‘Election security nightmare’: Trump addresses nation on Chinese meddling, election fraud as he urges Congress to pass SAVE America Act 

President Donald Trump used a primetime address Thursday to declassify intelligence documents he said reveal sweeping vulnerabilities in U.S. election systems, including the alleged illicit Chinese acquisition of millions of voter files and at least 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote.

Trump used the speech to press Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and has become a top priority for the president.

“No country could be great without fair and honest elections. You have to trust your country because if there can be no trust, there can be no greatness,” he said. “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.”

Trump said the current system falls “catastrophically short.”

The president declassified intelligence documents he said had been gathered by the White House and intelligence community leadership and are now publicly available.

The documents “show that over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, 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 250 million U.S. voter files,” Trump said. “This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare.”

Trump said other documents show the “deep state” downplayed and covered up China’s alleged election interference and that the government has long known voting machines are “extremely exposed to attack.”

Citing one assessment, he said U.S. adversaries, including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, “have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure.”

Noncitizen voting 

Trump also released the results of a Department of Homeland Security investigation that he said found 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections.

“Put together, these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it,” he said. “Hundreds of millions of U.S. voter files are in the hands of foreign governments. Our machines and ballot counting systems are exposed to hacking, manipulation and corruption. China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections. Evidence of fraud has been buried. Hundreds of thousands of noncitizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls, and yet we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail.”

Despite the primetime address, ABC and NBC declined to air Trump’s remarks on their broadcast networks, prompting Trump to call for the revocation of their broadcast licenses and suggest the media is “part of a plot” to continue election fraud. Heartlander News reached out to ABC and NBC for comment.

Democrats, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, quickly dismissed Trump’s remarks as “lies and conspiracy theories,” while his allies on Capitol Hill praised the address.

“At least 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in American elections,” Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, wrote on X. “And that’s exactly what the Democrat Party wants.”