Trump accuses Beijing of 2020 election data theft, says U.S. also targets China

President Trump on July 21 said the United States also conducts operations against China while responding to questions about Beijing's alleged election interference. The comments came five days after Trump accused China in a primetime address of carrying out the largest compromise of election data in history.

16 address In the July 16 speech, Trump said China stole 220 million voter files from states across the country and sought to influence the 2020 presidential election and 2018 midterm elections. Trump stated that China paid journalists to report negatively about him and tried to influence U.S. business leaders to turn against him during his first term.

"The Chinese government wanted (the) U.S. president to lose the next election, and the reason they wanted me to lose is because they knew I was wise to them," Trump said. Trump also said officials within the U.S. government concealed the intelligence from him.

21 remarks On July 21, Trump said he plans to discuss the intelligence with Chinese leaders. "Well, we'll talk to them about it. It took place a long time ago," Trump said from the Oval Office. "I think China's maybe a little bit different today than it was then.

But look, they do things. And we do things to them. I'll be honest. We do things to them, too. It's not a one-way street. " Trump did not detail what actions the United States has taken against China.

A March 2021 U.S. intelligence report found the intelligence community had high confidence that China did not attempt to interfere in the 2020 election, though it considered but did not deploy an effort to change the outcome. Trump's July 16 speech cited declassified documents that included information previously reported in U.S. intelligence assessments.