Return to Transcripts main page
The Source with Kaitlan Collins
President Trump Gives Address On Elections After Years Of False Claims; Trump: Nation's Election System "Falls Catastrophically Short"; Trump Claims China Worked Against Him In 2020 Election Despite Intel Saying It Didn't. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired July 16, 2026 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
ASHLEY ETIENNE, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRES. BIDEN, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR VP HARRIS & SPEAKER PELOSI: --well, I mean, I think our argument is that you can't solve for a problem that actually doesn't exist. So, why are we trying to solve for a problem that doesn't actually exist?
I think the real reality is here, what is shocking is that 93 percent of the country thinks that we're in an affordability crisis. Meanwhile, the President is hyper-focused on himself and his grievances from 2020. I mean, that's, again, that's what's playing into our hands and to our advantage.
JOHN KING, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He is unconventional. We've known that from the very beginning, and we're going to see it in just seconds.
Alyssa. Ashley. David. Thank you.
And the news continues of course. "THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS" starts right now.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN HOST, THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS: Good evening. I'm Kaitlan Collins. And this is THE SOURCE.
Any moment now, President Trump will deliver a primetime address from the White House, a speech that his administration has previewed is focused on election security and one that is happening with less than four months to go before the midterm elections.
We'll be monitoring what the President says tonight, as we always do, but aren't taking it live, given the President has a well-documented history of saying blatantly false things about elections.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It was a rigged election. Everybody now knows that. They found out. People will soon be prosecuted for what they did.
It was a rigged election. It was a rigged election.
I say it was rigged.
Go to 2020. Look at the facts that are coming out. Rigged, crooked elections.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Tonight, the White House is also releasing newly declassified documents. And we will analyze those so we can provide context around them. Our team is going through them actually, right now, as we speak, and we'll bring you all the newsworthy moments from the President's speech and from those documents, this hour, as we talk about it with my fellow reporters and experts.
Now, based on what White House officials who briefed reporters today said, here is what the President is expected to say tonight. Though he is known to go off script, and we'll see if he does so this evening.
The President is going to argue from the East Room of the White House that potential vulnerabilities exist in American election systems, using those newly declassified documents as evidence to suggest that future elections could be open to foreign interference.
Now, right now, none of the declassified information that reporters were briefed on suggests that the outcomes of previous elections, including the 2020 race that President Trump lost, were impacted by foreign interference or fraud.
Among the findings that we are expecting the President to talk about tonight are this. Documents that allege that China illegally obtained more than 200 million American voter registration files in a period between 2020 and 2024. That includes things like names, addresses, phone numbers, military status, political party preference, and voting record. The administration says these files were bought illicitly, stolen, hacked, or otherwise illegally obtained.
Now tonight, the President is also expected to talk about intelligence reports that American voting machines are hackable by at least five foreign powers. Now notice I said, Are hackable, not that they've been hacked. That's because the President is expected to say that Venezuela conducted an experiment on Venezuelan machines, not American ones, that swapped out votes in a way that was undetectable in a post-vote audit or a hand count. Venezuelan experiment on its own equipment.
Now, obviously, we'll be digging through everything the President says and getting experts' take on whether or not it is as serious as the White House frames it.
The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said today that these new findings and their belief will shock Americans. When I asked her whether or not those findings will be followed by any criminal charges, this was the response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) COLLINS: Regarding the President's speech tonight. He's been in office over 540 days now. If what he says is, tonight, is backed up by evidence, why hasn't anyone been charged?
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, he hasn't revealed it yet. He hasn't declassified the documents yet. And you will see what he says tonight, and then we'll move forward appropriately from there.
COLLINS: So, will charges follow tonight from the Justice Department?
LEAVITT: I don't speak on behalf of the Justice Department, Kaitlan, you know that.
Rachel?
COLLINS: Will there be charges?
LEAVITT: You'll have to ask the Justice Department. I don't charge people. I just speak on behalf of the President.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: We will see what the President says this hour.
Before his speech, White House officials had framed these disclosures tonight, not as an attempt to relitigate past elections, as the President has often tried to do, but instead argue that this is a place to correct vulnerabilities ahead of the midterm elections this November.
Now, it's clear here in Washington, that's not how Democrats or critics of this administration see it. Instead, they believe it's an attempt to sow doubt in confidence in our elections and push for what the President has been pushing for, with increasing fervor over the last several weeks. That is the SAVE Act, and it would overhaul how federal elections are conducted, but doesn't right now have enough Republican votes in the Senate to actually get passed.
[21:05:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): I expect tonight's speech to be equal parts pathetic and dangerous.
A primetime presidential sour grapes address, reheating debunked conspiracy theories about an election in which he was soundly defeated. And I think he'll also potentially selectively declassify information or cherry-pick various pieces of evidence to lay the groundwork for whatever kind of meddling he wants to attempt this year, or to try to discredit the results when he's dealt a resounding defeat in the midterm elections.
