Six weeks into his presidency, Donald Trump is addressing Congress and the nation Tuesday night, laying out his targets for the subsequent 4 years.
ABC Information, together with PolitiFact, is reside fact-checking Trump’s speech statements which can be exaggerated, want extra context or are false.
The president teased on Monday it will be a “huge night time” and Home Speaker Mike Johnson informed Fox Information over the weekend to count on “fireworks.”
This story is being up to date all through Trump’s speech.
TRUMP CLAIM: Joe Biden particularly let the worth of eggs get out of control-and we’re working laborious to get it again down.
FACT-CHECK: Missing context.
Although egg costs did enhance underneath President Joe Biden, they’ve not too long ago surged underneath Trump too – and that is due to fowl flu, which has led to the deaths of 136 million birds since 2022, in accordance with the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Whereas the worth of eggs was constantly rising as a consequence of inflation underneath Biden’s administration, the primary vital value hike occurred in 2022, when fowl flu started infecting flocks of birds within the U.S. Egg costs rose from $1.93 per dozen to $4.82 per dozen over the course of simply that one yr, in accordance with information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The costs moderated once more, again right down to the $2-$3 vary throughout the remainder of Biden’s presidency – however have shot again as much as a record-high $4.95 this January, once more as a consequence of fowl flu.
-ABC Information’ Cheyenne Haslett
TRUMP CLAIM: Trump received a mandate within the election
FACT-CHECK: That is within the eye of the beholder.
Trump’s victory was clear, however by historic requirements, it was no landslide.
Trump has cause to rejoice profitable each the Electoral School and the favored vote. In truth, he turned solely the second Republican to win the favored vote since 1988, after George W. Bush in his 2004 reelection win. Trump received every of the seven battleground states that political analysts mentioned would determine the election.
As well as, the overwhelming majority of U.S. counties noticed their margins shift in Trump’s course, each in locations the place Republicans traditionally do properly and locations the place Democrats usually have an edge.However, Trump’s margins of victory – each in uncooked votes and in percentages – had been small by historic requirements, even for the previous quarter century, when shut elections have been the rule, together with the 2000 Florida recount election and Trump’s earlier two races in 2016 and 2020.
Trump’s victory additionally got here with no huge increase for down-ballot Republicans. Republicans misplaced a little bit floor within the Home, which was already narrowly divided, and whereas Republicans flipped the Senate, Democrats received 4 Senate races in key battleground states at the same time as former Vice President Kamala Harris was shedding these states to Trump.
-PolitiFact’s Aaron Sharockman
TRUMP CLAIM: “We ended the final administration’s insane electrical automobile mandate, saving our auto employees and firms from financial destruction.”
FACT-CHECK: Wants context.
There was no electrical automobile mandate put in place by the Biden administration. The Biden Environmental Safety Company carried out tailpipe emissions requirements final March that established a median of allowed emissions throughout a automobile producer’s complete fleet of supplied autos.
The requirements would have solely impacted vehicles from mannequin years 2027 to 2032. The requirements allowed for a spread of useable applied sciences, together with absolutely electrical vehicles, hybrids and improved inside combustion engines. Trump did signal an government order on his first day in workplace to revoke these new requirements.
-ABC Information’ Kelly Livingston
TRUMP CLAIM: The Paris Local weather Accord was costing the U.S. “trillions”
FACT-CHECK: False.
Trump defended his resolution to tug out of the Paris local weather settlement, saying the pact was costing the U.S. “trillions of {dollars}.”
That is unfaithful.
The Trump administration defended the choice to withdraw from the local weather settlement, partially, based mostly on projections by guide NERA Financial Consulting. It concluded that restrictions on fossil gas emissions would lead to a better value of manufacturing, and a better value of manufacturing would translate into the closure of uncompetitive manufacturing companies. These closures, in flip, would imply fewer manufacturing jobs.
The guide estimated that these losses and their knock-on results past the manufacturing sector would quantity to 1.1 million jobs misplaced by 2025 and 6.5 million by 2040. The lack of jobs ends in a corresponding decline in gross home product, with a lack of $250 billion by 2025 that accelerates to $3 trillion by 2040.
So the local weather settlement wasn’t costing the U.S. trillions of {dollars}. It hypothetically may.
However even when it did, the research says that the long-term projections didn’t think about the entire offsetting job beneficial properties and GDP development related to a clear tech transition.
-PolitiFact’s Aaron Sharockman
TRUMP CLAIM: Elon Musk discovered individuals within the Social Safety system as outdated as 369
FACT-CHECK: That is deceptive.
Elon Musk shared a chart on X and mentioned he discovered tens of millions of individuals in a Social Safety database over the age of 110, together with 1 who was within the 360-369 age bracket.
The performing Social Safety commissioner mentioned that individuals older than 100 who wouldn’t have a date of loss of life related to their Social Safety file “are usually not essentially receiving advantages.” Latest Social Safety Administration information exhibits that about 89,000 individuals aged 99 and older obtain Social Safety funds.
