As I understand his argument, it goes like: the 2020 Trump administration so badly bungled national security that foreign agents corrupted the election. The 2024 Biden administration fixed things enough to produce a fair election. Now that Trump is back in charge, he, himself, is saying that the 2026 election is going to be just as corrupt as the last time he was in charge.
Seems highly out of character to admit that he's incompetent., but whatever
Not true... There is evidence...He released documents that directly show Russian interference in the election on his behalf, and them being the source of the fake Biden/Burisma stuff.
@minorkeys@inclementimmigrant ugh, that's what they always do. Send "them" back to Germany where laws would likely take care of them and drag Ivana's remains and send them to putin.
Yep we should always be able to question what we know. Otherwise how do we know that we really know it. And yeah, I can't think of a good state. There are some that are less damaging but that has more to do with external factors than the state itself.
Systematic partisan content skews in TikTok during the 2024 US elections
We doing the "Singapore company heavily invested in by US Tech Billionaires is Chinese State Propaganda"? Is this like how Facebook is controlled by Russia? Or FOX News is the black hand of the insidious Australians? Is Twitter a cut-out for the ANC of South Africa?
How many American billionaires are going to do American propaganda on American media platforms before Americans realize that the ones pushing an American politician born in America and heavily influential in both American political parties are American?
And it wasnât just China either.
You know someone's just dishing xenophobic agitprop when they fish out a fist full of "Evil Foreigners Are Controlling The Media" but refuse to mention India, Qatar, the UK, or Israel.
But it still rankles that every single major media studio has a HQ in NY, Chicago, or LA, and y'all never stop to think "Fuck, maybe that's where the propaganda is coming from."
Just because byte dance who still owned Tick Tock in 2020 pushed us servers off to singapore. Doesn't mean that byte dance and by extension the Chinese government no longer had control. Tick Tock has always been right wing owned. Bite dance has always been a capitalist company. The current CCP is state capitalist. But the major shift to American capitalist ownership didn't even have until 2026. Long after they had helped elect Trump again. And things have arguably only gotten worse.
And what are you? Bibi netanyahu's brother? Yes I am exactly as racist against China for being against their government, as people who are against the government of Israel are anti-semitic. Which is to say I'm not. I'm also against the government of the United States Canada UK etc etc etc generally. But damn you're disappointing. You had a perfect chance to use your camps buzzword and you missed it. I was waiting for you to call me sinophobic. Which I mean was basically what you did. But even as a 𤥠you did it in the most impotent and baseless way.
O don't know where the hate for China comes from. Oh their spying on you. Oh their cars could spy on you. So no different then every American company. But i guess american spying good Chinese bad. I which both these fucking countries would just implode. It would be hard since UA minor countries would have to actually start doing shit ourselves but with it.
First of all, nobody here ever said the USA was great.
China is an authoritarian state which bans the mere sharing of information as a criminal offense. They have successfully committed multiple genocides. They promote war abroad by backing similar regimes in North Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, often funneling weapons in during the process. They singlehandedly kept the Russian invasion of Ukraine afloat. They have conquered Tibet and Hong Kong with millitant force and are preparing to conquer Taiwan and part of India. They used the IRGC to attack a music festival in Israel and jumpstart the most recent round of war across the entire middle east. They now have military footholds across Africa recently. They promoted Donald Trump and the GOP as well as alt-right leaders in Germany and other EU provinces. Even their trade practices are scummy by utilizing largescale slave labor and subsidies to undercut all competition and doing currency manipulation to make countries under hard times have even harder times as their economic recovery is seen as strengthening their enemies: everyone not subservient is their enemy.
So fuck China. China is the largest threat to human life on earth. China must be destroyed before they destroy us all.
I just hate the state myself. I've worked with Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Philippino and even know a tiny tiny useless bit of Mandarin. They're just people like everyone else. Just as the state is always the state, and not your friend. Doesn't matter where they come from.
There absolutely should be none of these unwieldy unmanageable entities state or business wise. Just self governing communities allying with other communities for mutual benefit and aid. Not holding eachother back. Tribalism/campism is always the stumbling block.
Fucking wild to tune into MSNBC and get the latest "China Invasion Of American Media" scare story, then spin around and call someone else a campist, though.
Chinese companies like byte dance still answer to the Chinese government. Who is notoriously controlling. It doesn't matter who the major investors are. All the investors care is if they are making money and if they stand to make more.
