By Daniel Dale | CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump made a collection of false claims throughout his prime-time deal with from the White Home on Wednesday evening, most of which have been debunked earlier than. Here’s a reality examine.
Inflation and the financial system
Inflation beneath Trump: Close to the top of the speech, Trump falsely claimed, “Inflation is stopped.” Inflation hasn’t stopped; the year-over-year inflation fee in September, 3.0%, was the identical as the speed when Trump returned to workplace in January – the truth is, when you go to a number of decimal locations, the September fee was a tiny bit larger – and September was the fifth consecutive month the year-over-year fee had elevated.
Inflation beneath 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 year-over-year inflation fee 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 newest accessible fee on the time Trump spoke on Wednesday, 3.0% in September 2025. (The November fee is scheduled to be launched on Thursday morning.) 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’s true that the year-over-year US inflation fee hit a few 40-year excessive (not a 48-year excessive) throughout the Biden administration in June 2022, 9.1%, however even that was not near the all-time file 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 improve 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 beneath Biden was lower than half of that in President Jimmy Carter’s time period.
Grocery costs: After noting that the value of eggs has plummeted since March, Trump added, “And everything else is falling rapidly.” That isn’t true even when he was speaking particularly about grocery costs, that are up this 12 months. Shopper Value Index knowledge reveals {that a} far larger variety of grocery gadgets have elevated in worth since he returned to workplace than have decreased. The latest 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.
It’s potential the November knowledge, scheduled to be launched on Thursday, will present a month-to-month decline in grocery costs, however grocery costs will nearly actually nonetheless be up for Trump’s time period.
Prescription drug costs: Trump repeated his false declare that an government order he issued on prescription drug costs will reduce these costs by “as much as 400, 500, and even 600%.” These figures are mathematically unattainable; if the president magically received the businesses to cut back the costs of all of their medication to $0, that will be a 100% reduce. You possibly can learn an extended reality examine right here.
Fuel 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 worth for a gallon of normal fuel was under $2.50, in accordance with knowledge printed by AAA: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa and Colorado. (9 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 under Oklahoma’s $2.339 per gallon. And whereas some particular person stations across the nation have been providing fuel for $1.99 per gallon or much less, the quantity was tiny; Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum evaluation for the agency GasBuddy, estimated that it was between 75 and 100 stations of the tens of hundreds GasBuddy tracks across the nation. (That doesn’t embrace others providing particular reductions.)
Immigration and overseas coverage
Trump and wars: Trump repeated his false declare that he has ended eight wars this 12 months, saying Wednesday, “I’ve restored American strength, settled eight wars in 10 months.” Whereas Trump has performed a job in resolving some conflicts (no less than briefly), the “eight” determine is a clear exaggeration.
Trump has beforehand defined that his record of supposed wars settled features a battle between Egypt and Ethiopia, however that wasn’t truly a battle; it’s a long-running diplomatic dispute a few main Ethiopian dam undertaking on a tributary of the Nile River. Trump’s record contains one other supposed battle 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 battle between these two entities, offering few particulars about what he meant, however that’s totally different than settling an precise battle.) And his record features a supposed success in ending a battle involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, however that battle has continued regardless of a peace settlement brokered by the Trump administration this 12 months – which was by no means signed by the main insurgent coalition doing the combating.
Trump’s record additionally contains 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 12 months.
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 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 beneath Biden. The “25 million” determine is fake; even Trump’s earlier “21 million” determine was a wild exaggeration. Via December 2024, the final full month beneath the Biden administration, the federal authorities had recorded beneath 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants throughout that administration, together with tens of millions who have been quickly expelled from the nation. Even including within the so-called gotaways who evaded detection, estimated by Home Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no method the entire was even near what Trump has mentioned.
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” have been “from prisons and jails, mental institutions and insane asylums.” Trump has by no means offered corroboration for such claims about overseas international locations on the whole or the particular locations he has named up to now: Venezuela and “the Congo.” Specialists on Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighboring Republic of Congo mentioned throughout the Biden administration that that they had seen no foundation for Trump’s tales, the governments of each of the Congo international locations informed CNN the tales are false, and an skilled on the worldwide jail inhabitants informed CNN she noticed “absolutely no evidence” of any nation emptying its prisons to by some means launch prisoners into the US.
Different subjects
Trump’s invoice and Social Safety: Trump repeated his false declare that the massive home coverage invoice he signed earlier this 12 months contains “no tax on Social Security.” The laws did create a further, short-term $6,000-per-year tax deduction for people age 65 and older (with a smaller deduction for people incomes $75,000 per 12 months or extra), however the White Home itself has implicitly acknowledged that tens of millions of Social Safety 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 Safety recipients who’re youthful than 65.
Biden, crime and legislation enforcement: Trump falsely claimed that, beneath 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” beneath Biden; the Biden administration itself used the phrase repeatedly. And crime wasn’t even near an all-time excessive beneath Biden. Crime within the US was far larger within the early Nineteen Nineties and at numerous factors of the Seventies and Eighties than it has been within the 2020s beneath both Biden or Trump.
Homicide spiked nationally amid the turmoil of the early levels of the Covid-19 pandemic, beneath each Trump in 2020 and Biden in 2021. However FBI knowledge confirmed that each violent crime and property crime declined nationally beneath Biden in 2023 and 2024. Trump has challenged the FBI knowledge, and whereas it does have flaws and limitations, there may be merely no foundation for the notion that crime was at a file excessive throughout the Biden period.
This story has been up to date with extra particulars.
