Updated July 17, 2026 at 10:55 AM EDT
President Trump, who for years has sown doubt about the security of American elections, raised claims on Thursday that the country's voting systems are vulnerable to being "rigged and stolen," without providing new evidence of a single fraudulent vote cast in any election.
In a 25-minute primetime address from the White House's East Room that included many baseless claims, Trump said he was declassifying intelligence documents that he said reveal "shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure." Those include allegations of Chinese efforts to influence American elections, concerns over voting machine security, and that noncitizens are found on certain states' voter rolls.
However, many of the documents the White House posted online during the speech did not appear to fully support sweeping claims the president made.
Trump said during the address that his goal was "not to weaken confidence in elections." However, he has long contended that he won the 2020 election — a lie that still comes up often in his speeches and social media posts. Numerous reviews have debunked his claims about that election.
"Tonight, Americans heard the president once again repeat claims about our elections that have been investigated for years and repeatedly rejected," Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. "The greatest danger to our elections right now is false narratives seized upon here...
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