5 highlights from Trump's address to the nation: China threat to elections, voter fraud

3. Trump alleges that the intelligence community worked to suppress concerns about election infrastructure 

Trump discussed the contents of "the third set of documents we are releasing," which he said demonstrate "that for many years, Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot counting systems." He described U.S. election infrastructure as "vulnerable" and "easily compromised," saying "people within our government knew that" but withheld the information from the public.

The newly released documents, Trump said, contain "previously classified U.S. intelligence community assessments and other reports proving that our government has long known these machines are extremely exposed to attack." He cited one assessment's finding that "the United States adversaries, including at a minimum Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, as well as non-state groups, have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure."

Trump identified voter registration databases and official election websites as "most vulnerable to exploitation," warning that adversaries "could use this access to these systems to disrupt election processes within the United States of America." He said the documents released span from January 2020 to June 2026.

"This is a cyberthreat aimed at the very heart of our democracy. Many people have questioned whether it could actually be possible to electronically manipulate vote totals or change election results on these terrible machines," Trump said. He cited events in Venezuela as evidence that such manipulation is possible: "Today, we are releasing documents that show the CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot to do a big number in favor of the corrupt Maduro regime in Venezuela, and that's exactly what happened."

Trump did not present evidence in the speech that the alleged plot was actually carried out.  The Venezuela-related intelligence Trump referenced reportedly concerns Smartmatic, a voting-technology company whose systems are used in Los Angeles County.