Fact-Checking Trump’s Election Fraud Claims

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Daniel Bach (0:33)

President Trump uses a primetime address to claim the US election system has been compromised. Plus, thousands of people complain about the SEC no longer requiring companies to post quarterly updates.

And AI knows what you posted online, and so does your future employer.

Callum Borchers (0:50)

You might think explicit images are private, but facial recognition software could enable an employer to identify you. Sure, you place that bet under a pseudonym, but is your screen name similar to one you've used in the past?

Daniel Bach (1:02)

It's Friday, July 17th. I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. And here is the AM Edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

President Trump has used a national address to sow doubts about the 2020 election results. Speaking from the East Room, he raised allegations of foreign influence in President Biden's win, while heaping more pressure on lawmakers to pass his voter ID legislation ahead of the midterms where Republicans are at risk of losing their majorities in Congress. The Journal's Washington coverage chief, Damian Paletta, was watching the speech for us.

Damian Paletta (1:42)

President Trump alleged a wide-ranging campaign by China in 2020 to interfere and impact the outcome of that presidential election.

Donald Trump (1:53)

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 US voter files.

Damian Paletta (2:09)

Now, we have known for years that China has tried to obtain voter rolls and President Trump said that this operation was wide-ranging and he also alleged that the US intelligence community knew, or at least some people in the US intelligence community knew about this scale and that he claimed this information was withheld from him by people that he said were in the deep state.

Donald Trump (2:35)

Members of the deep state, very, very famous group of people, in many cases, in our intelligence agency worked to actively suppress and downplay information about the extent of China's sinister election meddling, covering it up from both the president and the American people like nobody thought was possible.

Damian Paletta (2:57)

Now he did not provide any evidence that suggests that they did impact the outcome of the election or that they did anything to manipulate votes or that they actually cast votes, but he wanted the American people to know that he believed that there was new information that he has declassified that shows that the US government, or at least some within the US government, believed that China's motives here were very nefarious and that they were trying to tilt the scales, or they wanted to tilt the scales to help Joe Biden win the election over President Trump.

Daniel Bach (3:27)

In response to Trump's speech, a spokesman at the Chinese embassy said China has never and will never interfere in US presidential elections.

A US intelligence assessment from 2021 determined with high confidence that Beijing did consider an influence campaign but did not deploy it, opting instead to prioritize stability in its relationship with Washington. Here's Damian again.

Damian Paletta (3:50)

There have been many reviews done by Republican states and Democratic states that have disputed his allegation that the 2020 election was stolen. And by putting these documents out there, some of them are partially redacted, but he believes that putting these out there, it could sow doubt in the American public's view about the safety and security of American elections. And that brings us to where he wants to go next.

Donald Trump (4:12)

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. They are bad.

Damian Paletta (4:25)

The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Mark Wynne Mullen, is pretty new to the job and this will be a big moment for him to either make Americans feel safer that the election system is airtight or perhaps he's going to show that there are some vulnerabilities that states need to address.

Daniel Bach (4:40)

The 25-minute speech was full of allegations, including the unsubstantiated claim that Venezuela tampered with voting machines. The president also insinuated states were trying to prevent him from getting access to voter data and that hundreds of thousands of non-citizens had been able to vote. That's a claim that state and federal judges have repeatedly dismissed, calling such legal cases speculative and lacking evidence. Here again is Damian.