You cannot celebrate China as a country that regularly puts people in Chinese companies to death for what it's deems corruption. And not simultaneously claim that such companies are free to operate however they want independently.
And if you're going to keep being bad faith and using baseless arguments. Which you are. Again use the right terms. I don't even watch it, but even I know it's MSNow not MSNBC.
Chinese companies like byte dance still answer to the Chinese government.
Bytedance isn't a Chinese company. It's a multinational - just like so many of the other social media companies - with corporate oversight coming from the same Silicon Valley cartel that backed Trump on every other platform.
And if youâre going to keep being bad faith
Why is it so hard for you to accept that Americans did this to themselves?
Why do you need to make this an Evil Foreigner problem that can be used as a rationale for war?
Beijing operated psyop TikTok favored Republicans and even promoted Trump by name, leading to the largest ever shift rightwards to conservative among youth voters ever recorded in the USA.
I'm not wishing anything, just stating the obvious. And if anything, Trump has made it much much more likely that other countries will use force to fulfill their perceived interests. You'd have to be asleep not to realize it.
Perhaps I should have put it in quotes, "careful what you wish for" intended as the expression and "you" being China.
An imbecile is desirable in some ways to have the USA act against it's own best interests making competitive interests easier, however when the imbecile goes and bombs Iran, that is a problem. And who knows what bone head move to screw things up for everyone comes next.
In some ways an imbecile is harder to predict and negotiate with.
Guess the end of democracy isn't enough of a crisis for a f*ing newspaper to let people find out about it without a subscription fee.
America may be dying but at least it's dying doing what it loves - playing chicken with disaster for a quick buck while pretending nobody has any responsibility to anybody else.
Trump Just Did More Damage to American Elections Than China
His speech was a mash-up of charges that arenât supported by the documents he released.
By Tom Nichols
July 16, 2026
President Trump addressed the American people tonight and told them that their elections are at the mercy of foreign actorsâespecially China. He called the current situation a âcrisisâ and vowed to prevent any future elections from being âstolen.â He directed the public to a website where people can peruse documents that he says prove not only that bad actors have influenced U.S. elections, but that all of this was kept from him by âdeep stateâ malefactors during his first term.
Foreign powers do, in fact, try to influence American elections, but that was about all that the presidentâwho seems shocked that other nations have preferences about who wins elected office in the United Statesâgot right. The rest was a mishmash: Much of the previously classified material that Trump just splattered on the internet does not support his accusations, and in some cases, these declassified documents actually undermine and refute his charges.
Trumpâs speech tonight rested on a few solid facts submerged in wild, and even somewhat paranoid, extrapolations. Itâs true that bad actors have accessed basic data about the names and addresses of voters in several states. Itâs also true that China has some pretty strong views about Trump and probably didnât want him to be reelected in 2020. (The Chinese wanted him out because, Trump said, âI was wise to them,â which does not explain how he was nonetheless hoodwinked.)
From there, however, we slip the surly bonds of Earth and head into the dark and cold of the space of conspiracy theories. Trump strongly implied that in 2018, China was on the attack and trying to influence the outcome of the 2020 election, and that American intelligence operatives plotted to keep that from him while he was in the Oval Office. He said that attempts to rectify all of this have fallen âcatastrophically shortâ but that he will take âswiftâ action in the coming days.
The documents he offered tonight, though, tell a different storyâso different that they raise the question of whether Trump, or anyone else in the White House, actually read them.
For example, one of the memos from the National Intelligence Council (the analytical group within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence) said in 2020 that the group in charge of cyberissues and threats to U.S. elections âassesses that Beijing has taken at least some low-level, exploratory steps to undermine the Presidentâs reelection chances by denigrating him and shaping voter perceptions.â
That sounds pretty bad. Except that (as often happens in the intelligence community) this group was representing a minority view, as it says in the very next sentence: âTheir assessment differs from the ICâs judgment that Beijing has considered but not deployed influence efforts to affect the Presidential election.â
So, which is it? The IC (shorthand for intelligence community) seems to have reached a pretty firm judgment in these documents: âThe IC,â one of the memos says (with some passages redacted),
has seen no evidence that Beijing is engaged in an effort to influence the outcome of the presidential election, nor has it observed activity that it assesses is likely the result of such an effort by Beijing. While we have seen Beijing develop other options that could be used to influence the election, we have not seen these capabilities deployed.
