Warner, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, flagged a 2021 report in which the CIA said it had “high confidence” that “China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US Presidential election.” Although the report was finalized while Ratcliffe oversaw the intelligence community as DNI, he wrote a minority opinion in which he dissented from the majority view, arguing that China sought to influence the 2020 elections.

“From my unique vantage point as the individual who consumes all of the U.S. government’s most sensitive intelligence on the People’s Republic of China, I do not believe the majority view expressed by Intelligence Community (IC) analysts fully and accurately reflects the scope of the Chinese government’s efforts to influence the 2020 U.S. federal elections,” Ratcliffe wrote.

However, Warner argued there is “irony” in the fact that Ratcliffe oversaw the intelligence community when the CIA’s report on foreign threats to the 2020 elections was released and signed off on the intelligence community’s assessment that no foreign actor had successfully interfered in the election, as Trump alleged Thursday night.

“The irony here, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but John Ratcliffe, [Trump’s] current CIA director, was the director of national intelligence. So this conclusion, bipartisan conclusion, that most of this has been public, it was signed off by his current CIA director. So is he going to be on this hit list of victims? We’ll see,” Warner said on MS NOW following Trump’s speech.

The Washington Examiner reached out to the CIA for comment on Warner’s comments.

Ratcliffe posted a statement on X following Trump’s speech in which he highlighted how the CIA is working to support Trump’s election integrity policies, adding that he dissented from the CIA’s opinion in 2021.

“I have long publicly highlighted China’s nefarious efforts to influence the 2020 election against President Trump, as evidenced by my dissent to the flawed January 2021 Intelligence Community Assessment. The documents declassified today shed further light on China’s intentions,” Ratcliffe said in his statement.

Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), two possible Democratic contenders for president in 2028, also voiced their opinions on Trump’s speech in MS NOW interviews on Thursday evening.

“Tonight, I heard a failed president desperately casting about for excuses to meddle in the upcoming election if he can, or to discredit the result when he loses decisively, as I expect he will,” Ossoff said.

Ossoff said Trump was “focused on his personal grievances” with this speech, “as his war spirals and as prices keep climbing for families across the country.” Slotkin aired her own concerns about election integrity in the 2026 elections, saying she has had conversations with Michigan officials about hypotheticals such as if Trump administration officials “send in the military” during ballot counting.

“These are some really scary tabletop exercises that we’re having here because the president has made clear this is not a joke to him. This is not something he just says offhandedly. He’s obsessed with it, and so he’s willing to really do anything to win, quote unquote, in November,” Slotkin said.

READ IN FULL: TRUMP’S ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON ALLEGED CHINESE INTERFERENCE IN 2020 ELECTION

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), another name floated among possible 2028 Democrats, called the speech a “25th Amendment moment.”

“I just watched the ramblings of a mad king and what else can I say — the only thing missing was tin foil. Donald Trump is trying to rig our elections and we have to stop him,” Newsom said.