Donald Trump updates: US president accuses China of election interference

On Thursday, July 16, 2026, President Donald Trump delivered remarks accusing election misconduct.

The allegations come amid ongoing tensions between the U.S. and China, which has denied any role in election interference.

Published On 16 Jul 2026

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• 2h ago

   (03:40 GMT)

  Thank you for joining us

  This live page is now closed. We appreciate you following Al Jazeera for news and analysis about President Donald Trump and his campaign to reshape US elections.

  For more information about tonight’s speech, please check out our key takeaways.

  You can also follow along with Trump’s actions against Iran on our live page here.

  And check out our coverage of the 2026 midterm elections, as we get closer to the pivotal November 3 vote. See you again soon.

  

• 2h ago

   (03:35 GMT)

  Here’s what happened today

  This live page will be closing shortly. Here’s a recap of today’s events:

  • Trump delivered a speech questioning the integrity of the voting system in the US.
  • The US president said newly declassified documents showed that China accessed voter data, but a White House assessment indicated the information was publicly available.
  • A proponent of paper ballots, Trump claimed that electronic voting machines are vulnerable and can be easily compromised, a claim considered to be unsubstantiated.
  • He pledged to work with states to fix election issues and called for the passing of the SAVE America Act, which would create restrictions for many voters.
  • Democrats criticised Trump’s speech, accusing the president of re-litigating old, baseless grievances about the 2020 elections instead of focusing on issues that matter to voters.
  • California Governor Gavin Newsom suggested that US democracy is in danger because of Trump and called on people to continue to vote and organise.
  • China has denied seeking to interfere in the US elections, calling the issue an “internal matter” for the US.

  

• 2h ago

   (03:33 GMT)

  Cabinet members circle around Trump, while Democrats attack

  Administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, publicly backed the president's remarks.

  Rubio echoed Trump’s allegations on social media, writing: “Under [the president], the Trump Administration will rout out foreign interference in our elections and safeguard our democracy.”

  But a steady stream of criticism has come from Democratic officials, slamming Trump for reiterating false narratives and conspiracy theories about the “deep state” and a “shadow government”.

  Many described the speech as part of a strategy to undermine confidence in the 2026 midterm elections.

  “President Donald Trump continues to lie, distort the truth to try to sow doubt and suppress the 2026 election. He doesn’t want Americans to vote. He doesn’t want their voice to be heard,” Representative Jason Crow said in a video statement.

  “He wants people to stay home, because he knows that if people stand up, organise, exercise their right to vote, that they’re going to repudiate his failed policies and the corruption of this administration.”

  Donald Trump is lying.

  He is desperately trying to cling to power & distract from his failed presidency.

  He will not succeed. pic.twitter.com/VwQfBI6Xp1

  — Rep. Jason Crow (@RepJasonCrow) July 17, 2026

• 2h ago

   (03:25 GMT)

  China denies Trump accusations of election meddling

  Early in his half-hour speech, Trump accused China of undertaking “the largest compromise of election data in history”.

  A spokesperson for China’s Embassy refuted the claims, saying the country adheres to “the principle of non-interference in other’s internal affairs”.

  “The US election is an internal matter of the US. Its outcome is determined by the votes of the American people,” the statement said. “China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the US.”

• 2h ago

   (03:20 GMT)

  More election accusations likely to come

  In Thursday’s speech, Trump alluded to further manoeuvres from his administration in an attempt to justify his claims of election meddling.

  “ Tomorrow, the secretary of homeland security will hold a briefing to outline his department’s recent work confirming cyber-vulnerabilities in our electronic voting systems,” Trump said, teeing up an appearance from his recent cabinet appointee, Markwayne Mullin.

  Mullin recently took over as head of the Department of Homeland Security from Kristi Noem, after she was fired in March amid controversy over her spending and handling of immigration enforcement operations.

• 2h ago

   (03:15 GMT)

  Trump’s speech comes after visit with failed LA mayoral candidate

  In Thursday’s address, Trump once again zeroed in on California, a Democratic stronghold, to repeat baseless accusations of voter meddling.

  “As one example of the insanity, California’s recent election for mayor of LA and governor was held on June 2nd – long time ago, but it was just completed a few days ago on July 10th,” Trump said.

  “Took a month to count the votes. I wonder what they were doing. This is worse than any third-world country.”

  Trump’s remarks come after he hosted failed Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt at the White House last week.

  Pratt was a frontrunner in the June primary, but as mail-in ballots were counted, he fell behind two left-wing competitors and did not make the cut-off for the November midterms.

  After his White House visit, Pratt posted a photo of himself seated with Trump and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in the Oval Office. He captioned it: “I will never stop fighting for my community.”

  Trump has pointed to Pratt’s loss as a case of election malfeasance, though there is no evidence to justify that assertion.

  

• 2h ago

   (03:10 GMT)

  ‘A feeble, unhinged’ 80-year-old: Democrats react to Trump’s speech

  Democrats were quick to respond online with incredulity at Trump’s Thursday night speech.

