By Daniel Dale, NCS
(NCS) — President Donald Trump made quite a few false claims in his Tuesday speech to US. service members on the aircraft carrier USS George Washington stationed in Japan.
Trump repeated his common lie that he received the 2020 election (he misplaced to Joe Biden). He additionally deployed a few of his favourite latest false claims about grocery costs (they’re up, not “way down”); inflation in basic (it’s rising, not “defeated”); presidents and wars (he hasn’t ended eight wars, and it’s not true that no different president ever ended a single one); funding in the U.S. this time period (it’s nowhere close to “$17 trillion”); the deadliness of the alleged drug boats he has had the military assault (there’s no foundation for his declare every boat kills “25,000 people”); and a smattering of different topics.
Here is a truth examine of 11 of Trump’s inaccurate assertions. This is just not a complete listing of the falsehoods in the speech.
The 2020 election
Trump repeated his normal lie in regards to the 2020 election, saying, “You know, we won the second election by a lot, so we had to just prove it by winning the third — by too big to rig, I called it. It was too big to rig.” Trump legitimately misplaced the 2020 election honest and sq. to Biden.
Grocery costs
Trump repeated his false declare that “grocery prices are way down.” Grocery costs are literally up. Consumer Price Index figures for September confirmed common grocery costs had elevated since August (about 0.3%), since September 2024 (about 2.7%), and since January 2025, the month Trump returned to workplace (about 1.4%). The 0.3% enhance from August to September was preceded by a 0.6% enhance from July to August, which was the largest month-to-month soar in three years.
Inflation at current
Trump repeated his false declare that “inflation has been defeated.” This is vaguer than his earlier false declare that there’s now “no inflation,” however there’s no foundation even for the vaguer model. Inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index, has been worsening since May after hitting a 4-yr low in April. It was about 3% in September, up from about 2.9% in August; the September determine was close to-equivalent to the roughly 3% price in January, the final partial month of the Biden administration and first partial month of the second Trump administration.
Inflation underneath Biden
Trump, talking of the financial state of affairs he inherited, repeated his false declare that “we had the worst inflation in the history of our country.” Trump may have pretty stated the yr-over-yr U.S. inflation price hit a 40-yr excessive underneath Biden in June 2022, when it was 9.1%, however that was not shut to the all-time file of 23.7%, set in 1920. Trump’s declare was additionally mistaken if he was claiming there was file cumulative inflation over the course of Biden’s presidency. It was about 21%, in contrast with about 49% throughout President Jimmy Carter’s time period.
Trump and wars
Trump repeated his false declare that “I ended eight wars in eight months,” specifying that the listing “includes Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran … Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan,” in addition to Cambodia and Thailand.
Trump’s “eight” determine is a transparent exaggeration.
There was no struggle between Egypt and Ethiopia for Trump to finish; the 2 nations had been in a protracted-working diplomatic dispute a few main Ethiopian dam venture on a tributary of the Nile River, a dispute that’s unresolved. Trump’s listing consists of one other supposed struggle that didn’t happen throughout his presidency, between Kosovo and Serbia. (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 totally different from settling an precise struggle.) And the struggle involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda 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 preventing. One can debate the significance of Trump’s function in having ended the opposite conflicts on his listing, or whether or not a few of them have ended for good. Regardless, his “eight” determine is simply too large.
Previous presidents and wars
Trump additionally stated, “No president that we know has ever ended any war.” We can’t be certain what Trump personally is aware of, or who “we” is right here, however his declare that no different U.S. president has ended a struggle is false. U.S. presidents have performed a serious function in ending varied wars by successful these wars, together with World War I, World War II and the Gulf War. In addition, presidents have brokered quite a few peace agreements in wars not being fought by the U.S.
President Theodore Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for his function in a peace settlement ending a struggle between the Russian and Japanese empires; Carter performed a serious function in brokering a 1979 peace settlement to finish a protracted-working state of struggle between Egypt and Israel; President Bill Clinton performed a serious function in the 1995 peace settlement that ended the Bosnian War; US administrations have mediated a protracted listing of different armed conflicts.
Investment in the U.S.
Trump repeated his false declare that there’s “more than, think of this, $17 trillion, trillion with a T, pouring into the United States of America from all over the world.” He added, “We did $17 — more than $17 — trillion in eight months.” This determine is fictional. The White House’s personal web site says the “major investment announcements” this time period whole “$8.9 trillion,” and even that isn’t truly cash “pouring in” at current. An in depth NCS overview in October discovered the White House was counting trillions of {dollars} in obscure funding pledges from international nations and firms, pledges that had been about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” fairly than funding in the US, or obscure statements that didn’t even rise to the extent of pledges.
Alleged drug boats
Touting the military assaults he has ordered on alleged drug trafficking boats, Trump repeated his false declare that “each one of those vessels that we hit kill on average 25,000 people, American people, every single year. They kill — each one of them kill 25,000 people.”
Aside from the truth that the Trump administration has not introduced public proof for his repeated claims that the boats carried fentanyl — the Caribbean, the place many of the strikes have occurred, is not recognized to be a big fentanyl-smuggling route — his “25,000” quantity doesn’t make sense. The whole variety of US overdose deaths from all medication in 2024 was about 82,000, in accordance to provisional federal knowledge. Trump is actually claiming, in different phrases, that his resolution to assault a small variety of boats prevented greater than a full yr’s value of drug deaths.
The president’s determine is “absurd,” Carl Latkin, a professor on the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health with a joint appointment at its medical college, stated this month. “He’s claiming that he’s solved the overdose mortality crisis” with 4 boat strikes, and “that does not have any semblance of reality.”
Migration underneath Biden
Trump repeated his false declare that, underneath the Biden administration, “25 million people poured into our country, totally unvetted, totally unchecked.” The “25 million” determine is wildly inaccurate; even Trump’s earlier “21 million” determine was a main 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 had been quickly expelled from the nation. Even including in the so-known as gotaways who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no method the full was even shut to what Trump has stated.
Biden’s claims
Trump, complimenting military pilots, repeated his false declare that Biden falsely claimed to have been a pilot: “And see, Biden used to say he was a pilot. He was a pilot, he was a truck dri— whatever, whoever walked in. He wasn’t a pilot.” While Biden did falsely declare throughout his presidency to have beforehand been a truck driver, amongst different inaccurate claims about his biography, there isn’t a file of him having claimed to have been a pilot. In different phrases, Trump was making one thing up whereas mocking Biden for making one thing up. This wasn’t a one-time exaggeration by Trump; he made the identical declare throughout his presidential marketing campaign.
The Gulf shoreline
Trump spoke of his transfer earlier this yr to rename the Gulf of Mexico because the Gulf of America, and he repeated his declare that “we have 92% of the shoreline.” But “the 92% number from Trump is bunk,” stated Ian MacDonald, a Florida State University professor emeritus of oceanography who has extensively studied the Gulf. MacDonald famous that the roughly even divide in Gulf shoreline between Mexico and the US is evident “just by looking at the map.”
The exact breakdown in Gulf shoreline between the U.S., Mexico and Cuba is dependent upon the way you rely (the US authorities’s Environmental Protection Agency says the U.S. portion is 1,630 miles), however Trump’s “92%” determine is mistaken by any cheap measure; Jack Davis, a University of Florida historical past professor and creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning guide “The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea,” stated “the U.S. coastline adds up to just under half of the Gulf’s total.” Davis added: “Even if he is referring to the twists and turns of islands and peninsulas and other knotty features, his count is off.”
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