(END VIDEO CLIP) COLLINS: Regarding this new information that the President is going to be talking about tonight, White House officials suggested it was withheld from senior political officials, including the President, back in 2020, after it was first noted.
Of course, in 2020, the beginning of that year was the President's own officials who were running the intelligence community, Ric Grenell, and then later John Ratcliffe.
I do want to note that the National Intelligence Council assessment that was compiled under the Director of National Intelligence, who is now the CIA Director, that's John Ratcliffe. This was what was given to the President on January 2021. It concluded, we quote: We have no indication that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 election, including voter registrations, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results.
Now, looming in the context of all of this, as you're going to be listening to the President, back in 2016, of course, it was Donald Trump as a candidate who publicly welcomed foreign interference and influence, as long as it was directed at his opponent.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.
Now, if Russia, or China, or any other country, has those emails, I mean, to be honest with you, I'd love to see them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: My political and intelligence sources are here.
And Carrie Cordero, you served as the Senior Associate General Counsel at the Director of National Intelligence, at that office, which obviously leads the nation's intelligence community.
When you're hearing what the White House is laying out so far. And we'll see what the President says and if he goes off script. This is just from the briefing that reporters got earlier to preview this. What do you make of what they're alleging and the seriousness about what they're saying China did, breaching all this voter information and the stability, I guess you would say, of these machines in Venezuela.
CARRIE CORDERO, FMR. SR. ASSOC. GENERAL COUNSEL, OFFICE OF THE DIR. OF NATL. INTELLIGENCE, FMR. COUNSEL TO THE ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR NATIONAL SECURITY, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY: So, there's a few things that come to mind just based on what you've reported so far.
First thing is that these allegations or new information is coming forward at a time where we have no Senate-confirmed Director of National Intelligence, no Senate-confirmed Attorney General, and no Senate-confirmed head of CISA, the cybersecurity component within the Department of Homeland Security, all of which are agencies that would be collaborating together to counter any foreign interference in an election and focus on protecting an election. So, from a leadership perspective of the intelligence community and the national security apparatus, that stands out to me.
The timing of today's reporting is also interesting to me, given that the nomination hearings for the DNI and the A.G. were yesterday, at a time where therefore they could not be asked about any of this information and how they would handle these types of threats.
On the China-specific allegation. Really, we'll be interested to hear what the President says about that, and if we are able to report more on what the documents actually say regarding what he's -- it sounds like is being alleged that China did.
But China has a history of the most significant intelligence cyber operations against the United States of any country. So, that doesn't -- what you reported so far strikes me within the realm of something that I would not be surprised, if China actually was able to do it. But there's a lot of information that needs to be learned as far as how it was done, whether it was a hack, whether it was stolen information, how it is that the United States government knows that China did that is obviously something that I'll be looking to learn.
COLLINS: Well, and obviously China is a bad actor. We know that. Nobody wants China to access voter information. When you look at that, though. If the White House is framing this as, Our election system is totally messed up because of this. Is that how you would frame it?
CORDERO: It is not--
COLLINS: Or would you say this is something--
CORDERO: --based on what I've heard so far. Because, if we look back at the last few elections, the intelligence community reporting about the nature of the countries that were actually trying to affect U.S. elections is different. If you look at Russia, China, and Iran, which were the three major countries that, in the last several elections, have been engaging in something regarding trying to affect our elections.
[21:10:00]
So Russia, in some of the elections, was aggressively trying to impact and had a particular candidate that they wanted to win. The intelligence community reporting about China has not been that. It's been that they were interested in sort of sowing confusion, playing on divisions within the United States, but not necessarily--
COLLINS: Yes.
CORDERO: --trying to put their thumb on a particular candidate.
COLLINS: Marc, obviously, you were in the Trump administration when the President was trying to sow doubt and overturn the election result in 2020.
When you listen to what the President is saying tonight, the fact that they're doing this, based on your experience, what's your sense of this?
MARC SHORT, FMR. CHIEF OF STAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: Well, Kaitlan, I come at this as somebody who supports the SAVE Act. I believe voter ID would be a good thing. I think it's important to know that there are adversaries that look to try to interfere in our elections, and if we can tighten election security, that's good.
But I guess I have a lot of questions. I'd start with you know, as you mentioned, in 2020, President Trump's administration was in power. And so, if there were breaches in the election system, he certainly was comfortable taking the head of DNI, put him in charge of the CIA in the second administration. And so, there was not really a concern on his part with that.
I think that when you go to the states that are questioned, in many cases, they all have the -- the battleground states all have paper ballot verification. And so, there were multiple recounts. In Georgia, in fact, there were three recounts. One--
COLLINS: One of them done by hand.
SHORT: One was by hand ballots. In Wisconsin, the Trump campaign paid for a recount, and it came up netting more votes for Joe Biden. And so, we have litigated these facts before.
