By Daniel Dale | CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump made a collection of false claims throughout his prime-time handle from the White Home on Wednesday night time, most of which have been debunked earlier than. Here’s a reality verify.
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 price in September, 3.0%, was the identical as the speed when Trump returned to workplace in January – in reality, if you happen to 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.
Inflation beneath Biden: Trump repeated his false declare that “once I took workplace, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and a few would say within the historical past of our nation.”
The year-over-year 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 newest obtainable price on the time Trump spoke on Wednesday, 3.0% in September 2025. (The November price is scheduled to be launched on Thursday morning.) We don’t know who Trump was referring to when he stated “some would say,” however neither the December 2024 quantity nor the January 2025 quantity was anyplace near the worst inflation in a long time or all time.
It’s true that the year-over-year US inflation price hit a few 40-year excessive (not a 48-year excessive) through the Biden administration in June 2022, 9.1%, however even that was not near the all-time report 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 beneath 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 all the things else is falling quickly.” That isn’t true even when he was speaking particularly about grocery costs, that are up this yr. Shopper Worth Index information reveals that a far higher quantity of grocery gadgets have elevated in worth since he returned to workplace than have decreased. The latest obtainable 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 information, scheduled to be launched on Thursday, will present a month-to-month decline in grocery costs, however grocery costs will virtually definitely nonetheless be up for Trump’s time period.
Prescription drug costs: Trump repeated his false declare that an govt order he issued on prescription drug costs will reduce these costs by “as a lot as 400, 500, and even 600%.” These figures are mathematically unimaginable; if the president magically bought the businesses to scale back the costs of all of their medication to $0, that will be a 100% reduce. You’ll be able to learn an extended reality verify right here.
Fuel costs: Trump stated, “Gasoline is now beneath $2.50 a gallon in a lot of the nation, and a few states it by the best way simply 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 standard gasoline was beneath $2.50, in response to information 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 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 that it was between 75 and 100 stations of the tens of 1000’s GasBuddy tracks across the nation. (That doesn’t embrace others providing particular reductions.)
Funding 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 funding into the US.” This determine is fiction. On the time he spoke on Wednesday, the White Home’s personal web site stated the determine was “$9.6 trillion,” and even that may be a main exaggeration; an in depth CNN assessment in October discovered the White Home was counting trillions of {dollars} in obscure funding pledges, pledges that have been about “bilateral commerce” or “financial trade” relatively than funding within the US, or obscure statements that didn’t even rise to the extent of pledges. You’ll be able to learn extra right here.
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 power, settled eight wars in 10 months.” Whereas Trump has performed a job in resolving some conflicts (at the least quickly), the “eight” determine is a clear exaggeration.
Trump has beforehand defined that his checklist of supposed wars settled features a warfare between Egypt and Ethiopia, however that wasn’t truly a warfare; it’s a long-running diplomatic dispute a few main Ethiopian dam undertaking on a tributary of the Nile River. Trump’s checklist contains 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 checklist 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 preventing.
Trump’s checklist additionally contains an armed battle between Thailand and Cambodia, the place preventing 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 function in having ended the opposite conflicts on his checklist, 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 huge.
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. By way of 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 approach the entire was even near what Trump has stated.
Trump additionally repeated his unsubstantiated declare that, through the Biden administration, international nations 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 “military of 25 million folks” have been “from prisons and jails, psychological establishments and insane asylums.” Trump has by no means supplied corroboration for such claims about international nations generally or the particular locations he has named previously: Venezuela and “the Congo.” Specialists on Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighboring Republic of Congo stated through the Biden administration that that they had seen no foundation for Trump’s tales, the governments of each of the Congo nations advised CNN the tales are false, and an professional on the worldwide jail inhabitants advised CNN she noticed “completely no proof” of any nation emptying its prisons to by some means launch prisoners into the US.
Different matters
Trump’s invoice and Social Safety: Trump repeated his false declare that the large home coverage invoice he signed earlier this yr contains “no tax on Social Safety.” The laws did create a further, momentary $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 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 regulation enforcement: Trump falsely claimed that, beneath Biden, there was “crime at report ranges, with regulation enforcement and phrases corresponding to that simply completely forbidden.” Neither of those two claims is true.
There was no ban on the phrase “regulation 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 varied factors of the Nineteen 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 information confirmed that each violent crime and property crime declined nationally beneath Biden in 2023 and 2024. Trump has challenged the FBI information, and whereas it does have flaws and limitations, there may be merely no foundation for the notion that crime was at a report excessive through the Biden period.
This story has been up to date with further particulars.
