have today falls catastrophically short of that standard."
Rating: False
Details: Officials from both parties have repeatedly said election infrastructure remains secure.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said there was "no evidence of any malicious activity" affecting the integrity of the 2024 elections. CISA also said the 2020 election was "the most secure in American history," with no evidence that voting systems deleted, lost or compromised votes.

Georgia and Pennsylvania conducted audits of the 2024 general election and officials in both states confirmed the accuracy of election results.



53m ago

Trump: "Congress must pass the SAVE America Act"

By Caitlin Yilek
Raising his voice, Mr. Trump declared at one point in his speech: "Congress must pass the SAVE America Act."

"This landmark bill requires that all voters must show photo voter ID," he said. "All voters must provide proof of citizenship."

The president has pushed Congress for months to pass the controversial voting regulations bill that would implement strict new requirements for registering to vote and casting ballots, which critics have warned would disenfranchise millions of eligible voters.

The SAVE America Act would require voters to show proof in-person of U.S. citizenship, like a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote in federal elections. The measure also has a requirement that voters show a photo ID to cast a ballot. The photo ID must also contain proof of citizenship, according to the measure.

The House has passed various versions of the legislation and has vowed to attach it to other must-pass measures before sending them to the Senate. However, the voting regulations bill lacks even a simple majority of support in the Senate.

But Mr. Trump also wants the measure to go further and include a ban on mail-in voting, except in certain circumstances like illness, disability, military deployment or travel, along with restrictions on transgender athletes participating in women's sports.

In his speech, Mr. Trump urged Americans to call their members of Congress and "demand that they pass the SAVE America Act without delay."

"These reforms are urgently needed to stop the vulnerabilities that I've mentioned," he said.



9:39 PM

Trump says his administration is notifying states about "compromised" election data

By Caitlin Yilek

Mr. Trump said his administration was working to mitigate the fallout of China's alleged access to voter data — much of which is publicly available — and is in "the process of informing governors, senators and members of Congress of potential issues in their states."

"My administration is in the process of notifying the states whose election data was compromised by the People's Republic of China and many others," Mr. Trump said, adding that they are "taking swift action to ensure that sensitive voter data is better protected."

The president also said Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin is set to hold a briefing Friday to outline the department's work looking into cyber vulnerabilities in electronic voting systems.

"We're also committing to be working with those states and local jurisdictions to help them fix and patch known technical vulnerabilities before the midterm elections," he said. "I've also ordered DHS to notify every state about noncitizens on their voter rolls and direct them to remove all ineligible voters from the lists immediately."



9:36 PM

Elections expert on Chinese access to voter data: "Voter files in the United States are public"

By Joe Walsh

After President Trump alleged China has accessed hundreds of millions of voter registration files, Center for Election Innovation & Research Executive Director David Becker noted that the data is publicly available — and there isn't much that China can do with it to meddle in an election.

"It sounds bad when you hear about it," said Becker, who is also a CBS News election law contributor. "The reality is: voter files in the United States are public."

Some states — including Ohio and North Carolina — post the data online for free, Becker noted, and the state of California allows people to obtain it for $100. The data is widely used by political parties and campaigns for voter outreach and other purposes, and Becker says many election experts assumed that foreign states might have access, too.

Also: "There's nothing that anyone can actually do with that information," Becker added, noting that China would not be able to change voter registration data or vote on people's behalf.

"I might have the entire class list for a college or university, but that doesn't mean I can go in and change the grades," he said. "That's what's happening here."



9:27 PM

Trump calls Chinese collection of U.S. voter data "an unprecedented election security nightmare"

By Caitlin Yilek
Beginning in 2020, 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," Mr. Trump alleged, citing newly declassified documents.

He said the information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences and other "sensitive" data needed to register to vote. He called it "an unprecedented election security nightmare."

Mr. Trump said "those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information secret and hidden," adding that it was not disclosed to him or "anyone else," including Congress.

The president did not specify how China gained access to the data, but voter registration data is often publicly available. For example, North Carolina makes it available on its website. Access to that data does not necessarily allow a user to interfere with the results of an election.

Also, at least two declassified intelligence assessments that were compiled during Mr. Trump's first term show that the federal government was aware of China's efforts to gather information about U.S. voters.

According to a declassified intelligence community assessment, that was provided to the president, senior Executive Branch officials and members of Congress on Jan. 7, 2021, Beijing "probably also continued longstanding efforts to gather information on US voters and public opinion; political parties, candidates and their staffs; and senior government officials." The document also said China "probably sought to use this information to predict electoral outcomes and to inform its efforts to influence US policy toward China under either election outcome, as it has during all election cycles since at least 2008 and considers an acceptable tool of statecraft."

Another assessment from April 7, 2020, said that Chinese intelligence officials had analyzed bulk election voter registration data from multiple U.S. states, apparently to support public opinion analysis related to the 2020 general election. That assessment was declassified in 2022 but remains heavily redacted.