By Daniel Dale, NCS
(NCS) — President Donald Trump made a collection of false claims throughout his prime-time deal with from the White House on Wednesday evening, most of which have been debunked earlier than. Here is a reality examine of a few of his assertions.
Inflation and the financial system
Inflation underneath Trump: Near the top of the speech, Trump falsely claimed, “Inflation is stopped.” Inflation hasn’t stopped; the latest accessible yr-over-yr inflation price on the time he spoke on Wednesday, 3.0% in September, was the identical as the speed when Trump returned to workplace in January – actually, in the event you go to a number of decimal locations, the September price was a tiny bit increased – and September was the fifth consecutive month the yr-over-yr price had elevated. The yr-over-yr November price launched the morning after Trump’s speech was 2.7%, however meaning costs are rising much less shortly than they have been in September, not that inflation ceased. (The October quantity wasn’t calculated due to the federal government shutdown, which additionally impacted the federal government’s information assortment in November.)
Inflation underneath Biden: Trump repeated his false declare that “when I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country.”
The yr-over-yr inflation price within the final full month of the Biden administration, December 2024, was 2.9%; it was 3.0% in January 2025, the month of Trump’s second inauguration. That’s the identical as the latest accessible price on the time Trump spoke on Wednesday, 3.0% in September 2025. (Again, the November price launched Thursday morning was 2.7%). We don’t know who Trump was referring to when he mentioned “some would say,” however neither the December 2024 quantity nor the January 2025 quantity was wherever near the worst inflation in many years or all time.
It is true that the yr-over-yr US inflation price hit a few 40-yr excessive (not a 48-yr excessive) in the course of the Biden administration in June 2022, 9.1%, however even that was not near the all-time document of 23.7%, set in 1920 – and it occurred greater than two years earlier than Trump returned. Inflation had plummeted earlier than Trump’s inauguration.
The cumulative enhance in costs from the start of the Biden administration to the top was additionally not the worst in US historical past. Federal figures present that cumulative inflation underneath Biden was lower than half of that in President Jimmy Carter’s time period.
Grocery costs: After noting that the worth of eggs has plummeted since March, Trump added, “And everything else is falling rapidly.” That will not be true even when he was speaking particularly about grocery costs, that are up this yr. Consumer Price Index information exhibits {that a} far larger variety of grocery gadgets have elevated in value since he returned to workplace than have decreased. The most up-to-date accessible CPI figures on the time he spoke on Wednesday, for September, confirmed that common grocery costs have been up about 2.7% from September 2024; about 1.4% from January 2025, the month Trump returned to workplace; and about 0.3% from August to September.
The November information launched Thursday morning confirmed that common grocery costs have been up about 1.9% from November 2024 and about 1.2% from January 2025.
Egg costs: Trump’s particular declare about egg costs was this: “The price of eggs is down 82% since March.” That wants context. The White House advised NCS on Thursday morning the president was referring to wholesale egg costs, not the patron costs that common Americans truly pay. Consumer Price Index figures launched Thursday morning present client egg costs have been down 54% between March and November – an enormous drop, however a lot smaller than the 82% drop Trump cited. (And on the time he spoke on Wednesday evening, the latest accessible Consumer Price Index figures, for September, confirmed a 44% drop in egg costs since March.)
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 unimaginable; if the president magically obtained the businesses to cut back the costs of all of their medicine to $0, that may be a 100% lower.
Gas costs: Trump mentioned, “Gasoline is now under $2.50 a gallon in much of the country, and some states it by the way just hit $1.99 a gallon.” These claims want context.
As of Wednesday, there have been solely 4 states whose common value for a gallon of normal gasoline was beneath $2.50, in line with information printed by AAA: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa and Colorado. (Nine extra states had averages between $2.50 and $2.60 per gallon.) The AAA nationwide common was $2.905 per gallon.
No state had a median beneath Oklahoma’s $2.339 per gallon. And whereas some particular person stations across the nation have been providing gasoline for $1.99 per gallon or much less, the quantity was tiny; Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum evaluation for the agency GasBuddy, estimated Wednesday that it was between 75 and 100 stations of the roughly 150,000 GasBuddy tracks across the nation. (That doesn’t embody others providing particular reductions.) De Haan mentioned Thursday that, as of the early hours Thursday morning, about 125 stations out of roughly 150,000 have been at or beneath $1.99 per gallon.
Investment within the US this yr: Trump repeated his false declare that there was “$18 trillion” in funding within 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 personal web site mentioned the determine was “$9.6 trillion,” and even that could be a main exaggeration; an in depth NCS evaluation in October discovered the White House was counting trillions of {dollars} in imprecise funding pledges, pledges that have been about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” somewhat than funding within the US, or imprecise statements that didn’t even rise to the extent of pledges.