Note that what these documents discuss are influence operationsâpropaganda, proxies who speak for foreign interests, fake stories, and so onârather than interference, which would involve actual manipulation of data or sabotaging of electoral infrastructure. These classified revelations, despite Trumpâs assertions, show that the intelligence community didnât even agree that China was fully engaged even in these more limited influence operations.
One document says, with more firmness, that the Chinese were attempting to undermine Trumpâs chances and to pressure business partners into withdrawing support for the presidentâs reelection. This is perfectly plausible behavior from a U.S. adversary. Of course, Trump skipped over the part about other nations, including one where âsenior officialsâ and their leader were seeking to âcovertly influence US politiciansâ and political candidatesâ thinkingâ about the election.
That nation? Turkey.
On one point, however, the declassified reports are clear. One country, more than any other, actively engaged in operations against the 2020 election: Russia. And the Russians had a clear preference:
We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia establishment. For example, it is directing or encouraging proxies to spread claims about Vice President Biden. Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trumpâs candidacy on social media.
This isnât news, but Trump carefully cherry-picked his way around it. In charts provided by the White House itself that compare Russia, China, and Iran, only Russia is judged to be actively involved in such efforts.
Trump not only ignored these multiple (and much more categorical) judgments; he interpreted the normal in-house fighting that goes on every day in the intelligence community as evidence of some sort of plot against him. He made much of a comment in a group emailâthese conspirators were pretty relaxed about sending their nefarious ideas around to everyoneâabout âmassagingâ the Presidentâs daily brief to take out references to the 2020 election. But the conversation was clearly about which product would include such issues, and how strongly the minority view would be stated. Like so much else in the speech and the documents, Trump threw everything he could find at the wall in the hope that some of it would stick.
So what, then, was the point of Trumpâs speech? First, he is almost certainly trying to soothe his wounded ego over the 2020 election. He is obsessed with his loss to Biden and wants to blame it on foreign manipulation. But Trump might also have a darker motive, attacking the integrity of American elections because he wants to delegitimize the coming midtermsâand perhaps even create the predicate for interfering in them.
The Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, the North Koreans, and many other enemies of the United States clearly hope to undermine the faith of every American citizen in their own elections. But no regime, no spies, no saboteurs have yet matched the damage that Americaâs own president did tonight.
Yes that was the goal. And if he doesnât get that bill passed (and frankly even it goes through) then Americans will be saying hello to his private army dragging people off at the polls. This has been predicted since day 1. The only thing this speech did was start getting his troops in motion. Everyone knows there was no proof of anything except the opposite of what he said in those documents, but that wasnât the point because his cultists donât read.
Voters doing absolutely nothing to stop a self serving grifter rapist insurrectionist with a stated intention to do, and past record of doing just that, kinda does that.
A felon with dozens of convictions is running the place, and has already successfully taken many actions that should be illegal for the president to do. I somehow doubt they'll suddenly start caring about the rules now.
He has done all sorts of shit that he's not supposed to be able to do. He's literally a convicted felon FFS. He "can't" redact or classify Epstein docs either but somehow he manages.
The CCP and PLA knew MAGA would weaken the USA and that is what they want. There are enough dumbfuck voters in the USA that will continue to guzzle down the shit from Moscow and Beijing.
I remember when all this came out. Came out with the stuff about the Russian's doing the same thing. Which if they called that the Russia hoax, and Russia was shown to be much more effective at it, what do we call this?
The research showed that the Chinese propoganda machine was super ineffective on American politics, but very effective on ethnically and nationally Chinese people, which is why they now have police stations all over the world which can capture and extradite Chinese people and Chinese national Uighars around the world.
On which, that the Chinese effort wasn't as effective on the general American populace as the Russian campaign, or the Chinese police stations? For the latter it's related to the Safeguard report release in 2016 of which multiple governments confirmed the grand diaspora government program had created hundreds of non embassy 'service stations" that just happened to be related to credible reports of tracking and intimidation. Of which a dude was just convicted in the US for, when they went after him, him and his partner started burning shit like they were a Russian embassy.
Or the ineffective but present propoganda efforts by the prc that resulted in multiple news agencies being required to register as foreign agents in 2018 and an increase in IRA style social media campaigns around the covid pandemic.
Always take it with a grain of salt! Don't gotta trust us American pig dogs too much, you got French, English, German, Dutch. Man you name it they got it on the creepy NGO Chinese police "service stations".
None of this is to say the Americans don't do the same shit and worse, the American government mad at foreign interference by Chinese and Russians is like the fucking Spiderman meme.