I guess another question that I would have is that if China is really doing this, and I -- Paul, I think can probably help us more here. Many states put voter registration files for sale. It's how campaigns gather information. And so--
KAREN FINNEY, SR. ADVISER TO HILLARY CLINTON 2016 CAMPAIGN, FORMER DNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That what -- it sounds like a voter file--
(CROSSTALK)
SHORT: And so, like I'm not saying that's -- that's necessarily good.
PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Right.
SHORT: But I'm saying, the fact that China acquired them may not be that as nefarious as it sounds.
BEGALA: Karen--
SHORT: But the last point I'd say is that, is that, look, if China is this big of a bad actor, Kaitlan, then why is the second Trump administration so soft on China?
The first administration was really hard. Second administration has basically flouted the law on TikTok, has allowed -- has basically taken off export controls on chips to China, has basically said it had total ambivalence toward Taiwan, and has created more consternation with our allies in Asia and in Korea and Japan.
So, if China is really is at fault, which I think that they are a serious threat, then why are we so soft in our current policy?
FINNEY: So, when you were just describing this preview, I looked at Paul and I said, That sounds like a voter file to me.
BEGALA: Right.
FINNEY: In terms of the kind of information that -- your name, your age, where you live, how you voted, if you voted. I mean, all of that is information. Lots of people can buy those lists. That is not -- so, that in and of itself does not suggest.
And again, I think there's a difference between--
COLLINS: Does not suggest what?
FINNEY: Doesn't suggest that -- that that is--
CORDERO: Yes.
FINNEY: --untoward. I mean, we probably do it to them. We want to know who their people are too. I mean.
SHORT: Well they don't have elections in China.
BEGALA: Right.
FINNEY: But -- fair, but -- but for other reasons. I mean, anyway. But--
BEGALA: Anybody, in most states, at least, can go and buy the voter file.
FINNEY: Yes. And--
BEGALA: It's a public document.
FINNEY: --campaigns can buy it.
BEGALA: Because you register at the county registrar, and then--
SHORT: It's how Paul would win his elections. Figure out -- the voter files--
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Who's voting? Who's not? We knock on their doors, and -- yes that's--
COLLINS: Well, that's kind of what I thought when I -- when I was reading through what they said about Venezuela, that the machines are hackable by five foreign powers. Venezuela did an experiment on Venezuelan machines that messed up the votes.
But it's -- no one is looking to Venezuela as a model for conducting elections either.
BEGALA: No.
FINNEY: Invaded Venezuela.
BEGALA: This was Carrie's job, and she did a good job. We have protections. We have institutions. And Marc referred to them. This, CISA, that Carrie mentioned. The man who ran that under President Trump, Chris Krebs, certified that the election was fair, accurate, honest. And Trump has signed an executive order targeting him.
COLLINS: Paul, stand by one moment because Evan Perez has been monitoring the President's speech for us.
And Evan, what are we hearing so far from the President? Does it line up with what we got briefed on from the administration earlier?
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, it's definitely a very stark picture that the President is painting of vulnerabilities that we've long known existed in the U.S. system.
You guys were just talking about the voter registration files, the voter registration systems. And there are systems that are connected to the internet. But the tabulation machines, the things that people vote on, those are not connected to the internet. And so, that's what, frankly, protects the system. And the fact that the system in the United States is managed by different states, and the disparate ways it's managed, is one reason really frankly that protects our system.
Let's play a little bit of what the President says, and I'll come back, and we'll explain a little bit about what he's talking about. Listen to this.
[21:15:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: 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.
Tonight, I'm announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PEREZ: And Kaitlan, I mean, one of the things that the President is homing in on is this idea that we have never known about these vulnerabilities, and that's just not true. We've -- a lot of us have covered this story, and we've known. The intelligence community has warned about some of the efforts by China, by Russia, and by Iran in the 2020 and 2024 elections, to get involved and influence the U.S. elections.
And some of the documents that they declassified this evening and are now available on the White House website, they talk about -- you have documents from the intelligence community that mention the possibility that Russia, China, North Korea, Iran could get into some of those online systems. For example, the websites where you learn where to vote, some of the systems that collect the votes, right?
But as far as tabulations, which is to actually affect the outcome, this is what the intelligence community says. It says, We assess that vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to compromise election results.
This is what -- one of the documents that the President is relying on, to draw a very, very dark picture, a very -- he says, catastrophic vulnerabilities.
And there are no doubt -- there's no doubt that there are improvements that could be made in the system. All of the public officials who are involved in elections say that those vulnerabilities exist, and there are improvements to be made.
However, the President is trying to say that, that all this means that you know -- that we need to pass legislation, I guess that he believes would improve the security to prevent non-citizens from voting, which, as you and I have covered over the years, is a very minimal problem in the United States.
Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Evan Perez, I know you're still going through the President's speech. Our team is looking at these new documents, including the one you just pointed to there. Obviously, as we have context of these documents, we're going to bring that to you here.
