US President Donald Trump gave a prime-time speech in which he accused China of interfering in the 2020 election and alleged “shocking vulnerabilities” in US voting systems.

Trump, who spoke from the White House on Thursday, has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and foreign meddling in the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden.

In the half-hour speech, delivered three months before the midterm elections, he said he had declassified hundreds of intelligence files supporting his claims that Beijing had tried to influence the election in Biden’s favor.

The US intelligence community previously concluded that China did not interfere in the 2020 election.

Trump spoke in front of several members of his senior team as he delivered his speech, but reporters were not allowed to ask the president questions.

In his comments, he accused China of “illicitly acquiring” 220 million voter files, including personal information.

Trump said voter data in 18 states was “bought, stolen or hacked by China” and accused “those responsible for sounding the alarm” of failing to disclose the discovery to government officials or Congress.

Trump presented no evidence that China had used the information it allegedly collected to alter voting systems or influence election results.

In response to his speech, the Chinese embassy in Washington told Reuters that Beijing “has never interfered and will never interfere in the presidential elections.” The BBC has contacted the Chinese Foreign Ministry for comment.

Democrats, for their part, accused Trump of trying to sow doubts about the security of the upcoming November midterm elections, which will decide control of Congress for the rest of his presidency.

“Let’s be clear: In America, voters elect their leaders, not the other way around,” top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer posted on social media after the speech.

“Democrats will fight like hell to ensure that every American voter can cast their vote freely, without obstruction or interference from Donald Trump,” he added.

The president’s comments contradict previous assessments by US intelligence. A 2021 report from the US National Intelligence Council said it had “high confidence” that China did not interfere in the 2020 presidential election.

“We assess that China did not deploy interference efforts and considered, but did not deploy, influence efforts aimed at changing the outcome of the US presidential election,” the report states.

He said this was likely because China “did not consider any of the election results to be advantageous enough for China to risk a fallout if caught.”

Trump gave the speech at the White House after the release of a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll, which indicated his approval rating had fallen to 37% and many voters were pessimistic about the cost of living and the ongoing war with Iran.

Elsewhere in the speech, the president alleged that American voting machines are “extremely exposed” to interference from foreign adversaries, including Russia, China and Iran.

The shortcomings of America’s electoral infrastructure are well documented. Some were targeted after the 2016 election, which Trump won, after the US intelligence community found that Russia had engaged in a concerted campaign of election meddling that included hacking, social media influence and funding on-the-ground election activities.

During the speech, Trump also alleged that a state investigation by Michigan authorities uncovered a voter registration fraud scheme by a Democratic-affiliated group, but the FBI prevented him from taking action before the statute of limitations expired.

“It was pay, play and cheat,” he said, although he did not provide any evidence that votes or tabulations had been changed or that voting machines had been hacked.

Separately, Trump said the Department of Homeland Security had identified that 278,000 noncitizens were registered to vote. He did not say whether any of those people had voted or had any impact on the outcome of the election.

At the end of his speech, Trump again called for passage of the SAVE America Act, which bans most mail-in voting, requires proof of citizenship for voter registration and a photo ID to cast a vote.

That legislation has been stalled in the Senate for months.