  Senator Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the president’s remarks a “prelude to interfere in our midterms”. He also pointed out that Trump misleadingly portrayed accessing public voter information as nefarious.

  “It’s pretty laughable to watch Trump try and pretend accessing the voter file is the same thing as election interference,” Warner wrote on X.

  “ANY statewide candidate will tell you that information is publicly available to purchase – it’s not some huge breach.”

  House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries also took a swing at the president, writing on X that the speech showed him to be “a feeble, unhinged conspiracy-peddling 80-year old failed President”.

  Several critics called the speech a distraction from Trump’s economic platform and other unpopular policies. Senator Jamie Raskin, meanwhile, used a familiar Trump catchphrase to draw attention to the president’s record on climate change.

  “Trump just said America is the ‘hottest country in the world,'” Raskin said. “Well, thanks to his outrageous climate denialism and terrible environmental policies, it certainly feels like it.”

  Donald Trump is a feeble, unhinged conspiracy-peddling 80-year old failed President.

  The economy is a disaster under this guy and the American people know it.

  Pathetic.

  — Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) July 17, 2026

• 3h ago

   (03:00 GMT)

  

  Trump’s speech fails to make a splash

  Normally, a presidential address sparks an avalanche of statements either supporting or criticising its message, but relatively few US politicians have commented on Trump’s speech tonight.

  Some TV networks did not air the address on their main platforms. Even Fox News, a conservative outlet favoured by Trump, issued a disclaimer about the president’s claims that voting machines are easily compromised.

  “Fox News has not seen the evidence yet and is not in a position to evaluate the accuracy of the president’s statement and claims,” the network said.

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• 3h ago

   (02:50 GMT)

  Trump issues threats against voting groups, broadcasters

  Thursday night’s speech suggested that the Trump administration may take punitive action against certain targets, including broadcasters, a Michigan voting group, and officials under former President Barack Obama.

  Trump accused unnamed members of the government of perpetrating a cover-up, though he did not provide evidence to back up that assertion.

  “Today, I’m asking the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, the FBI and the CIA to investigate how and why such crucial information was hidden, to fire those involved in the cover-up, and to file criminal charges, if appropriate, against these people,” Trump said early in his address.

  He also returned to a familiar punching bag: network news. Several networks, including ABC and NBC, did not air his speech live, as the White House had requested.

  “They and others in the media are part of a plot. They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason. They want to keep it going,” Trump said.

  “You can’t have a great country without free and fair elections. Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licences.”

  Trump has made this threat multiple times, including amid a feud with late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel last September. But the First Amendment’s free speech protections have limited his ability to do so.

  Trump has also called on the Justice Department in the past to prosecute his critics, a move some say erodes the department’s tradition of independence. It is unclear whether the administration might do so again in this case.

  The Supreme Court, however, has granted Trump wide latitude to fire federal employees, a trend likely to continue after the president’s remarks on Thursday.

• 3h ago

   (02:40 GMT)

  

  ‘Massive shrug’: Thursday’s speech is ‘politics as usual’ for Trump

  By Einar Tangen

  Chairman of the Asia Narratives Substack

  This is old hat. I think if you started talking to people in China, there would be a massive shrug. This is just politics as usual for Donald Trump.

  He wants to motivate his base. Not clear how they’re going do anything, because it’s too late to change any election laws. But he wants to motivate them to put pressure on their congressional representatives and senators to pass this SAVE America Act.

  Now, why? He believes that curtailing women and younger voters could help him maintain control of the House and the Senate. So we’ll have to see how they react.

• 3h ago

   (02:30 GMT)

  California governor says democracy ‘is under threat’ after Trump speech

  Governor Gavin Newsom, whose state was called out by Trump for its slow counting of election results, has lashed out at the president following his speech.

  “Tonight, the country watched an old man ramble about an election he lost,” Newsom wrote in a social media post.

  “Democracy IS under threat. But the danger isn’t just from abroad. It’s from within. Don’t give in to cynicism. Don’t stay silent. And above all, don’t stop voting.”

  California has a large volume of mail-in ballots, with more than 80 percent of state voters using the method to participate in elections.

  As a result, it can take days or weeks to count and verify the millions of mailed ballots in the country’s most populous state.

• 3h ago

   (02:20 GMT)

  

  Trump appears to be seeking greater federal election control

  By Eric Ham

  Political analyst and author

  What we’re seeing tonight is not actually something new.

  This is something that the president has had an ambition of doing for quite some time, and I think what we saw tonight was another shot across the bow at trying to fundamentally change elections.

  We know states control elections in this country, not the federal government.

  President Donald Trump is going to continue this process of trying to reshape these elections to ultimately land them in the hands of the federal government, which he hopes can actually give him control over these elections.

• 3h ago

   (02:10 GMT)

  White House documents confirm China obtained publicly available voter data

  While Trump has presented China’s access to voter information as a grave security threat, calling it “illicit”, documents released by the White House say Beijing accessed publicly available data.