As alleged in the complaint, Lu and Chen are charged with conspiring to act as agents of the PRC government as well as obstructing justice by destroying evidence of their communications with an MPS official. The defendants worked together to establish the first overseas police station in the United States on behalf of the Fuzhou branch of the MPS. The police station â which closed in the fall of 2022 after those operating it became aware of the FBIâs investigation â occupied a floor in an office building in Manhattanâs Chinatown. While acting under the direction and control of an MPS Official, Lu and Chen helped open and operate the clandestine police station. None of the participants in the scheme informed the U.S. government that they were helping the PRC government surreptitiously open and operate an illegal MPS police station on U.S. soil.
âThe PRC, through its repressive security apparatus, established a secret physical presence in New York City to monitor and intimidate dissidents and those critical of its government,â said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Departmentâs National Security Division. âThe PRCâs actions go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct. We will resolutely defend the freedoms of all those living in our country from the threat of authoritarian repression.â
"Since early 2026, French counterintelligence services have dismantled nine clandestine structures operating in France under the direction of China's Ministry of Public Security. The sites were notably used to track down dissidents."
Citing the arrest documents of Chinese nationals operating an illegal police station to intimidate dissidents, thoroughly disproving your "debunked" link from a different city and country.
Take the "L", move on, and don't report comments you disagree with when they are materially factual.
107 Comments
tburkhol@slrpnk.net · 165 pts · 42d
As I understand his argument, it goes like: the 2020 Trump administration so badly bungled national security that foreign agents corrupted the election. The 2024 Biden administration fixed things enough to produce a fair election. Now that Trump is back in charge, he, himself, is saying that the 2026 election is going to be just as corrupt as the last time he was in charge.
Seems highly out of character to admit that he's incompetent., but whatever
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 42d
AIPAC laughing its ass off
kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 41d
You do realize the statement is from Trump's point of view?
defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 42d
Clearly it was all the fault of Obamna.
artyom@piefed.social · 50 pts · 42d
He did no such thing. He just did what he's been doing for the last 10 years and continued making more claims with no evidence.
Elections remain firmly in the control of states, for now. For exactly this reason.
halcyoncmdr@piefed.social · 3 pts · 41d
Not true... There is evidence...He released documents that directly show Russian interference in the election on his behalf, and them being the source of the fake Biden/Burisma stuff.
So, just not evidence of what he claimed.
minorkeys@sh.itjust.works · 38 pts · 42d
He invented a threat to which the only solution is giving him more power.
You don't have to even look at the details.
bedifferent@mastodon.social · 3 pts · 42d
@minorkeys @inclementimmigrant ugh, that's what they always do. Send "them" back to Germany where laws would likely take care of them and drag Ivana's remains and send them to putin.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · 36 pts · 42d
Counterpoint: China helped elect Trump
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 42d
In what way?
Eldritch@piefed.world · 31 pts · 42d
Propaganda, same as the CIA and the US does it. Either both are correct or both are wrong. And it wasn't just China either.
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net · 10 pts · 42d
Thanks. I knew about the Russian stuff but this is the first I've heard about Chinese actions in this vein.
Eldritch@piefed.world · 6 pts · 42d
Heh yeah I was going to say. I've seen you around posting enough that I certainly didn't think you were a campist.
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net · 7 pts · 42d
I try my best not to be, but living in the west I will acknowledge the possibility that I have some bias towards my own culture.
But I am openly biased against governments because fuck the state.
Eldritch@piefed.world · 6 pts · 42d
You and me both. đ¤đ¤
Yep we should always be able to question what we know. Otherwise how do we know that we really know it. And yeah, I can't think of a good state. There are some that are less damaging but that has more to do with external factors than the state itself.
watson387@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 41d
Exactly. Blind faith just makes you a sucker.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · -6 pts · 42d
We doing the "Singapore company heavily invested in by US Tech Billionaires is Chinese State Propaganda"? Is this like how Facebook is controlled by Russia? Or FOX News is the black hand of the insidious Australians? Is Twitter a cut-out for the ANC of South Africa?
How many American billionaires are going to do American propaganda on American media platforms before Americans realize that the ones pushing an American politician born in America and heavily influential in both American political parties are American?
You know someone's just dishing xenophobic agitprop when they fish out a fist full of "Evil Foreigners Are Controlling The Media" but refuse to mention India, Qatar, the UK, or Israel.
But it still rankles that every single major media studio has a HQ in NY, Chicago, or LA, and y'all never stop to think "Fuck, maybe that's where the propaganda is coming from."