Authorities databases could classify somebody as 150 years outdated for causes peculiar to the advanced Social Safety database or due to lacking information, however that does not imply that tens of millions of funds are delivered fraudulently to individuals with implausible ages.
-PolitiFact’s Aaron Sharockman
TRUMP CLAIM: “Gold playing cards” do not want congressional approval
FACT-CHECK: Deceptive.
Immigration consultants say Trump can neither create a brand new inexperienced card program nor shut down an current one with out congressional motion.
Trump introduced a plan to provide individuals authorized everlasting residency within the U.S. in the event that they pay $5 million. The so-called “gold card” can be just like a inexperienced card in that it will let individuals reside and work within the U.S. completely and supply a pathway to citizenship.
Trump has described this system as a technique to lower the U.S. deficit and has mentioned it will substitute the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program. However he hasn’t offered an official doc creating this system.
-PolitiFact’s Aaron Sharockman
TRUMP CLAIM: “Tons of of billions of {dollars} of fraud” discovered by DOGE
FACT-CHECK: That is unverifiable.
This declare is unverifiable as a result of DOGE has but to launch everything of its work or specify which cuts have been “fraud” versus “waste.” DOGE has claimed to have saved $106 billion in whole financial savings, not “a whole lot of billions” in fraud, and even Elon Musk himself has mentioned they’ve largely discovered “waste” and “largely not fraud.”
DOGE has claimed it has saved a complete of $106 billion in federal cash from a “mixture of asset gross sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper cost deletion, grant cancellations, curiosity financial savings, programmatic adjustments, regulatory financial savings, and workforce reductions.” The determine stays unverifiable and DOGE’s web site claims to have posted solely 30% of the receipts supporting this whole.
Even Musk himself mentioned on Joe Rogan’s podcast final week that the majority of what DOGE is discovering is “waste,” quite than outright fraud. “Solely the federal authorities may get away with this degree of waste. It is largely waste. It is largely not fraud, it is largely waste. It is largely simply ridiculous issues occurring,” Musk mentioned.
-ABC Information’ Soo Rin Kim and Will Steakin
TRUMP CLAIM: There will probably be a little bit disturbance for People due to tariffs
FACT-CHECK: Missing context.
The Yale Price range Lab estimates that the tariffs may value the typical family as much as $2,000 yearly. Automobiles and automotive elements are huge exports from Canada and Mexico, and tariffs may enhance the price of a brand new automotive by over $3,000 per automobile on high of final yr’s common new automotive value of $44,811, in accordance with JP Morgan Analysis. Most economists predict that costs, and subsequently, inflation will go up, with customers seeing greater costs for meals, gasoline, garments, sneakers, toys and different home items.
-ABC Information’ Soo Youn
TRUMP CLAIM: “Not way back … 1 in 10,000 youngsters had autism. Now it is 1 in 36. There’s one thing improper”
FACT-CHECK: Partially true however missing context.
It is unclear the place Trump – and Kennedy, who repeats the identical stat usually – obtained the 1 in 10,000 quantity, although he’s appropriate concerning the present quantity, which is 1 in 36, and he’s appropriate that autism circumstances are rising.
In 2000, roughly 1 in 150 youngsters within the U.S. born in 1992 had been identified with autism in contrast with 2020, throughout which one in 36 youngsters born in 2012 had been identified, in accordance with information from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
Some psychiatrists and autism consultants informed ABC Information it is necessary to focus on the rising charges of autism, and that a minimum of Trump and Kennedy are placing a highlight on it.
“On the intense facet, I feel it’s actually necessary to position an emphasis on these very excessive charges,” Dr. Karen Pierce, a professor within the division of neurosciences on the College of California, San Diego and co-director of the us Autism Heart of Excellence, informed ABC Information.
-ABC Information’ Mary Kekatos
TRUMP CLAIM: Mexican authorities handed over 29 of the largest cartel leaders due to tariffs imposed on them, “They wish to make us joyful”
FACT-CHECK: True
Final week, whereas the Mexican safety cupboard and the Mexican economic system secretary had been in D.C. for bilateral conferences with their U.S. counterparts to barter forward of the attainable imposition of U.S. tariffs on Mexico, Mexico introduced they had been handing over 29 criminals to the U.S.
Considered one of these criminals had been requested by the U.S. for many years, Rafael Caro Quintero. He was wished for the homicide of DEA’s agent Kiki Camarena again in 1985.
Whereas a few of these criminals had their extradition suspended by Mexican judges, others had been detained for lower than every week with out the choice to combat again their extradition in Mexico earlier than they had been despatched to the US.
Though the Mexican authorities undoubtedly bent some Mexican legal guidelines and had been extremely questioned, they defended the transfer by saying this was a matter of nationwide safety and that they acted inside hours after receiving a request from the U.S. authorities.
Many in Mexico noticed the transfer as a technique to please President Trump and persuade him to droop or cancel the U.S. tariffs in opposition to Mexico.
-ABC Information’ Anne Laurent
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