Fact checking Trump speech on election security
CBS News · LC · trust 31/100
Updated on: July 17, 2026 / 12:07 AM EDT / CBS News
CBS News fact-checked President Trump's speech on election security Thursday night, in which he raised new allegations regarding China's access to U.S. voter data, revisited accusations about voter registration fraud in the U.S., dead and non-citizen voting and claimed voting machines are "easily compromised," and made other pronouncements about the state of voting in America.
Here are some of the claims and CBS News' ratings and context for Mr. Trump's statements:
"First, they show that 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."
"Every American deserves to know that when they cast their vote, that vote will be counted accurately in a system, and that is to make that system secure — one where cheating and interference are not just difficult, but virtually impossible. Unfortunately, the system we have today falls catastrophically short of that standard."
"They're vulnerable and they're easily compromised, and people within our government knew that."
Experts say voting machines in the U.S. are extremely difficult to compromise because they are closely monitored, they aren't connected to the internet and they are backed up by paper ballots that can be audited to check the results by hand. "They're under lock and key until they are publicly tested to make sure they haven't been tampered with," said Center for Election Innovation & Research Executive Director David Becker. "And then they are used and we still don't trust them. We have those paper ballots."
Mr. Trump has also raised doubts about Dominion Voting Systems voting machines, which were used in 28 states in 2020, including the battleground states of Georgia and Wisconsin. In a 2022 review of Dominion Voting Systems by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA found vulnerabilities that it said could be exploited to gain control over the system's operations under very specific conditions.
"Hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls."
"In a rare move, NBC and ABC — fake news — have both said that they would not cover this speech. They knew what it was about. Because of the fact that they don't like the topic because they know how corrupt our system is and they don't want to reveal it."
ABC News, NBC News and CNN said they would not carry President Trump's speech on their primary broadcast channels, but will have the speech available on separate streaming platforms.
The speech was on streaming platforms ABC News Live and NBC News NOW. Reuters reported CNN would have a live feed on its website and subscription streaming channel, CNN All Access.
ABC News , NBC News and CNN all livestreamed Trump's speech on their respective YouTube channels as well. Coverage of the speech also appeared on all three outlets' websites.
"Mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt. So, you would have no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment or travel. If you're going away on business or vacation, these reforms are urgently needed to stop the vulnerabilities that I've mentioned."
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