WASHINGTON (AP) — On inflation, immigration, tariffs and issues of war and peace, President Donald Trump offered an often distorted epic of the reveal of the nation Tuesday as he claimed a “turnaround for the ages” and myriad achievements that don’t dawdle scrutiny.
Trump has spent the final yr boasting of his accomplishments while mocking the file of his predecessor, Joe Biden. But grand of this bluster has been based on misinformation, which he again fell abet on during his Direct of the Union address.
President Donald Trump delivers the Direct of the Union address to a joint session of Congress within the House chamber on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (Jessica Koscielniak/Pool Portray by technique of AP)
President Donald Trump delivers the Direct of the Union address to a joint session of Congress within the House chamber on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (Jessica Koscielniak/Pool Portray by technique of AP)
Here’s a closer watch on the facts:
THE ECONOMY
CLAIM: “After I final spoke in this chamber 365 days ago, I had factual inherited a nation in crisis, with a stagnant economy.”
THE FACTS: No longer reasonably. Voters were sad with excessive inflation within the 2024 election, however the U.S. economy modified into once a ways from stagnant. The U.S. putrid home product rose 2.8% in 2024 after adjusting for inflation. That’s a stronger tempo of growth than the 2.2% finished final yr throughout the launch of Trump’s second term. ___
TRUMP: “Incomes are rising mercurial, the roaring economy is roaring cherish never earlier than.”
THE FACTS: No longer so. After-tax incomes, adjusted for inflation, rose factual 0.9% in 2025, down from 2.2% in 2024, Biden’s final yr reasonably than job. The annual execute in Trump’s first yr is the smallest since 2022, when inflation soared and precipitated American citizens’ inflation-adjusted earnings to drop.
Wages and salaries are the greatest element of incomes, and their growth has slowed as companies relish sharply slowed hiring. Workers on the full portray smaller wage gains in such an environment.
INVESTMENT
CLAIM: “I secured commitments for greater than $18 trillion pouring in from in each set the globe.”
THE FACTS: Trump has offered no proof that he’s secured this grand home or foreign funding within the U.S. Based totally on statements from diversified companies, foreign international locations and the White House’s relish web site, that determine seems to be exaggerated, highly speculative and a ways elevated than the actual sum. The White House web site offers a a ways decrease number, $9.6 trillion, and that determine seems to comprise some funding commitments made throughout the Biden administration.
A watch printed in January raised doubts about whether or no longer greater than $5 trillion in funding commitments made final yr by many of The usa’s greatest trading companions will truly materialize and questions the plot it’d be spent if it did.
JOBS
CLAIM: “More American citizens are working as of late than at any time within the historic past of our nation.”
THE FACTS: Yes, however the kind of American citizens with jobs steadily rises as the inhabitants grows. The associated determine is the proportion of American citizens with jobs, which has fallen vastly within the final quarter-century, partly for the reason that body of workers is aging and more of us are retired. The percentage of American citizens with jobs peaked at 64.7% in April 2000, and modified into once 59.8% in January.
The unemployment fee is a low 4.3%, however modified into once decrease when Biden left location of job in January 2025, at 4%. All the plot via Biden’s presidency, the fee fell to a 50-yr low of three.4%.
FOREIGN WARS
CLAIM: “My first 10 months I accomplished eight wars.”
THE FACTS: This statistic, which Trump continually cites, is highly exaggerated.
Even though he has helped mediate relatives among many international locations, his affect isn’t as sure-decrease as he makes it seem. In no longer decrease than two instances of peace he claims credit for reaching, there were no wars to complete: no combating between Serbia and Kosovo, and friction reasonably than combating between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Gigantic Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
The diversified wars Trump counts as of us that he has solved were between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, Rwanda and Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Cambodia and Thailand. His affect various in these conflicts.
TARIFFS
CLAIM: Tariff revenues are “saving our nation, the more or much less cash we’re taking in.”
THE FACTS: Though Trump has imposed huge tax hikes on imports, they’re no longer gargantuan ample to invent a dent within the authorities’s annual budget deficits. Nor relish the tariffs corresponded with manufacturing job gains.
President Donald Trump speaks during an event to deliver contemporary tariffs within the Rose Garden on the White House, April 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Portray/Label Schiefelbein, File)
President Donald Trump speaks during an event to deliver contemporary tariffs within the Rose Garden on the White House, April 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Portray/Label Schiefelbein, File)
Earlier than the Supreme Court docket struck down Trump’s tariffs based on an emergency declaration, the Congressional Funds Administrative heart estimated that his contemporary taxes would elevate $3 trillion over 10 years, or $300 billion yearly.