Phantaloons@piefed.zip · 8 pts · 42d
Why do all these assclown China-defenders post the same way?
you just know eh?
Eldritch@piefed.world · 7 pts · 42d
Found the campist. đ¤Ą
Just because byte dance who still owned Tick Tock in 2020 pushed us servers off to singapore. Doesn't mean that byte dance and by extension the Chinese government no longer had control. Tick Tock has always been right wing owned. Bite dance has always been a capitalist company. The current CCP is state capitalist. But the major shift to American capitalist ownership didn't even have until 2026. Long after they had helped elect Trump again. And things have arguably only gotten worse.
And what are you? Bibi netanyahu's brother? Yes I am exactly as racist against China for being against their government, as people who are against the government of Israel are anti-semitic. Which is to say I'm not. I'm also against the government of the United States Canada UK etc etc etc generally. But damn you're disappointing. You had a perfect chance to use your camps buzzword and you missed it. I was waiting for you to call me sinophobic. Which I mean was basically what you did. But even as a 𤥠you did it in the most impotent and baseless way.
Auli@lemmy.ca · -3 pts · 42d
O don't know where the hate for China comes from. Oh their spying on you. Oh their cars could spy on you. So no different then every American company. But i guess american spying good Chinese bad. I which both these fucking countries would just implode. It would be hard since UA minor countries would have to actually start doing shit ourselves but with it.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · 3 pts · 42d
First of all, nobody here ever said the USA was great.
China is an authoritarian state which bans the mere sharing of information as a criminal offense. They have successfully committed multiple genocides. They promote war abroad by backing similar regimes in North Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, often funneling weapons in during the process. They singlehandedly kept the Russian invasion of Ukraine afloat. They have conquered Tibet and Hong Kong with millitant force and are preparing to conquer Taiwan and part of India. They used the IRGC to attack a music festival in Israel and jumpstart the most recent round of war across the entire middle east. They now have military footholds across Africa recently. They promoted Donald Trump and the GOP as well as alt-right leaders in Germany and other EU provinces. Even their trade practices are scummy by utilizing largescale slave labor and subsidies to undercut all competition and doing currency manipulation to make countries under hard times have even harder times as their economic recovery is seen as strengthening their enemies: everyone not subservient is their enemy.
So fuck China. China is the largest threat to human life on earth. China must be destroyed before they destroy us all.
Eldritch@piefed.world · 2 pts · 42d
I just hate the state myself. I've worked with Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Philippino and even know a tiny tiny useless bit of Mandarin. They're just people like everyone else. Just as the state is always the state, and not your friend. Doesn't matter where they come from.
There absolutely should be none of these unwieldy unmanageable entities state or business wise. Just self governing communities allying with other communities for mutual benefit and aid. Not holding eachother back. Tribalism/campism is always the stumbling block.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · -7 pts · 42d
And who owns ByteDance?
:-/
At least we're getting to the nut of it.
Fucking wild to tune into MSNBC and get the latest "China Invasion Of American Media" scare story, then spin around and call someone else a campist, though.
Eldritch@piefed.world · 6 pts · 42d
Chinese companies like byte dance still answer to the Chinese government. Who is notoriously controlling. It doesn't matter who the major investors are. All the investors care is if they are making money and if they stand to make more.
You cannot celebrate China as a country that regularly puts people in Chinese companies to death for what it's deems corruption. And not simultaneously claim that such companies are free to operate however they want independently.
And if you're going to keep being bad faith and using baseless arguments. Which you are. Again use the right terms. I don't even watch it, but even I know it's MSNow not MSNBC.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 42d
Bytedance isn't a Chinese company. It's a multinational - just like so many of the other social media companies - with corporate oversight coming from the same Silicon Valley cartel that backed Trump on every other platform.
Why is it so hard for you to accept that Americans did this to themselves?
Why do you need to make this an Evil Foreigner problem that can be used as a rationale for war?
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · 7 pts · 42d
Beijing operated psyop TikTok favored Republicans and even promoted Trump by name, leading to the largest ever shift rightwards to conservative among youth voters ever recorded in the USA.
Saryn@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 42d
Pretty sure China wouldn't mind an utter imbecile as US president every single time.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 41d
I have some news about your past presidents..
Saryn@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 38d
You mean President Petar Stoyanov, from 1997-2002?!
Do tell me about my past presidents, dumbass.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 38d
Sorry for assuming, prick.
jj4211@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 41d
That is a careful what you wish for.
