Takeaways from Trump’s speech on election integrity

WASHINGTON—President Trump addressed the nation Thursday from the White House, where he delivered allegations of foreign influence in U.S. elections. His administration began releasing what he described as previously classified documents to support his assertions, and he repeated some of the unsubstantiated claims he has said in the past.

Here are the takeaways:

He alleged China tried to influence 2020 election

After a few minutes lauding the American economy, the president turned to the topic that made up the bulk of his speech: what he described as vulnerabilities in the nation’s election infrastructure.

He said he was declassifying a tranche of documents, including ones showing that China illicitly acquired 220 million U.S. voter files, starting during the 2020 election cycle. That allowed China to obtain names, addresses and other sensitive data, the president said.

While Trump didn’t name the states affected, he said Thursday night that his administration was in the process of notifying the ones affected.

State voter rolls, which they create and maintain, are currently the subject of a legal tussle. Partial lists are readily available, but federal officials have sued 30 states that have refused to turn over the most complete versions, which could include driver’s license numbers, birth dates, partial or complete Social Security numbers and sometimes party registration.

Trump cited a ‘deep state’ cover up

The president blamed a “deep state” that includes people in U.S. intelligence agencies for covering up what he said was China’s interference in the 2020 election. “Those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information hidden,” Trump said.

Trump quoted from a report he released Thursday that he said showed the Chinese Communist Party’s policy was to prevent his election.

“The reason they wanted me to lose is because they knew I was wise to them,” Trump said, adding: “They knew I’d charge them billions and billions of dollars worth of tariffs” and boost the U.S. military.

A U.S. intelligence assessment released in March 2021 assessed with “high confidence” that Beijing did consider an influence campaign to affect the outcome of the 2020 election but ultimately didn’t deploy it.

The U.S. intelligence community concluded that China didn’t attempt to compromise election infrastructure or fund American candidates or political parties. China concluded that both a Trump and a Joe Biden victory would present challenges and gave priority to stability in its relationship with Washington, according to the 2021 intelligence assessment.

He claimed Venezuela tampered with voting machines

Trump said the U.S. must secure voting machines to avoid meddling and pointed to Venezuela as an example. He said the Central Intelligence Agency obtained information about a purported plan by the government under Nicolás Maduro to use voting machines to manipulate vote totals digitally in Venezuela’s 2020 elections.

“This intelligence underscores why we must take urgent action to ensure that our own systems can never be hacked or compromised,” Trump said.

After the 2020 election, Trump and some of his allies promoted claims that voting-machine companies with alleged ties to Venezuela had helped rig the result. Those theories gained new traction in the White House during Trump’s second term, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.

A 2021 review by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security concluded that allegations that Venezuela owned or controlled voting systems used by the U.S., or manipulated election infrastructure to change votes, were unsubstantiated and not credible.

Trump alleged voter registration by noncitizens

He said his administration was releasing results of an investigation saying that more than 250,000 noncitizens are registered to vote. He said that finding was based on information provided by states that did agree to give their detailed voter rolls to the federal government.

Officials from states that refused to turn over the information said they believed it would be manipulated by the federal government to bolster claims of voter fraud.

Last year, federal agencies began trying to create a mass voter verification system, drawing on immigration and citizenship data in particular. The effort was recently blocked by a federal judge who said the results weren’t accurate.

He urged Congress to pass the Save America Act

Trump closed by once again pushing Congress to pass the Save America Act, which would restrict mail-in ballots and require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote.

“Every American, whether you’re a Republican, Democrat, independent or otherwise, should be able to agree that we deserve the most secure, honest and fair election system,” Trump said.

The legislation has run into hurdles in the Senate. No Democrats support it, and some Republicans are reluctant to implement widespread voter laws that have previously been left up to the states.

Trump has repeatedly said that he didn’t lose the election to Biden in 2020. Since returning to office last year, he has used the powers of government to investigate the election, which came in the midst of a global pandemic and had the highest turnout in decades. Trump and his allies lost dozens of court cases across several states challenging Biden’s win. State and federal judges dismissed the cases, often for being speculative or lacking evidence.

Write to Natalie Andrews at natalie.andrews@wsj.com and Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@wsj.com