And as we're going through this, you know, Marc Short, one thing that the President seems to be talking about tonight, and that the officials had previewed earlier, is they did not know about this. They said, This was found in early 2020, but no one told President Trump about what happened.
Obviously, he was still in office for another year after that. One of his most loyal aides, Ric Grenell, was running the DNI at the time, is same as Bill Pulte, now acting Director, and then John Ratcliffe took over.
So, I mean, shouldn't one of the first questions be, Well, why did the two people running your intelligence community not find this? Why did 540 days in, they didn't? They just are now releasing this? Does that make sense?
SHORT: I don't know what Ric Grenell told the President or not. But I know -- I was privy to some meetings in the Oval where we discussed election integrity. And so, I know there's well -- memos going back to January of 2020 that frankly talked about cyber activity, but also expressed in there that just because there's cyber activity, bad actors could misinterpret what that means and suggest that elections were stolen.
And so, I'm not so sure that the President didn't have briefings on this. Now I may not recall them, but I believe that he did.
COLLINS: Is this something that the -- if you're the Director of National Intelligence, and you see this, that you'd go to the President on?
CORDERO: I think it depends on sort of the scope of the information, the timeliness of it.
So, at the time, if they were discovering this information years ago, and if the President's being briefed on threats to elections and threats to our democratic system, then sure you can imagine a scenario where the intelligence community has information and they've coordinated it amongst the different agencies, and they think that it's worth briefing.
So, if it wasn't briefed to him, then that raises the question as to really what is the assessment of the intelligence community of the value of this information that's being released now in 2026.
[21:20:00]
If we take the President's statement as was reported, that this is a declassification of intelligence of vulnerabilities. That, in itself, is not a bad thing. If there actually are vulnerabilities and they're being declassified, then that would, presumably, give states and localities information upon which they can now take another look, evaluate the information, and maybe do even additional improvements that could make -- you know, improve their systems in the forthcoming election.
But the question that's raised to me is why is this being released by the President, as opposed to the agencies that are responsible for communicating with--
COLLINS: Can we--
CORDERO: --state and locals on these issues?
COLLINS: Can we talk about this as also as well as to what the findings themselves are? The President -- to what I was saying about who was running the intelligence community at this time -- the President is saying the officials who kept this information from him should have action taken against them. Manu Raju says, he's calling for the prosecution of individuals who he believes were involved in suppressing this intelligence.
I mean, my question earlier to Karoline Leavitt was: If you have all this evidence of what has happened here, why has no one been charged yet in relation to this?
BEGALA: Well, and why aren't we going after foreign actors, like Putin, who did affect our election, not -- not by the count. He didn't hack anything. He just -- the misinformation disinformation that Russia put out, and many other enemies of America do that.
Donald Trump -- first off, this is not on the level, OK? He doesn't give a rip-snort about foreign influence in election. He wouldn't have won 2016 without Putin's misinformation and disinformation. And as President in this term he has dismantled a good bit of our protections.
FINNEY: Yes.
BEGALA: That Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, he's fired 130 staffers of that. He went to the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, and fired a bunch of those folks. He has disbanded the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force. He is going after all of our protections. Now he's going to go on television and say, Oh, I'm worried about foreigners?
It's a pretext for something else because, he knows he's going to lose his midterms, and I'm worried that he's going to then he's going to be the one meddling.
FINNEY: Exactly.
COLLINS: Let's go back to Evan Perez quickly.
He has another moment from the President's speech that he's reporting on.
Evan, what'd you hear?
PEREZ: Well, Kaitlan, the President talked about more than 200 million voter records that the Chinese had obtained either by illegally buying them or by hacking them or otherwise obtaining them. And one of the things that he's discussing is that he believes the intelligence community and that -- and the extent of what the Chinese were trying to do in the 2020 election were not known is what he's saying.
So, listen to this part of this speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Colossal security breach is even more disturbing in light of the additional information showing that China engaged in other election-related activities to undermine my first administration and our 2020 campaign.
Results of the U.S. midterm elections, and later the results of the 2020 presidential election itself. Separately, in mid-2019, the Chinese government's strategy against the United States was focused on undermining domestic confidence in the U.S. president. They wanted to just make you sound like your president wasn't so hot, when actually your president has done a great job. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PEREZ: And Kaitlan, what the President is referring to and what he's basing some of that information on is that in the documents that they are declassifying, there is some very -- some very strident discussion among some of the intelligence analysts, where some of them disagree. Some of them saying, You guys are downplaying what the Chinese are doing. Others are saying, No, there's no evidence to show that the Chinese are trying to change anything.
They're trying to influence policy. They're definitely interested in trying to make sure they can influence policy, but they're less interested in changing election results because of the fear of the backlash from the United States, including, of course, from President Trump, who was in office at that time.