Not so smart as to challenge competitively, but not so dumb as to think they can go bombing whoever they feel like to get their way.
Saryn@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 38d
I'm not wishing anything, just stating the obvious. And if anything, Trump has made it much much more likely that other countries will use force to fulfill their perceived interests. You'd have to be asleep not to realize it.
jj4211@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 38d
Perhaps I should have put it in quotes, "careful what you wish for" intended as the expression and "you" being China.
An imbecile is desirable in some ways to have the USA act against it's own best interests making competitive interests easier, however when the imbecile goes and bombs Iran, that is a problem. And who knows what bone head move to screw things up for everyone comes next.
In some ways an imbecile is harder to predict and negotiate with.
SabinStargem@lemmy.today · 20 pts · 41d
As an American, I can't say that I ever felt threatened by China. But by American Confederates? Definitely.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 41d
The intelligent American, checking in. Thanks man. Tell your friends.
BillyClark@piefed.social · 17 pts · 42d
Trump just did more damage to American elections than he did damage to Iran.
mycodesucks@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 41d
Good thing this is paywalled.
Guess the end of democracy isn't enough of a crisis for a f*ing newspaper to let people find out about it without a subscription fee.
America may be dying but at least it's dying doing what it loves - playing chicken with disaster for a quick buck while pretending nobody has any responsibility to anybody else.
quick_snail@feddit.nl · 11 pts · 41d
Trump Just Did More Damage to American Elections Than China His speech was a mash-up of charges that arenât supported by the documents he released.
By Tom Nichols July 16, 2026
President Trump addressed the American people tonight and told them that their elections are at the mercy of foreign actorsâespecially China. He called the current situation a âcrisisâ and vowed to prevent any future elections from being âstolen.â He directed the public to a website where people can peruse documents that he says prove not only that bad actors have influenced U.S. elections, but that all of this was kept from him by âdeep stateâ malefactors during his first term.
Foreign powers do, in fact, try to influence American elections, but that was about all that the presidentâwho seems shocked that other nations have preferences about who wins elected office in the United Statesâgot right. The rest was a mishmash: Much of the previously classified material that Trump just splattered on the internet does not support his accusations, and in some cases, these declassified documents actually undermine and refute his charges.
Trumpâs speech tonight rested on a few solid facts submerged in wild, and even somewhat paranoid, extrapolations. Itâs true that bad actors have accessed basic data about the names and addresses of voters in several states. Itâs also true that China has some pretty strong views about Trump and probably didnât want him to be reelected in 2020. (The Chinese wanted him out because, Trump said, âI was wise to them,â which does not explain how he was nonetheless hoodwinked.)
From there, however, we slip the surly bonds of Earth and head into the dark and cold of the space of conspiracy theories. Trump strongly implied that in 2018, China was on the attack and trying to influence the outcome of the 2020 election, and that American intelligence operatives plotted to keep that from him while he was in the Oval Office. He said that attempts to rectify all of this have fallen âcatastrophically shortâ but that he will take âswiftâ action in the coming days.
The documents he offered tonight, though, tell a different storyâso different that they raise the question of whether Trump, or anyone else in the White House, actually read them.
For example, one of the memos from the National Intelligence Council (the analytical group within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence) said in 2020 that the group in charge of cyberissues and threats to U.S. elections âassesses that Beijing has taken at least some low-level, exploratory steps to undermine the Presidentâs reelection chances by denigrating him and shaping voter perceptions.â
That sounds pretty bad. Except that (as often happens in the intelligence community) this group was representing a minority view, as it says in the very next sentence: âTheir assessment differs from the ICâs judgment that Beijing has considered but not deployed influence efforts to affect the Presidential election.â
So, which is it? The IC (shorthand for intelligence community) seems to have reached a pretty firm judgment in these documents: âThe IC,â one of the memos says (with some passages redacted),
has seen no evidence that Beijing is engaged in an effort to influence the outcome of the presidential election, nor has it observed activity that it assesses is likely the result of such an effort by Beijing. While we have seen Beijing develop other options that could be used to influence the election, we have not seen these capabilities deployed.
Note that what these documents discuss are influence operationsâpropaganda, proxies who speak for foreign interests, fake stories, and so onârather than interference, which would involve actual manipulation of data or sabotaging of electoral infrastructure. These classified revelations, despite Trumpâs assertions, show that the intelligence community didnât even agree that China was fully engaged even in these more limited influence operations.