Immigration and international 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 (at the very least quickly), the “eight” determine is a clear exaggeration.
Trump has beforehand defined that his record of supposed wars settled features a warfare between Egypt and Ethiopia, however that wasn’t truly a warfare; it’s a lengthy-operating diplomatic dispute a few main Ethiopian dam challenge on a tributary of the Nile River. Trump’s record consists of one other supposed warfare that didn’t truly happen throughout his presidency, between Serbia and Kosovo. (He has typically claimed to have prevented the eruption of a brand new warfare between these two entities, offering few particulars about what he meant, however that’s totally different than settling an precise warfare.) And his record features a supposed success in ending a warfare involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, however that warfare 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 record additionally consists of an armed battle between Thailand and Cambodia, the place combating erupted once more this month and continued into this week regardless of a peace settlement brokered by the Trump administration earlier within the yr.
One can debate the significance of Trump’s position in having ended the opposite conflicts on his record, or pretty query whether or not some have actually 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 underneath 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 underneath the Biden administration, the federal authorities had recorded underneath 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants throughout that administration, together with hundreds of thousands who have been quickly expelled from the nation. Even including within the so-known as gotaways who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no approach the whole was even near what Trump has mentioned.
Trump additionally repeated his unsubstantiated declare that, in the course of the Biden administration, international international locations emptied their prisons and psychological establishments to someway ship the folks in them to the US as migrants, claiming that “many” members of the supposed “army of 25 million people” have been “from prisons and jails, mental institutions and insane asylums.” Trump has by no means offered corroboration for such claims about international international locations on the whole or the particular locations he has named up to now: Venezuela and “the Congo.” Experts on Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighboring Republic of Congo mentioned in the course of the Biden administration that they’d seen no foundation for Trump’s tales, the governments of each of the Congo international locations advised NCS the tales are false, and an skilled on the worldwide jail inhabitants advised NCS she noticed “absolutely no evidence” of any nation emptying its prisons to someway launch prisoners into the US.
Other subjects
Trump’s invoice and Social Security: Trump repeated his false declare that the large home coverage invoice he signed earlier this yr consists of “no tax on Social Security.” The laws did create an extra, short-term $6,000-per-yr 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 hundreds of thousands 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’re youthful than 65.
Biden, crime and legislation enforcement: Trump falsely claimed that, underneath Biden, there was “crime at record levels, with law enforcement and words such as that just absolutely forbidden.” Neither of those two claims is true.
There was no ban on the phrase “law enforcement” underneath Biden; the Biden administration itself used the phrase repeatedly. And crime wasn’t even near an all-time excessive underneath Biden. Crime within the US was far increased within the early Nineties and at varied factors of the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties than it has been within the 2020s underneath both Biden or Trump.
Murder spiked nationally amid the turmoil of the early phases of the Covid-19 pandemic, underneath each Trump in 2020 and Biden in 2021. But FBI information confirmed that each violent crime and property crime declined nationally underneath Biden in 2023 and 2024. Trump has challenged the FBI information, and whereas it does have flaws and limitations, there’s merely no foundation for the notion that crime was at a document excessive in the course of the Biden period.
Democrats and well being care: After disparaging the Affordable Care Act, popularly often known as Obamacare, because the “unaffordable care act” that “was created to make insurance companies rich,” Trump added a false declare about Democrats, saying: “It was bad health care at much too high a cost, and you see that now in the steep increase in premiums being demanded by the Democrats. And they are demanding those increases and it’s their fault. It is not the Republicans’ fault. It’s the Democrats’ fault.”
Democrats will not be demanding steep premium will increase. Rather, Democrats in Congress try to forestall Americans from going through steep will increase of their premium funds by pushing for an extension of the improved pandemic-period Obamacare premium subsidies which are scheduled to run out on the finish of the yr. Many Republicans are against an extension.
A White House spokesperson claimed Thursday on situation of anonymity that “(Trump’s) point was that Democrats just want to increase the amount of government money going to insurance companies, which allows them to increase their premiums wantonly and get rewarded for it.” But what Trump truly mentioned was that Democrats are pushing for steep premium will increase, and that’s simply not true.
Coal: Trump mentioned, as he commonly does, that “We’re bringing back clean, beautiful coal.” Though it’s true he has made efforts to revive US coal manufacturing, it’s not true that coal is “clean”; its use as an influence supply creates polluting emissions that hurt people and the surroundings, even with technological enhancements that may cut back the emissions ranges.
This article has been up to date with further gadgets and November inflation information launched the morning after Trump’s deal with.
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