Trump says White House releasing documents that show voting system vulnerabilities
Trump accused China of compromising voter data from the 2020 election.
President Donald Trump said in a primetime address Thursday that the White House has released documents on its website that it claims are a series of previously classified U.S. intelligence community assessments and other reports that he said expose vulnerabilities in electronic voting.
The president also accused China of compromising voter data from the U.S. presidential election in 2020.Â
Trump has long pushed debunked conspiracy theories to claim that his 2020 election loss was fraudulent.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was tight-lipped about what the president would say in her daily briefing besides that he will discuss "protecting the integrity of our elections."
When asked by a reporter about concerns from some Republicans that the president was litigating past elections that could turn off some swing voters, Leavitt said that Trump would focus on secure elections as key to American democracy.Â
"I've seen a lot of reporting and, frankly, misreporting about what the president will say. I think the American people will be relieved to hear what they are hearing from the president of the United States and his commitment to transparency and the focus on the integrity of our elections tonight," she said.
"I think that everyone should tune in tonight, including the people in this room," Levitt said. And you should report on the president's speech and the findings that he is going to reveal in this speech with a little bit of honesty and a little bit of integrity, because it does, it will shock you if you have an honest eye listening to the president tonight and everything he is saying will be backed by, by, by facts and by evidence that will be provided this evening."
When later pressed by ABC News' Rachel Scott about the political concerns of some Republicans, Leavitt said only that people should wait until they've heard the speech.
Democrats launched a prebuttal of the speech on Thursday, with Sen. John Ossoff calling it "a prime-time presidential sour grapes address to pursue his six-year-old grievances about the 2020 election."
Despite Trump's claims of voter fraud that contributed to his 2020 election loss, officials have found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Asked about the speech, which he announced on his social media platform on Monday, Trump said it was "really big news," mentioning the importance of "free and fair elections."
"Thursday is, it doesn't get bigger because without free and fair elections, you don't have a country. We'll be discussing other things, too. But -- but it's going to be a very big announcement," Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
Trump recently installed loyalist Bill Pulte, who has no previous national security experience, to lead DNI and has said that he wanted Pulte to declassify information and fire scores of experienced career staff.
Under the first Trump administration, officials already detailed efforts by Iran, China and Russia to influence the 2020 election, though officials later determined that none of their interference would have changed the election result.
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