One document says, with more firmness, that the Chinese were attempting to undermine Trumpâs chances and to pressure business partners into withdrawing support for the presidentâs reelection. This is perfectly plausible behavior from a U.S. adversary. Of course, Trump skipped over the part about other nations, including one where âsenior officialsâ and their leader were seeking to âcovertly influence US politiciansâ and political candidatesâ thinkingâ about the election.
That nation? Turkey.
On one point, however, the declassified reports are clear. One country, more than any other, actively engaged in operations against the 2020 election: Russia. And the Russians had a clear preference:
We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia establishment. For example, it is directing or encouraging proxies to spread claims about Vice President Biden. Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trumpâs candidacy on social media.
This isnât news, but Trump carefully cherry-picked his way around it. In charts provided by the White House itself that compare Russia, China, and Iran, only Russia is judged to be actively involved in such efforts.
Trump not only ignored these multiple (and much more categorical) judgments; he interpreted the normal in-house fighting that goes on every day in the intelligence community as evidence of some sort of plot against him. He made much of a comment in a group emailâthese conspirators were pretty relaxed about sending their nefarious ideas around to everyoneâabout âmassagingâ the Presidentâs daily brief to take out references to the 2020 election. But the conversation was clearly about which product would include such issues, and how strongly the minority view would be stated. Like so much else in the speech and the documents, Trump threw everything he could find at the wall in the hope that some of it would stick.
So what, then, was the point of Trumpâs speech? First, he is almost certainly trying to soothe his wounded ego over the 2020 election. He is obsessed with his loss to Biden and wants to blame it on foreign manipulation. But Trump might also have a darker motive, attacking the integrity of American elections because he wants to delegitimize the coming midtermsâand perhaps even create the predicate for interfering in them.
The Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, the North Koreans, and many other enemies of the United States clearly hope to undermine the faith of every American citizen in their own elections. But no regime, no spies, no saboteurs have yet matched the damage that Americaâs own president did tonight.
quick_snail@feddit.nl · 1 pts · 41d
Actually it loads fine. Maybe try a text based browser?
the_tab_key@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 41d
Do you expect these journalists to work for free? Sure they could make the site ad supported but then you have to deal with that.
Edit: since you didn't respond to me and just downvoted, I'll take your answer as "yes".
TemplaerDude@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 41d
Yes that was the goal. And if he doesnât get that bill passed (and frankly even it goes through) then Americans will be saying hello to his private army dragging people off at the polls. This has been predicted since day 1. The only thing this speech did was start getting his troops in motion. Everyone knows there was no proof of anything except the opposite of what he said in those documents, but that wasnât the point because his cultists donât read.
stumu415@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 41d
If you read the documents, China did not interfere at all. They wanted Trump to be president and the American people did this all by themselves.
JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 41d
Voters doing absolutely nothing to stop a self serving grifter rapist insurrectionist with a stated intention to do, and past record of doing just that, kinda does that.
But try telling the sitouts that.
emmanuel_car@fedia.io · 9 pts · 42d
Was he trying to damage China?
shittydwarf@piefed.ca · 26 pts · 42d
Just making up shit so he can reject the results when he gets pantsed
ThePantser@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 42d
You called?
kmartburrito@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 42d
It was a call to action. Unlike US politics, we're expecting to actually see results. Get to it!
Maeve@kbin.earth · 5 pts · 42d
Both
dmtalon@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 42d
Pantsed where? He can't run again he's not gonna be on the ballot in 2028
Uncle_Ben@fedinsfw.app · 9 pts · 42d
A felon with dozens of convictions is running the place, and has already successfully taken many actions that should be illegal for the president to do. I somehow doubt they'll suddenly start caring about the rules now.
Eldritch@piefed.world · 5 pts · 42d
And who's going to hold him to that? It won't even be the first unconstitutional thing he's done today.
i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.de · 5 pts · 42d
That's what you think. The constitution doesn't matter anymore. He never stopped campaigning after the last election.
artyom@piefed.social · 4 pts · 42d
He has done all sorts of shit that he's not supposed to be able to do. He's literally a convicted felon FFS. He "can't" redact or classify Epstein docs either but somehow he manages.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 41d
Well yeah, because China didn't damage them at all.
Serinus@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 42d
Trump just did more damage to American elections than Monaco.
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 42d
The CCP and PLA knew MAGA would weaken the USA and that is what they want. There are enough dumbfuck voters in the USA that will continue to guzzle down the shit from Moscow and Beijing.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 15 pts · 42d
America does American thing Americanly:
IT WAS THOSE GOD DAMN FOREIGNERS!!