So, there is a very spirited discussion that is going on in these documents among the intelligence analysts, they're disagreeing, and part of it, I think, interestingly for the President and his case that he's making, is that there are some who believe that there is a lot more -- a lot more weight being given to the Russian interference and less on China, which, of course, the President has long believed is true.
Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Evan Perez, we'll check back in with you as you hear more from this speech that stands out and that is newsworthy.
Karen, when you hear that, what do you make of that?
FINNEY: I want to underscore something Carrie said. PolitiFact did a very good piece on this the other day. I think we have to separate what is influence and what is impact.
Trying to influence our elections? That's bots. That's disinformation. That's some of the vote -- the suppressive messages. Frankly, that the Trump campaign has targeted black voters and Latino voters.
[21:25:00]
So, I mean, trying to suppress the vote, trying to influence, is not the same thing as having an impact on actually changing the outcome, actually changing the numbers. And it can -- you know, listening to the President almost sounds like he's trying to sort of these things by inference, trying to suggest that they're the same. And they are not the same.
And, again, other countries trying to influence our elections -- Carrie, tell me if I'm wrong -- we've known about that for a very long time.
But the actual implementation of our elections and whether or not anybody's been able to impact the outcome that we have not -- we have no evidence that that has happened.
COLLINS: I also think the point of this speech is to get the SAVE America Act passed.
The question mark is as Republicans are watching this, Republican senators particularly, not just Republican voters even, is this going to change any minds based on what you've heard so far, you think?
SHORT: Well, I think that there's going to -- the SAVE Act has a giant hurdle, as you know, to get passed. And so, if it's not, you keep -- you keep--
COLLINS: Which has been it doesn't have enough votes.
SHORT: Yes.
If you keep raising expectation, then likely you'll continue to suppress Republican voters who feel disappointed their Congress isn't doing the President's -- what the President wants. And so, it's in many cases counterproductive politically to those who are on the ballot in the midterm.
COLLINS: OK. We are continuing to break down the biggest moments of President Trump's speech and what exactly it means. We have more of that, right ahead, with our team of legal, political, and national security experts.
Also, John King has been listening to all of this, and he'll join me right after this.
[21:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: We are following breaking news this hour, as the President has just concluded his speech tonight, that is focused on U.S. elections and what they say is attempts at foreign interference in U.S. elections.
As the President also brought up conspiracy theories about the recent California primary, theories that are unfounded. And I should note that unlike the claims he made about the 2020 elections, he has also offered no -- like, I should say, the claims he's made about the 2020 elections, he offered no documents to back up what he said about what happened in California.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Evidence of fraud has been buried, hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls -- and yet, we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail.
As one example of the insanity, California's recent election for mayor of L.A. and governor, was held on June 2nd, long time ago, but it was just completed a few days ago, on July 10th. Think of that, much more than one month. Took a month to count the votes. I wonder what they were doing. This is worse than any third world country. There's no third world country that has elections like we have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: That's because, officials would say that, U.S. elections are a lot stronger than third world country elections.
And it's important to note as you were listening to the President and his arguments tonight that really all of this is in the context of the President trying to push the SAVE America Act, as he calls it, the SAVE Act as it's known on Capitol Hill.
Right now, it cannot pass on Capitol Hill because it doesn't have enough Republican votes in the Senate. And John Thune, who is the leader of Senate Republicans has made clear they are not willing to get rid of the filibuster and don't have the votes to do so in order to lower the threshold of how many votes it needs to get passed.
The President's entire argument tonight, as he was building up with these newly declassified documents from his officials, was about the SAVE Act in and of itself. Yet still, it's not clear and unlikely that that's going to change the minds of Senate Republicans.
My colleague, John King, has been watching this speech.
And John, obviously, this is something the President has been pushing for with increasing fervor as we get closer to the midterms.
KING: Right.
COLLINS: What was your takeaway from tonight?
KING: A lot of ominous tone from the President, ominous words from the President. Sounded more like a spy novel. A familiar complaint to you, Kaitlan, about the Deep State.
The most striking thing the President did was he focused mostly on China, and he said he was releasing all of these new documents tonight that were going to prove more things about China, he says, trying to get voter roll information, trying to learn about how to pry into voting machines and voting systems. He never directly connected any of that to changing an election result. That's important.
I don't have the documents in front of me. We'll see if they get you there.
But the President never did.
The only time the President said anything about nefarious action actually changing an election was he said there are documents here showing how China helped the Maduro regime in Venezuela in 2020, changed votes to stay in power. That is the only specific claim of actually rigging or changing an election result the President made.
Much of it was, again, China is trying to do this, Russia did a little bit of that, but again, focused mostly on China about things we've known about, things that have been in past intelligence reports about China, yes, trying to get information about U.S. voters, yes, trying to test the vulnerabilities of U.S. election systems.
But nowhere did the President in that speech connect it to, They changed the result in this state or they changed the result in this precinct. There was no connecting the dots to that point in the speech.
