Trump-China latest: Beijing responds to president’s unverified election interference and ‘deep state’ conspiracy claims

Donald Trump says U.S. networks not airing his speech should have licenses revokedChina has hit back at President Donald Trump after he accused it of carrying out “the largest compromise of election data in history” beginning with the 2020 U.S. presidential election, just one of numerous schemes he claims “deep state” actors within the American government concealed from him.Trump claimed in a primetime address Thursday evening that raw intelligence suggests Beijing may have sought to “manufacture illegal ballots,” adding that China also managed to acquire 220 million sensitive files about U.S. voters (such data is publicly available for purchase, however).The president also claimed that the rival superpower had sought to pay journalists to write false stories about him, that top U.S. officials had kept key intelligence out of his daily briefings and revived a MAGA conspiracy theory tying in Venezuela’s involvement.Responding, China’s Foreign Ministry said Trump’s allegations had no factual basis, reiterating that the country adheres to the principle of non-intervention in other state’s affairs and had no interest in influencing U.S. elections.Former national security officials and Democrats have likewise said the president’s speech was filled with falsehoods and exaggerations.California Gov. Gavin Newsom called it “the ramblings of a mad king.”Donald Trump alleges sprawling Chinese election hacking plot in primetime addressWith 109 days remaining until voters decide the balance of power in the next Congress, President Donald Trump used a rare primetime TV address to accuse unnamed national security officials of hiding information about the security of America’s elections and alleged Chinese efforts to interfere in the election he lost nearly six years ago.Speaking from the East Room of the White House, Trump said he was releasing “critical intelligence” showing “shocking vulnerabilities” in America’s election system in a bid to pressure the current Republican-led Congress to pass partisan voting restriction legislation he has deemed essential to helping his party retain control of the House and Senate.Offering no evidence, the president claimed American elections are vulnerable “to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference” and accused the People’s Republic of China of carrying out “the largest compromise of election data in history” by acquiring election data – much of which is commercially available for purchase by political campaigns and other interested parties.“They wanted to just make you sound like your president wasn't so hot, when actually your president has done a great job, and they did everything possible to do exactly that,” he said.China’s Foreign Ministry has since responded by saying Trump’s allegations have no factual basis, reiterating that the country adheres to the principle of non-intervention in other state’s affairs and has no interest in influencing U.S. elections.Andrew Feinberg has the story.Joe Sommerlad17 July 2026 09:05Watch: Trump says US networks not airing his speech should have their licenses revokedThe president attacked ABC and NBC last night for declining to broadcast his address, saying in the course of it: “They and others in the media are part of a plot. They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason.“Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licences.”Trump says US networks not airing his speech should have licenses revokedJoe Sommerlad17 July 2026 10:45Trump insider admits that no votes were flipped in the last three electionsThese remarks from John Solomon, a conservative journalist who has been chosen to lead Trump’s task force on declassifying documents, are not exactly a ringing endorsement of the claims the president made last night.Given that Trump is a man who prizes unquestioning loyalty above all things, he is likely to be displeased. Joe Sommerlad17 July 2026 10:20White House documents show China 'did not intend' to hack electionTrump has a long history of making false claims about elections and files released by his own White House suggest he may once again be exaggerating.One document, for instance, notes that “Beijing did not intend to try to affect the election,” directly contradicting Trump’s claims last night that China sought to steal the vote and tank his candidacy. Josh Marcus17 July 2026 09:55‘The ramblings of a mad king:’ Newsom leads Democratic attacks on Trump speechHere’s just a taste of the opposition indignation about the president’s address last night, with the California governor setting the tone.Joe Sommerlad17 July 2026 09:30China hits back at Trump’s election hacking allegationsResponding to the president’s primetime attack last night, China’s Foreign Ministry has just said the allegations have no factual basis.It adds that Beijing adheres to the principle of non-intervention in other state’s affairs and has no interest in influencing U.S. elections.Earlier, the Chinese Embassy in Washington told Reuters that China “has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections.”(Getty)Joe Sommerlad17 July 2026 08:45Democratic senator worries Trump speech is prelude to military at pollsPresident Trump’s elections speech, which alleged widespread vulnerabilities in the U.S. voting system, could be just the beginning, according to one Democratic senator.Sen. Elissa Slotkin fears the president’s repeated claims that elections are unsafe could be a prelude to sending the military to the polls, which could intimidate voters or local officials.“The president refuses to rule out, as does his cabinet, sending in uniformed military,” Slotkin, a former CIA analyst, told MS Now of the possibility, which has inspired her to propose legislation barring such a step. “What if they don’t have a warrant?” she added. “These are some really scary kind of tabletop exercises [and] things that we’re having here because the president has made clear this is not a joke to him…He’s willing to really do anything to ‘win’ in November.”Josh Marcus17 July 2026 08:30Conservative journalist helping Trump hunt for conspiracies acknowledges 'zero evidence' foreign power turned 2020 raceA conservative journalist just inadvertently punctured a hole in President Trump’s claims that documents show a sprawling Chinese conspiracy to steal American elections.“All I can acknowledge is what the intelligence shows,” Just the News founder John Solomon, who is part of a White House elections task force on the subject, told MS Now on Thursday. “I only know the intelligence community has zero evidence that a foreign power flipped a vote in 2020, ‘22, and ‘24.”“I’m still researching,” he added.Josh Marcus17 July 2026 07:45DHS appears to soften claims about thousands of illegally registered non-citizen voters(Getty)The White House claims it has discovered evidence of hundreds of thousands of non-citizens who are illegally registered to vote, part of a series of explosive election-related claims it has made alongside President Trump’s speech tonight.“According to a D.H.S. review of state voter rolls and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections,” reads a White House webpage detailing the allegations. “Since Democrat states refused to share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher—yet even this limited analysis found more than a quarter of a million foreigners illegally registered to vote.”Meanwhile, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has been a bit more measured, perhaps wary of how his predecessor was slammed for making unfounded claims about immigration issues.On X, he wrote that DHS “has identified over 250,000 potential non-citizens illegally registered to vote in just 4 U.S. states.”What the administration has not shown, however, is that wrongly registered people have actually voted en masse or changed the outcome of elections.Countless reviews of the 2020 election have shown that the results were valid, and actual voter fraud is an extremely rare crime that has not been shown to sway elections.Josh Marcus17 July 2026 07:00Read the full files from Trump's 2020 election info dump(Getty)The Independent is actively reviewing the trove of documents the Trump administration released on Thursday to support its claims of wide-ranging vulnerabilities in U.S. election systems and a 2020 interference campaign by China.If you want to take a look for yourself, here’s a link to the White House portal with the documents.Josh Marcus17 July 2026 06:15