Dryad@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 42d
Ah, so weâre into the paranoid delusional phase of the dementia onset now. What fun!
Wren@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 42d
Archive link for no paywalls: https://removepaywalls.com/3/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/trump-address/687939/
deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz · 2 pts · 41d
It's always someone else's fault.
AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 42d
I remember when all this came out. Came out with the stuff about the Russian's doing the same thing. Which if they called that the Russia hoax, and Russia was shown to be much more effective at it, what do we call this?
The research showed that the Chinese propoganda machine was super ineffective on American politics, but very effective on ethnically and nationally Chinese people, which is why they now have police stations all over the world which can capture and extradite Chinese people and Chinese national Uighars around the world.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 41d
Lmao
AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 41d
On which, that the Chinese effort wasn't as effective on the general American populace as the Russian campaign, or the Chinese police stations? For the latter it's related to the Safeguard report release in 2016 of which multiple governments confirmed the grand diaspora government program had created hundreds of non embassy 'service stations" that just happened to be related to credible reports of tracking and intimidation. Of which a dude was just convicted in the US for, when they went after him, him and his partner started burning shit like they were a Russian embassy.
Or the ineffective but present propoganda efforts by the prc that resulted in multiple news agencies being required to register as foreign agents in 2018 and an increase in IRA style social media campaigns around the covid pandemic.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 41d
I don't trust any American government agency or their reports. Do you?
AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 41d
Always take it with a grain of salt! Don't gotta trust us American pig dogs too much, you got French, English, German, Dutch. Man you name it they got it on the creepy NGO Chinese police "service stations".
None of this is to say the Americans don't do the same shit and worse, the American government mad at foreign interference by Chinese and Russians is like the fucking Spiderman meme.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 41d
No, they don't.
Maybe you should have taken more than a grain.
AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 41d
Oooh, one Canadian senator did a speech with no link to the actual report, bet you had to dig to find this one!
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 41d
Do you know what the RCMP are, lol?
jordanlund@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 41d
This was reported as "conspiracy nonsense", but if you know, you know:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-are-chinas-alleged-secret-overseas-police-stations
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/06/18/france-shuts-down-clandestine-chinese-police-stations-operating-on-its-territory_6754608_7.html
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 41d
It was reported, investigated, and found to be bullshit.
jordanlund@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 41d
In Montreal, not New York City, or France:
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/two-arrested-operating-illegal-overseas-police-station-chinese-government
As alleged in the complaint, Lu and Chen are charged with conspiring to act as agents of the PRC government as well as obstructing justice by destroying evidence of their communications with an MPS official. The defendants worked together to establish the first overseas police station in the United States on behalf of the Fuzhou branch of the MPS. The police station â which closed in the fall of 2022 after those operating it became aware of the FBIâs investigation â occupied a floor in an office building in Manhattanâs Chinatown. While acting under the direction and control of an MPS Official, Lu and Chen helped open and operate the clandestine police station. None of the participants in the scheme informed the U.S. government that they were helping the PRC government surreptitiously open and operate an illegal MPS police station on U.S. soil.
âThe PRC, through its repressive security apparatus, established a secret physical presence in New York City to monitor and intimidate dissidents and those critical of its government,â said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Departmentâs National Security Division. âThe PRCâs actions go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct. We will resolutely defend the freedoms of all those living in our country from the threat of authoritarian repression.â
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/06/18/france-shuts-down-clandestine-chinese-police-stations-operating-on-its-territory_6754608_7.html
"Since early 2026, French counterintelligence services have dismantled nine clandestine structures operating in France under the direction of China's Ministry of Public Security. The sites were notably used to track down dissidents."
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 41d
jordanlund@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 41d
"Monday, April 17, 2023"
Who was President in 2023? đ
Citing the arrest documents of Chinese nationals operating an illegal police station to intimidate dissidents, thoroughly disproving your "debunked" link from a different city and country.
Take the "L", move on, and don't report comments you disagree with when they are materially factual.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 41d
jordanlund@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 41d
No, it's proof you think Trump was President a year before he was re-elected and 2 years before he was actually President.
Have you considered changing your username to "confidentlywrong" instead of "Nonconfrontational"?
DEFINITELY more on brand.
Again, you lose sir, I award you no points.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 41d
Gates9@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 41d
Sunflier@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 41d
Maeve@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 42d
There's an archive article