I don't have the documents in front of me. Our team is looking at that that way.
But the tone of it was overwhelming.
What was most striking to me, Kaitlan, you covered the Trump White House at the time, was he had a boogeyman, and it was the familiar Deep State. The President saying that this was all kept from him, kept from John Ratcliffe, his then Director of National Intelligence, kept from Gina Haspel, his then CIA Director.
[21:35:00]
Marco Rubio, who's now the Secretary of State, was the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, he has access to just about everything in U.S. intelligence.
But Trump was making the point that people working for him, maybe if they came from -- they were there in prior administrations, were keeping this information away from him about what he alleges is a deeper, more nefarious Chinese plot--
COLLINS: Yes.
KING: --than we have ever known about. Look, the proof will be in the documents.
But again, the President never connected the dots in any way to saying, And they did this in Georgia, for example, or They did this in Arizona, for example.
He talked about a Democratic voter registration group in Michigan that he said, as if this was a horrible, horrible thing, they were giving out gift cards to people if they registered more voters. As if there was some nefarious nature to that.
So, a lot of it was greatest hits. There were some new allegations about China having maybe a more aggressive role than we've known about in the past. But again, nothing from the President where you can say Party X did this, changed an election here in a way that changed the outcome. I did not hear one word of that. I heard a lot of ominous.
And again, he says -- he wants the Congress to pass the SAVE Act. I've spoken to a number of experts today who think foreign meddling is a problem, the United States should do more about it. They don't see much in the SAVE Act that does anything about that. They think it's all about Trump's voter ID push.
COLLINS: John, as someone who covered the White House, have you ever seen a primetime address or heard a primetime address like this one? KING: No. No.
Again, again, if the President has new information about foreign meddling. Foreign meddling is a big deal in our elections. Has been for quite a long time. Has been quite a long time.
It's gotten caught into a very polarized debate because of the Mueller investigation because of after 2016, it is impossible now in the Donald Trump era to have an adult conversation about a very legitimate issue.
It would be nice if Democrats and Republicans could get together, as the President said at one point, Why can't we do this on a bipartisan basis? Well, he's the reason they can't do some of it on a bipartisan basis because he keeps telling Democrats they're crooks and they stole elections.
But no, the ominous tone of it.
You know, presidents speak to the nation when wars start. Presidents speak to the nations after tragedies. Presidents do speak to the nation to ask for big policy priorities.
But we're 15 and a half weeks from an election in which you know the numbers, the President's approval rating is in the 30s. His party is in deep trouble. This is not the issue they think is going to save them in November.
COLLINS: John King, thank you for, as always, watching with us.
KING: Yes.
COLLINS: And I should note, as we were listening to what the President said tonight, here's another quote from him during this speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Finally, to reveal just how vulnerable our elections continue to be, we are releasing the results of a stunning investigation by the Department of Homeland Security.
According to the DHS review, state voter rolls and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections. Since Democrat states refuse to share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher than that. Yet, even this limited analysis found more than a quarter of a million foreigners illegally registered to vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Evan Perez, you're also following the speech. Is any of that true?
PEREZ: Well, it is based -- there is a report from the DHS, and it is based on an analysis that was done drawing from private sector data. The problem is, as the President has pointed out that some of the states, of course, that manage this data have refused to turn over their voter rolls to the DHS and to the government, to the federal government, and that includes some Republican states, by some Republican-run states, who have also refused to do this.
And so, it is true that there is some data out there, but it is not reliable. This is private sector data. The government data would obviously be a lot more effective.
And also, the other issue here is that the number of people who may be non-citizens, who may be on these rolls, does not indicate that any of them have actually voted. Right? I mean, we've seen analysis after analysis of this. It is a very tiny problem. I think The Heritage Foundation did an analysis of this from 2000 -- from 2002 to 2022, and they found about a 100 instances of this.
So, the President is pointing out to something that is an issue, but it is not the issue that he is making it out to be.
Kaitlan.
COLLINS: All right.
Evan Perez, we'll continue to check back in with you as we are monitoring the President's speech. And what he said about China. I should note, keep in mind, the Chinese leader is expected to visit Washington in just a few months from now. More on what we heard from the White House tonight, right after this.
[21:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: President Trump just concluded his primetime speech, where he was essentially on a mission to convince Americans about claims, when it comes to U.S. elections, using newly declassified documents and allegations of foreign interference in U.S. elections.
I want you to listen to what the President said, and keep in mind, this is information, they are saying, came out in early 2020, when President Trump was still in office, about why he was not told about this when it was found out.
[21:45:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The second set of documents we are releasing reveals that members of the Deep State -- a 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP) COLLINS: Joining me on this are:
Republican election lawyer, Ben Ginsberg.
And the former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, Sue Gordon, who was there until the fall of 2019.
And Sue Gordon, I'd like to start with you. You hear what the President is saying there about this information being kept from him. As someone who worked at the highest levels of the intelligence community, what's your response?
