In a primetime address Thursday night, President Donald Trump accused China of carrying out what he called the largest compromise of American election data in history.
As reported on Friday’s AM Update, the president focused on what he described as serious vulnerabilities across the nation’s election systems in the 30-minute speech from the White House, outlining several areas he argues leave U.S. elections exposed to foreign interference and illegal voting.
Trump announced his administration would be releasing previously classified intelligence collected by the new White House Government Transparency Task Force. “This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes, and really exposes like levels never thought possible to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference,” he explained.
But there is some portion of the American electorate who may have been left unable to see the speech in its entirety because several broadcast and cable networks chose not to air the remarks live.
Foreign Interference
The president organized the newly released intel into what he called “five major areas of concern,” beginning with an alleged Chinese breach involving the personal information of hundreds of millions of voters.
“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 220 million U.S. voter files,” Trump alleged. “That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities, which is exactly what was happening. This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare.”
According to President Trump, his administration is in the process of notifying states where election data was compromised of the breach and will be “working closely to mitigate any harm” and “taking swift action to ensure that sensitive voter data is better protected.”
He went on to accuse China of attempting to sway the 2020 election by manufacturing illegal ballots for his opponent Joe Biden, while also alleging intelligence officials suppressed reports about Beijing’s activities and withheld them from his presidential briefings.
Problematic Voter Rolls
Meanwhile, the president said a Department of Homeland Security review offers further evidence that weaknesses in the voting process extend beyond foreign interference. “State voter rolls, and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections,” he said, noting that data does not include reporting from “Democrat states [that] refuse to share their voter files.”
“The real number is actually much higher than that,” Trump said. “Yet, even this limited analysis found more than a quarter of a million foreigners illegally registered to vote. Put together, these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible.”
President Trump used the speech to once again advocate for the passage of the SAVE America Act in Congress. The bill – which has passed the House twice along party lines but stalled in the Senate where 60 votes are needed – would require individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote and show photo identification to vote in federal elections. It would also end mail-in voting, except in instances of illness, disability, travel, and military service.
“The only reason you wouldn’t do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad and your candidates are so pathetic that you can’t get away or can’t get elected any other way, this landmark bill requires that all voters must show photo voter ID,” Trump said. “These reforms are urgently needed to stop the vulnerabilities that I’ve mentioned. To all Americans, I ask you to pick up your phone tomorrow, call your representatives in the House and Senate, and demand that they pass the SAVE America Act without delay.”
MIA Media Coverage
Notably, major news organizations chose not to carry the president’s remarks live on their broadcast channels. CBS News pre-empted regular programming with a special report anchored by Tony Dokoupil and joined the speech live a few minutes after it began. It also cut out before it ended. But that was more than could be said for ABC News and NBC News, as both networks relegated the speech to their streaming channels.
On the cable news side, Fox News aired the address in its entirety, while MS NOW started airing the speech before going back to Jen Psaki’s regularly scheduled program about halfway through.
CNN, on the other hand, said it was treating the primetime remarks “as a news event” and would be monitoring them for developments. Anchor Kaitlan Collins ended up saying the quiet part out loud, however, when she alerted her viewers that CNN was not offering live coverage because of Trump’s “well-documented history” of false statements.
On Friday’s edition of The Megyn Kelly Show, Megyn slammed the media’s handling of the event. “CBS cut away, and CNN said they weren’t going to air it until they had the ability to fact check it. This babysitting of the commander in chief is so galling. Be a grown up,” she said.
“If you have fact checks that you want to do, you do them afterward. That is how presidential fact checks have always worked in journalism,” she continued. “But they treat President Trump like he’s a toddler… and all of us like we’re toddlers… We have to be shielded from the words coming out of the president’s mouth, notwithstanding the fact that the majority of this country elected this man to be our president and to speak to us directly from time to time. It is galling.”
While the president’s critics tried to paint the speech as the musings of an election denier who was rehashing old information, Megyn said that was not the case. “[They say] all this is just Trump being his paranoid self about the 2020 election without actually examining the claims – the extraordinary claims – that he is making… I, for one, think we should care… I don’t care what the foreign country is, you know, friend or foe. We need to, at a minimum, shine some sunlight on it,” she concluded.
You can get all the day’s headlines by tuning into the AM Update with Megyn Kelly on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch AM Update on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111).