{"success":true,"data":{"id":"572de1dd-6939-4233-80e8-d6aa41bc5306","title":"Trump’s 2020 Election Obsession","summary":"National Review Trump’s 2020 Election Obsession Article Browser President Donald Trump speaks about election security during an address to the nation from the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., July 16, 2026.","content":"National Review\n\nTrump’s 2020 Election Obsession\n\n## Article Browser\n\nPresident Donald Trump speaks about election security during an address to the nation from the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., July 16, 2026.(Saul Loeb/Pool via Reuters)\n\nBy [The Editors * [About The Editors](https://www.nationalreview.com/author/the-editors/ \"Read More About The Editors\")](https://www.nationalreview.com/author/the-editors/)\n\nAudio By Carbonatix\n\nW hat Carthage was to Cato the Elder, the 2020 election is to Donald Trump.\n\nIt’s a topic of obsessive interest to him, and he insists — against all evidence — that the election was stolen from him.\n\nAndrew Stuttaford\n\nBrittany Bernstein\n\nJohn Gustavsson\n\nSo it’s no surprise that the president would, as he did last night, give a national address devoted to supposedly explosive new evidence that there was something untoward about the 2020 contest.\n\nHe described intelligence documents pointing to vulnerabilities in our elections and attempted meddling by China, but nothing he said provided any credence to his long-running claims that the 2020 election was illegitimate. Instead, the speech was mostly another attempt to push for changes to elections in the SAVE Act and, no doubt, to lay the groundwork for blaming Republican losses in the midterms on fraud.\n\nIn the speech, Trump described intelligence pointing to China’s acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files, which include names, addresses, phone numbers, and party registration. He said that evidence of this and attempts by China to meddle in the 2020 election were withheld from his daily intelligence briefings during his first term by members of the “Deep State.” In the speech, he said he was asking the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the CIA “to investigate how and why such crucial information was hidden.”\n\nAdditionally, he pointed to intelligence assessments that U.S. election systems are vulnerable to hacking by foreign adversaries.\n\nObviously, any effort by China to hack voter files or interfere with U.S. elections is a bad thing and should be investigated. That said, even in Trump’s speech, which framed the intelligence in the most alarming possible way, there was no evidence presented that, if true, would indicate that China deleted or changed actual votes in an effort to elect Joe Biden.\n\nAlso, for all the fear of electronic voting machines, it should be noted that nearly all votes cast in the U.S. have a paper backup. And many states do audits in which samples of paper automatic ballots are compared with the electronic vote count, making sure that the two are consistent. That hasn’t stopped Trump, or his allies, from spreading fear about electronic voting as intrinsically suspect.\n\nWe prefer in-person, same-day voting, especially to the loose, heavily mail-in systems of places like California, but after years of fly-speck examination of everything having to do with the 2020 elections, Trump and his partisans have found no evidence that electoral cheating accounted for the results.\n\nTrump was trailing in almost all the national polls prior to the 2020 election and proceeded to lose, whereas he was in a much stronger position in 2024 and proceeded to win. No elaborate theories are necessary to explain the different results.\n\nSpeaking of elections,Trump’s approval rating has been sinking, and Republicans face an uphill battle in this year’s midterms. Trying to revive widely unpopular “stolen election” claims won’t make their job any easier.\n\nShare Comments \n\n[The Editors](https://www.nationalreview.com/author/the-editors/ \"The Editors's archive page\") comprise the senior editorial staff of the National Review magazine and website.\n\n## More in[Politics & Policy](https://www.nationalreview.com/politics-policy/)\n\n### The Latest\n\nEvictions are ‘violence’ now?\n\nCaroline Downey\n\nA provision in the Big Beautiful Bill defunding the abortion provider expired on July 4.\n\nKamden Mulder\n\nThe socialist wave is less a proletarian phenomenon than a project of frustrated Ph. D. candidates and medium-grade professionals.\n\nRich Lowry\n\nThe accounts of Marco Rubio and even Democrat Adam Smith should be convincing enough about the severity of the threat. Will progressives listen?\n\nNoah Rothman\n\nChristopher Nolan’s unheroic epic alters the history of movie-watching.\n\nArmond White\n\nNo supranational entity should have a veto power over U.S. security priorities as defined by America’s elected leaders and, ultimately, its voters.\n\nThe Editors","source_name":"National Review","source_url":"https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/07/trumps-2020-election-obsession/","url":"https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/07/trumps-2020-election-obsession/","author":"The Editors","author_name":"The Editors","published_at":"2026-07-17T21:11:37.000Z","publication_date":"2026-07-17T21:11:37.000Z","image_url":"https://i0.wp.com/www.nationalreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/president-trump-2020.jpg?fit=789%2C460&ssl=1","category":"politics","topic":"politics","tags":[],"political_bias":null,"bias_score":null,"confidence_score":null,"credibility_score":null,"factual_quality":null,"reading_time":4,"word_count":685,"view_count":0,"breaking":false,"breaking_news":false,"ai_analysis":null,"fact_check_status":"unverified","archive_status":"hot"}}