SUE GORDON, FMR. PRINCIPAL DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Well, thanks for having me, Kaitlan.
I think this was a dangerous speech about an incredibly important topic with some really questionable remedies in mind. So, let me go through that.
Number one is we treated -- since 2016, the intelligence community has been saying that foreign actors intended to influence our election for the purpose of undermining democracy. Not undermining a president. For undermining democracy.
If you recall, the whole 2016 to 2021 first Trump term, turned on us trying to say that and him interpreting it as it was our misinformation when we tried to share that information.
So, this is not new that foreign actors try to influence our election. They do. And with the advent of the digital era, there are lots of things available to them. So, this is not a new threat. It is one he certainly knew of. He had an entire term to deal with it. And I don't know how you can believe that the same community that told him about it, who was excoriated for it, then somehow didn't tell him about further attempts. I think that's hard.
But the other thing I want to say is, I think he treats intelligence as though it's a verdict. And it's not. It is the beginning of a process. It is the way you start to ask questions. So, even if there are new data that are going to be released, that doesn't prove anything. Intent is not activity. Activity is not impact. And impact is not outcome. And so, to try and make a leap, even if there are new intelligence data that are worthy of being assessed because most of the things that he will release has been assessed.
You have to go through a process of asking ever tougher questions before you ever get to the notion of whether intent and attempts become outcome. And I remind, for 2016, 2020, and 2024, we, as a collective, assessed that they did not have impact on the outcome. So, to now jump in to go from intelligence to that impact, I think is dangerous. Because, in a way, Kaitlan, it does the work of our adversaries for us. See, they don't have to interfere; they just have to convince us to not trust our democracy.
COLLINS: I think you make a really good point that the President doesn't like the intelligence community, and he had pushed back on all the allegations and findings about attempted foreign interference and influence in the elections. So, the idea about him getting briefed on it in January 2020 and being told something that he did not want to hear is a really good point, in terms of, of them raising that and the President calling for action against the people who suppressed it, as he put it.
Ben Ginsberg, as you listened to the speech tonight, what stood out to you?
BEN GINSBERG, REPUBLICAN ELECTION LAWYER: What stood out to me is that there's still no evidence of a result of any election being incorrect. There still were not the documents. There still was not the evidence, although we'll see what's produced.
I think -- a couple of things. First of all, the President says there are vulnerabilities in the election system.
And it is not a perfect system. We have over 8,000 jurisdictions. There are inconsistencies between those jurisdictions. Elections are notoriously underfunded. And so, if you want to fix the vulnerabilities, there should be a lot of federal money going out to states and localities to actually succeed in doing that.
[21:50:00]
It's also kind of interesting, the way he talked about China and the security vulnerabilities. After all -- and this feels a little bit like an own goal. The administration has cut back on the cybersecurity agencies, CISA, and the Department of Justice outfit that help states. So that, in fact, if there is a problem with the 2026 election, it will be in large part because the defenses that are provided by the federal government to the states to stop that activity have been drastically cut back. So, that's something that a bit of leadership would help on.
COLLINS: Sue, in terms of just takeaways from the impact to this. I mean, the White House said earlier that this would be shocking, the findings of this.
Specifically on what they said about China breaching voter information, what did you make of that, given your expertise here?
GORDON: Yes, I didn't hear anything shocking. Again, remember, he's talking about intelligence reports that are reflections of what adversaries and competitors say, not by and themselves the representation of what actually happened or the truth.
If you remember, in 2014, China penetrated the Office of Personnel Management and stole tons of records of people who had security clearances. So, it's not a new idea that our adversaries are going after, whether that is voter records, or personnel records, or trade secrets, to gain advantage of the United States. So, nothing shocking there.
I haven't seen the documents, so I don't know if there's something new. But again, this has been, since 2016, one of the intelligence community's primary concerns, and it was his own administration, during his first term, that we formed CISA to help exactly this problem, to go and work with states and localities who have responsibility, with the private sector, to make it stronger. So, Ben's point is really good about, Yes, let's pour more into it because it is an attack surface.
But to now say as though somehow this is new, shocking, horrors? This has been long known, long reported, and even the report that he cites was released to Chuck Grassley in 2025.
So, it is a real problem. Our elections are the bedrock of our democracy. If we can't trust them, it is bad.
COLLINS: Ben, one thing--
GORDON: But this doesn't prove it.
COLLINS: --one thing that the President had also mentioned specifically was Venezuela and a plot there in regards to China. I want everyone to listen to what he laid out there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Today, we are releasing documents that show the CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot to do a big number in favor of the corrupt Maduro regime in Venezuela, and that's exactly what happened, conspiring to digitally rig their own country's elections in 2020. And that's what they did.
This reporting included precise details about methods to regime develop, to digitally alter vote totals in ways that could not be detected, even with an audit, no matter how deep they went.
