Trump accuses China of 'sinister election meddling'

**Undi Desai** (0:00)
Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Uncle Desai, and in the early hours of Friday the 17th of July, these are our main stories. President Trump accuses China of massively compromising the data of US voters and alleged there was election meddling by Beijing that targeted him. Elsewhere, air quality alerts are issued to tens of millions of Canadians and Americans as smoke pollution spreads from hundreds of wildfires. And we tell you how China is bringing in strict controls to stop people from falling in love and forming deep bonds with AI chatbots.
Also, in this podcast, the Scottish city of Glasgow prepares to welcome thousands of athletes for the Commonwealth Games, but is it ready?

**Andy Burnham** (0:51)
And imagine if we could bring down the cost of energy for people and businesses. Imagine good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart.

**Undi Desai** (1:02)
Britain is about to get its seventh prime minister in ten years. But who is Andy Burnham?
President Donald Trump has accused China of undermining the 2020 US presidential election. In a speech to The Nation, he announced that the White House is posting declassified intelligence documents that show what he called the largest compromise of election data in US history, accusing China of hacking some 220 million voter files.

**Donald Trump** (1:37)
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.
Just as disturbingly this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you. The American people are beautiful, are great American people.
But that all changes right now.

**Undi Desai** (2:07)
He went on to declare that what he called the deep state worked to downplay China's attempts to undermine the 2018 midterm elections and the 2020 presidential election which Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.
The Democrats say Mr. Trump is laying the ground to meddle in the midterms where the Republicans risk losing control of Congress. Our correspondent in Washington, Nick Johnson, told us more about what President Trump had to say.

**Nick Johnson** (2:36)
This was a 26-minute address that Donald Trump gave from the White House. The top line here is him accusing China of interfering in that 2020 presidential election, which he of course lost to Joe Biden. How did they interfere? Well, Donald Trump said that Beijing managed to access 220 million US voter files, personal information, who they're likely to vote for.
He described that as the largest compromise in election data history. He didn't go on to explain, though, how China accessing that information could have affected the election in any way. And we've heard in the past hour or so from a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington who said that China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the US. Mr. Trump also made other claims in his address. He accused what he called the deep state parts of US intelligence of covering up Chinese interference and covering up meddling in the 2020 election. Now we should say that in an assessment that was done in 2021 under the then US director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, who's now the CIA director, found no evidence of foreign interference in the 2020 election whatsoever. And Mr. Trump also made other claims in the speech as well. He said there were hundreds of thousands of non-US citizens registered to vote. He painted a picture of a very broken and vulnerable US election system.

**Undi Desai** (4:09)
What evidence is there about this impact in the alleged compromise? And what does Donald Trump... Well, he's made these sort of accusations before. Why is he saying this now?

**Nick Johnson** (4:19)
Well, in terms of the evidence, he said that there's going to be a number of files that are going to be released, documents are going to be released, which will outline more detail as to the evidence that he's referring to. We haven't yet looked at all those documents. We haven't been able to verify them. But as I mentioned, some of the examples he gave about the way that Beijing managed to access people's data, he didn't provide an explanation as to how the accessing of that data could have any impact on the outcome of the election.
And yeah, he has said these sorts of things before. I think he's saying them again now for a couple of reasons. Number one is he really wants to get the Save America Act through Congress. It's struggling to get past the Senate. The Save America Act will obligate voters in the US when they come to the polls to have proof of citizenship and proof of evidence to vote carried with them. And I think number two is that he is not doing well in the polls here at the moment, largely because of the economy, the cost of living, and also what's going on with Iran. And I think that he's laying the groundwork for a possible suggestion that there's going to be issues in the upcoming midterm elections where it's possible the republicans may lose control of both houses of congress.