Fact-check: Partially true and false statements in Donald Trump's speech

The speech delivered by Donald Trump on the night of July 16-17, 2026, was designed as a show of presidential strength, but in reality had a much more specific political objective: to reinstate electoral fraud at the center of the campaign for the November midterm elections and to legitimize radical changes to voting rules. According to a fact-check conducted by a section of the US media, President Trump's statements combined real, but conveniently selected, economic data with only partially true statements, unsupported extrapolations, and serious accusations that the declassified documents do not prove. As a result, American journalists claim that although the Trump Administration has published information confirming the existence of cyber threats, attempts at influence, vulnerable databases and possible registration irregularities, it has not presented evidence that a foreign government modified votes, that voting machines changed the result of the 2020 election or that electoral fraud was extensive enough to cause Trump's defeat.

• China and the 220 million electoral files: possible security incident, not evidence of fraud

Trump claimed that the People's Republic of China carried out the "largest compromise of electoral data in history", illegally obtaining the data of 220 million American voters. Documents published by the White House indeed indicate that American services have investigated the purchase, theft or access of electoral databases by Chinese entities. The American press that examined the first documents shows that the materials do not establish that all 220 million records were stolen from protected electoral systems, nor that the said data was used to insert fake votes. According to the Associated Press, John Solomon, the conservative advisor who recently joined the administration and was involved in examining the files, stated after the presidential speech that the intelligence services have no evidence that a foreign power would have "turned” any vote in the elections of 2020, 2022 or 2024. It is possible that Beijing has obtained or aggregated huge volumes of American electoral data. However, it does not appear that China fabricated votes or changed the outcome of the election. The declassified documents include assessments according to which Beijing wanted to weaken Trump politically, tried to influence the business environment and aimed to exploit criticism expressed by the press and American leaders. This information is plausible and consistent with the general influence activity carried out by China.

• "Illegal ballots for Joe Biden”: the most serious allegation, supported by the weakest evidence

Donald Trump has claimed that raw intelligence received by the FBI showed a Chinese attempt to produce illegal ballots for Joe Biden. The key term is "raw intelligence” - raw, unverified information, which may come from a human source, an interception, a rumor or a disinformation operation. Such information does not become a confirmed fact simply by declassification. This would require material evidence: the ballots in question, the production chain, their introduction into the electoral circuit, the targeted localities, identified individuals and a demonstrated connection to the Chinese authorities. According to Reuters, nothing that has been published so far proves the claim made by the American president.

Moreover, the existence of a raw report does not prove that the operation existed or that any votes were produced. It is possible that analysts or heads of services excluded certain information from the presidential briefing because they considered it insufficiently verified, disproportionate or susceptible to politically influencing the electoral process. But the discourse jumps directly from the existence of analytical divergences and internal emails to the verdict of an organized conspiracy. The expressions "shadow government”, "deep state”, "rogue bureaucrats” and "cover-up” do not replace the identification of the authors, the concrete decisions and the violated legal obligations. Nor does the existence of documents found in "burn bags” automatically prove an illegal destruction operation. In institutions that manage classified documents, such containers are common procedures for the controlled disposal of materials. It must be demonstrated that the documents were placed there to hide crimes, not just for administrative destruction.

• What do the 278,000 "non-citizens” on the voter lists represent?

This is one of those claims that cannot be independently validated as presented. The White House and DHS have not sufficiently explained the methodology: the states checked, the databases compared, the date of the update, the treatment of naturalized persons in the meantime, the homonyms and matching errors. The difference is crucial. An immigration database may indicate that a person was not a citizen at a certain date, but that person may have become a citizen before registering or before the election. There may be people with the same name and date of birth, old records, administrative errors, or people registered for local elections in the few jurisdictions where the law allows foreign residents to participate in certain municipal elections.

According to the Associated Press, even if all 278,000 matches were correct, registration does not prove that the person voted. Voting by foreign citizens in federal elections has been a crime since 1996. The source cited indicates that previous audits have identified very rare cases; for example, a check in Georgia found fewer than 2,000 registration attempts in 25 years, and none were accepted.

• Is mail-in voting "inherently corrupt”?

No, the American press claims. Voting by mail can pose specific risks-family pressures, illegal ballot collection, signature problems, or postal delays-but there is no evidence that it causes widespread fraud. According to CBS News, studies of the 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections have estimated an average rate of mail-in fraud of about 0.000043 percent, or about four cases per ten million votes cast by mail.

The US president's false claim is also politically selective: voting by mail was also widely used by Republican voters before Trump turned it into a symbol of fraud after the 2020 election.

• Inflation: Real monthly decline, but annual level still high

Donald Trump's claim that inflation recorded the largest monthly decline in the past six years is correct. The consumer price index fell 0.4% in June 2026 from the previous month, the largest monthly decline since April 2020. However, Trump avoids the more important indicator of the overall price level: annual inflation remained at 3.5%. According to data presented by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices did not return to previous levels, but only fell in a single month, largely due to a temporary drop in energy prices. Another incorrect statement by Donald Trump in his speech last week is that the US has had "zero illegal immigrants in 14 months”. Customs and Border Protection data, cited by the American press, confirm 14 consecutive months of zero releases carried out by the Border Patrol inside the US after border apprehension. But Trump says that "zero illegal aliens” have been admitted to the United States. This is a much broader and false meaning. According to the sources cited, "zero releases” does not mean zero illegal crossings, zero people who managed to avoid patrols or zero entries through other sectors, ports, airports or visa overstays. It means that people detained by the Border Patrol were not released inside the country as part of the regular immigration procedure.

Moreover, Donald Trump's reference to the 11,888 criminals who came across the border comes from ICE records of stateless people on the agency's books and convicted of murder. It does not mean that 11,888 murderers crossed the border during the Biden administration. The list includes people who entered over several decades, some in state or federal detention, some impossible to deport immediately, and others placed in immigration proceedings.

• Drug prices have fallen by 70-90% in the US

This claim by the US president is not entirely true according to the sources cited. TrumpRx offers significant discounts on certain brand-name drugs paid directly by the patient, and there are agreements that bring some prices closer to the levels practiced in other developed countries. However, there is no evidence that drug prices in the entire US system have fallen by 70%, 80% or 90%, nor that Americans are now generally paying the lowest prices in the world. The US website FactCheck.org found that the program covers a limited number of drugs, that some discounts already existed through manufacturers or private platforms, and that certain products can be found cheaper in generic form.