President Donald Trump made a sequence of false claims throughout his prime-time address from the White House on Wednesday night time, most of which have been debunked earlier than. Here is a reality test.
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Inflation and the financial system
Investment in the US this yr: Trump repeated his false declare that there was “$18 trillion” in funding in the US throughout his second presidency, saying Wednesday, “I’ve secured a record-breaking $18 trillion of investment into the United States.” This determine is fiction. At the time he spoke on Wednesday, the White House’s own website stated the determine was “$9.6 trillion,” and even that could be a main exaggeration; an in depth NCS overview in October discovered the White House was counting trillions of {dollars} in imprecise funding pledges, pledges that had been about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” relatively than funding in the US, or imprecise statements that didn’t even rise to the extent of pledges. You can learn extra here.
Prescription drug costs: Trump repeated his false declare that an govt order he issued on prescription drug costs will lower these costs by “as much as 400, 500, and even 600%.” These figures are mathematically unattainable; if the president magically bought the businesses to cut back the costs of all of their medicine to $0, that might be a 100% lower. You can learn an extended reality test here.
Inflation below Trump: Near the top of the speech, Trump falsely claimed, “Inflation is stopped.” Inflation hasn’t stopped; the year-over-year inflation rate in September, 3.0%, was the identical as the rate when Trump returned to office in January – in reality, in the event you go to a number of decimal locations, the September price was a tiny bit larger – and September was the fifth consecutive month the year-over-year price had elevated.
Immigration and overseas coverage
Trump and wars: Trump repeated his false declare that he has ended eight wars this yr, saying Wednesday, “I’ve restored American strength, settled eight wars in 10 months.” While Trump has performed a job in resolving some conflicts (a minimum of quickly), the “eight” determine is a clear exaggeration.
Trump has beforehand explained that his listing of supposed wars settled features a struggle between Egypt and Ethiopia, however that wasn’t really a struggle; it’s a long-running diplomatic dispute a couple of major Ethiopian dam project on a tributary of the Nile River. Trump’s listing consists of another supposed war that didn’t actually occur throughout his presidency, between Serbia and Kosovo. (He has typically claimed to have prevented the eruption of a brand new struggle between these two entities, offering few particulars about what he meant, however that’s completely different than settling an precise struggle.) And his listing features a supposed success in ending a struggle involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, however that struggle has continued regardless of a peace settlement brokered by the Trump administration this yr – which was by no means signed by the main insurgent coalition doing the combating.
Trump’s listing additionally consists of an armed battle between Thailand and Cambodia, the place combating erupted again this month and continued into this week regardless of a peace settlement brokered by the Trump administration earlier in the year.
One can debate the significance of Trump’s position in having ended the opposite conflicts on his listing, or pretty query whether or not some have really ended; for instance, killing continued in Gaza in November after the October ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Regardless, Trump’s “eight” determine is clearly too large.
Migration and Biden: Trump repeated his false declare that “25 million” migrants entered the nation below Biden. The “25 million” determine is false; even Trump’s earlier “21 million” determine was a wild exaggeration. Through December 2024, the final full month below the Biden administration, the federal authorities had recorded below 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants throughout that administration, together with tens of millions who had been quickly expelled from the nation. Even including in the so-called gotaways who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no means the whole was even near what Trump has stated.
Trump additionally repeated his unsubstantiated declare that, throughout the Biden administration, overseas international locations emptied their prisons and psychological establishments to by some means ship the folks in them to the US as migrants, claiming that “many” members of the supposed “army of 25 million people” had been “from prisons and jails, mental institutions and insane asylums.” Trump has by no means offered corroboration for such claims about overseas international locations in common or the particular locations he has named in the previous: Venezuela and “the Congo.” Experts on Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighboring Republic of Congo said throughout the Biden administration that they’d seen no foundation for Trump’s tales, the governments of each of the Congo international locations told NCS the stories are false, and an knowledgeable on the worldwide jail inhabitants told NCS she noticed “absolutely no evidence” of any nation emptying its prisons to by some means launch prisoners into the US.
Trump’s invoice and Social Security: Trump repeated his false declare that the massive home coverage invoice he signed earlier this yr consists of “no tax on Social Security.” The laws did create a further, non permanent $6,000-per-year tax deduction for people age 65 and older (with a smaller deduction for people incomes $75,000 per yr or extra), however the White House itself has implicitly acknowledged that tens of millions of Social Security recipients age 65 and older will proceed to pay taxes on their advantages – and that new deduction, which expires in 2028, doesn’t even apply to the Social Security recipients who are younger than 65.