Fact-checking Trump's address on China, the 2020 election and what documents show

By — Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact By — Amy Sherman, PolitiFact Amy Sherman, PolitiFact Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-trumps-address-on-china-the-2020-election-and-what-documents-show Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Fact-checking Trump's address on China, the 2020 election and what documents show Politics Jul 17, 2026 4:20 PM EDT This article originally appeared on PolitiFact . President Donald Trump delivered a rare primetime address about an issue that has consumed him for years — the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden. In his nearly 30-minute speech, Trump argued that foreign countries — notably China — interfered in the 2020 election. In some cases, he said, the "deep state" had concealed damning information from him and "from you." POLITIFACT: Live fact-checking Trump's address from the White House Trump quoted years-old intelligence community documents, including some that had been declassified or partially redacted, without noting a distinction between what China may have planned versus what analysts say it did. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. "Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen, and the trust of the American people was lost," Trump said July 16, though he provided no evidence of affected votes or election outcomes. Trump closed by urging lawmakers to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require Americans to provide government-issued photo IDs to vote and documentary proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, to register. The legislation is stalled in the Senate amid criticism that it would disenfranchise many people or impose unnecessary time and monetary burdens on a constitutional right. WATCH: Mullin holds news conference on election security after Trump's address to the nation Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan organization with expertise on voting technology, said that there are several safeguards in place to protect U.S. elections, which includes preelection testing of equipment and chain of custody rules for ballots. Nearly every state has paper ballots that can be used to show evidence of voters' intent, Smith said, "and that is the most important safeguard of all." Trump's address sidestepped the many judicial decisions, intelligence community reports and expert opinions that indicated there was no direct foreign interference in the 2020 voting process. Trump criticized some networks, including NBC, ABC and CNN for not airing the speech live on their primary channel. But such a decision was not unprecedented; ABC, CBS and NBC ran game shows and reruns during a 2022 address by then-President Biden in which he accused Trump and Republicans of endangering American democracy. Here's a closer look at Trump's claims about China in