This intelligence underscores why we must take urgent action to ensure that our own system can never, ever be hacked or compromised like it was in the past.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: As an attorney, Ben, how did you hear that?
GINSBERG: I heard that as sort of circumlocate -- elocution. I mean, look, none of that has happened here or could happen here, simply because of the way our system is set up. It's very localized, and none of the machines and the counting and the tabulation is attached to the internet. So, whatever the Chinese did in Venezuela is not capable of being replicated here, and to even mention that sort of hurts the confidence in the system, in a kind of rhetorical but pointless way.
COLLINS: Yes, when I was listening to them earlier about the briefing on this, they were saying, These machines are hackable by foreign powers, and here's how Venezuela hacked these machines. But they said, Venezuelan machines, not American ones.
GINSBERG: Right.
[21:55:00]
COLLINS: Ben Ginsberg. Sue Gordon. Excellent to have both of you here. I'm so glad we had you on. So, thank you for listening to the speech and breaking it down with us.
GINSBERG: Thanks, Kaitlan.
GORDON: Thanks, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Also, you heard the President mention tonight that this intelligence was hidden from the President by his own administration. He also argued it was hidden from members of Congress as well.
My congressional source is joining me tonight. That is Democratic Senator Chris Coons.
And Senator, thank you for being here.
First off, just tell me what you heard and thought of the President's speech tonight.
SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Well, Kaitlan, I heard nothing new. I heard no concrete evidence or even allegations that foreign actors actually changed the results of American elections.
Yes, he claimed that there was some shocking secret Chinese conspiracy to try and change the results of a Venezuelan election. There were lots of dark and sinister allegations that we have vulnerabilities in our election system.
But if you listen carefully to what he said, this was all making a case that we should pass the SAVE Act in the Senate, and his own Republican majority in the Senate is refusing to take it up and pass it. This really amounted to a temper tantrum from our President that his own party, which controls Congress, won't pass the voter suppression bill that he has been pushing and pushing for them to take up.
I hope they won't fall for it because, just as he said, in the State of the Union speech, where he, with great seriousness, claimed that there were millions of people, over a 100-years-old, on the Social Security rolls. And anyone who looked at the evidence, it turned out, virtually none of them were getting Social Security payments. So too, he claimed there's hundreds of thousands of people who are not citizens of the United States on voter rolls, but produced no evidence that any of them are voting.
There is no evidence, and no new evidence was presented tonight, Kaitlan, that elections have had their outcomes changed in the United States. And this is all part of President Trump's campaign to federalize elections, to prevent mail-in ballots, and to control elections in a way that gives him a better chance of not losing the midterms, which currently he's on target to do. COLLINS: He also argued that China wanted him -- China wanted to help Joe Biden because they didn't want his tariffs on China. I want you to listen to part of that speech in regards to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China's activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden.
Documents show that during this period, dozens of significant CIA and NSA reports about China's election targeting were kept out of the presidential briefing. These were briefings I would get almost every day. Everything was kept out that was of importance.
One email among intelligence analysts admitted that they had quote, deliberately massaged the presidential daily briefing to withhold information regarding Chinese activities related to the election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: First off, when you hear him saying that they left information out of the presidential daily brief, what did you make of that? And also, they said that Congress didn't find out about this either. Do you know if that's true?
COONS: I don't. And frankly, I urge folks to pay attention to what Senator Mark Warner and Congressman Jim Himes have already been saying and posting about these allegations.
Those are the senior Democrats on the Intelligence Committee in the Senate and the House who've both said there's no credible information that's been provided to them in classified settings or open settings to support these allegations.
As has been said before on this show tonight, that was a period when his people were in charge of national security and intelligence. In fact, I think the Director of National Intelligence was John Ratcliffe, who's his current CIA director.
So, it'll be interesting for us to see the details and to actually review the documents and follow up. I'm as concerned about election integrity and security as anyone else.
But a big part of why we have to distinguish between hyped-up allegations of foreign attempts to influence our elections and any actual consequences for the outcomes of our elections is that President Trump and his supporters tried and tried and tried again, after he lost the 2020 elections. They filed more than 60 federal lawsuits and lost virtually every one of them.
[22:00:00]
There's only one person involved in this who we know, for sure, tried to meddle in the 2020 elections, and that's President Donald Trump, when he picked up the phone and called the Georgia Secretary of State and said, Find me the votes so that I can win.
And frankly, he just sent his former Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard--
COLLINS: Yes.
COONS: --to Fulton County, Georgia, to examine outdated records of the 2020 election. So, we know what his intentions are. I hope the American people next get to hear from our president about either rising costs or the war in Iran, which I think is what they most wanted to hear from him tonight.
COLLINS: Senator Chris Coons, as always, we appreciate your time tonight.
Thank you all so much for joining us tonight.
COONS: Thank you, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: We're going to continue our coverage of President's Trump's speech with "CNN NEWSNIGHT" right now.