  “While the PRC [People’s Republic of China] government has historically demonstrated interest in US elections, this is a newly-identified interest for this individual actor,” a heavily redacted assessment said.

  “The US voter registration information is available for public download, with 2021 voter registration information available for some states.”

• 4h ago

   (02:00 GMT)

  How will Trump’s accusations affect China relations?

  In May, Trump travelled to Beijing to visit his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

  Xi, in turn, was expected to return the gesture and visit Washington, DC, this September.

  But it is unclear how Trump’s sweeping accusations on Thursday night will affect the upcoming diplomatic visit.

  Across both of his terms as president, Trump has engaged in a trade war against China, accusing the Asian superpower of unfair trade practices and stealing US intellectual property. He has slapped high tariffs on the country, only to relax them later.

  Al Jazeera correspondent Rosiland Jordan observed that Trump has alternated between warmly embracing Xi and harshly rejecting Xi’s government.

  “Earlier this year, he had spoken quite favourably of the Chinese president,” Jordan explained.

  “But Donald Trump, at the same time, has been very, very critical of the Chinese government, saying that the government is intent upon undermining the US economy, US political culture, US social values.”

• 4h ago

   (01:50 GMT)

  

  Trump and allies seek election appeal that ‘resonates with their political base’

  Reporting from Washington, DC

  So much of this has been debunked before.

  There’s been a lot of investigating that determined that it was Russia that actively meddled in the US electoral process, with social media that was misleading, trying to feed information to the mass media that would be picked up and possibly suppress the vote or persuade people to vote in ways they otherwise might not.

  There has already been pushback from congressional Democrats, even before the president’s address on Thursday evening, saying that, in their view, the president is trying to create mistrust in the electoral process among US voters.

  The SAVE America Act, which the president mentioned he would like to see turned into law – they argue that it would possibly disenfranchise as many as 68 million American women who changed their names when they married.

  This bill, if it became law, would require people to bring in original birth certificates and other documentation that is rather difficult to obtain in an age of computers and high mobility – people moving around the country.

  But certainly the president and his supporters believe that this is something that resonates with their political base.

• 4h ago

   (01:46 GMT)

  

  Trump’s speech provides no evidence of election fraud

  Even if the information that Trump provided about the election system proves to be true, it does not constitute evidence that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 vote.

  In Thursday’s address, Trump made a series of allegations, including that there was a data breach by China and vulnerabilities in the counting machines.

  The speech appeared aimed at raising doubt about the integrity of elections in the US to justify pushing for more restrictions on voting and undermining mail-in ballots.

  Trump may also use this renewed push around election fraud to apply political pressure on Democratic states and question the results of the midterm elections if his Republican Party loses control of Congress.

• 4h ago

   (01:34 GMT)

  

  Speech concludes as Trump attacks mail-in voting

  The president has once again attacked mail-in voting, calling it “inherently corrupt”.

  In many states, mail-in voting is the most common way of casting ballots, and there is no evidence that it allows fraud.

  Trump’s speech lasted less than half an hour, and it included many unsubstantiated claims.

• 4h ago

   (01:33 GMT)

  Trump claims FBI ‘cover-up’ of probe into alleged voter fraud

  Trump has again claimed a cover-up, this time accusing the Department of Justice of intentionally burying an FBI investigation into claims of 2020 election fraud in Michigan, a key swing state.

  Trump appeared to be referring to an incident that has already been investigated by the Michigan attorney general’s office. According to the publication Newsweek, police found that an individual connected to a private political consulting firm was in possession of suspicious voter registration forms.

  The attorney general’s office’s review of the incident found that the documents were likely meant to fabricate fulfilling work commitments and were not intended to be used to commit fraud.

  “A thorough investigation was conducted by multiple agencies within the state and no successful fraud was perpetrated upon the state’s election process or qualified voter file,” the review found, as reported by Newsweek.

• 4h ago

   (01:31 GMT)

  Trump calls for passing SAVE America Act

  The US president has called on lawmakers to pass the SAVE America Act, which would impose a series of restrictions and conditions on voting and make it harder to register to vote.

  “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,” he said.

  Critics have argued that the bill would disenfranchise low-income people and risk removing from voter rolls millions of women who took the last names of their husbands.

• 4h ago

   (01:27 GMT)

  

  Trump says he’s ‘committing to fix’ election system

  The US president says his administration will work with states and local jurisdictions to ensure the election system is secure.

  “We’re in the process of informing governors, senators and members of Congress of potential issues in their states,” Trump said. “If you look at voting today, it’s in such bad shape in so many states, and we are committing to fix it.”

These developments are unfolding as the 2026 midterm elections draw closer, with the November 3 vote shaping up as a critical test for Trump’s agenda. The president has also taken a hard line on Iran, as detailed in our separate live coverage. Voters and analysts alike will be watching how these foreign policy moves influence the election outcome.