That’s no longer ample to conceal the ticket of his $4.7 trillion in tax cuts, collectively with further passion cuts, that appreciated companies and the affluent. Nor is it ample to pay down an annual budget deficit that final yr modified into once $1.78 trillion.
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CLAIM: “Tariffs paid for by foreign international locations will, cherish within the past, substantially change the contemporary-day map of earnings tax.’’
THE FACTS: Unlikely. Beneath Trump, tariff revenues relish swelled — to $195 billion within the budget yr that ended Sept. 30 from $77 billion the yr earlier than. However the import taxes accounted for decrease than 4% of federal earnings. Earnings taxes and payroll taxes that finance Social Security and Medicare epic for 84%.
MEDICINE
CLAIM: “I took prescription pills, a truly mammoth part of health care, from the most practical possible ticket within the full world to the bottom. That’s a mammoth achievement. The consequence’s ticket variations of 300, 400, 500, 600% and more.”
THE FACTS: This is extraordinarily no longer actually. Even though the Trump administration has taken steps to diminish drug prices, slicing them by greater than 100% would theoretically indicate that americans are being paid to map cease medications.
Geoffrey Joyce, director of health policy on the College of Southern California’s Schaeffer Heart, said in August that this tell is “total fiction” by the president. He agreed that it might possibly quantity to drug companies paying possibilities, reasonably than the diversified plot round.
CRIME
CLAIM: “Final yr, the assassinate fee saw its single greatest decline in recorded historic past. This is the greatest decline. Mediate of it in recorded historic past, the bottom number in over 125 years.”
THE FACTS: Trump takes credit for a important decrease in violent crime during 2025, claiming the assassinate fee within the U.S. dropped to its lowest in 125 years. But here is misleading. Crime had already been trending down right now.
A watch released in January by the neutral Council on Prison Justice, which aloof records from 35 U.S. cities on homicides, showed a 21% decrease within the homicide fee from 2024 to 2025.
The portray renowned that after nationwide records for jurisdictions of all sizes is reported by the FBI later this yr, there might be a stable possibility that homicides in 2025 will drop to about 4 per 100,000 residents. That would possibly be the bottom fee ever recorded in law enforcement or public health records going abet to 1900.
FBI reviews for 2023 and 2024 demonstrate important reductions in violent crimes.
Crime surged throughout the coronavirus pandemic, with homicides increasing with regards to 30% in 2020 over the previous yr, the greatest one-yr soar since the FBI began conserving records. But violent crime dropped to advance pre-pandemic levels round 2022 when Biden modified into once president.
IMMIGRATION
CLAIM: “We can steadily allow of us to return in legally, of us that will worship our nation and might possibly work laborious to protect our nation.”
THE FACTS: Trump has truly taken steps to limit who can to migrate to the U.S., continually within the title of retaining nationwide safety.
He suspended the refugee program on his first day reasonably than job and in October resumed this blueprint however handiest in little numbers for white South Africans.
Trump has furthermore placed restrictions on who can shuttle or to migrate to the U.S. from with regards to 40 international locations across the arena. Quite a lot of these international locations are in Africa.
TAXES
CLAIM: “With the enormous mammoth handsome invoice, we gave you no tax on guidelines, no tax on time beyond legislation and no tax on Social Security.”
THE FACTS: Though the president continually says his mammoth tax decrease invoice plot no tax on Social Security, that’s no longer perfect for all americans. No longer all Social Security beneficiaries would possibly be in a location to tell the deduction, which lasts until 2029.
Those that received’t be in a location to realize so comprise the bottom-earnings seniors who already don’t pay taxes on Social Security, of us that determine to tell their advantages earlier than they reach age 65 and these above an outlined earnings threshold. The deductions furthermore part out as earnings will enhance.
ELECTIONS
CLAIM: “I’m asking you to approve the Attach The usa Act to prevent unlawful aliens and diversified who’re unpermitted persons from balloting in our sacred American elections. The cheating is rampant in our elections.”
THE FACTS: He and his allies relish never produced proof of rampant election cheating. Experts convey voter fraud is extraordinarily rare, and if reality be told few noncitizens ever straggle via the cracks.
As an instance, a contemporary overview in Michigan acknowledged 15 of us that appear to be noncitizens who voted within the 2024 traditional election, out of greater than 5.7 million ballots cast within the reveal. Of these, 13 were referred to the criminal official traditional for doable prison charges. One eager a voter who has since died, and the closing case stays beneath investigation.
1776
CLAIM: “The revolution that began in 1776 has no longer ended. It composed continues for the reason that flame of liberty and independence composed burns within the coronary heart of each and every American patriot.”
THE FACTS: To make certain, the American Revolution started the previous yr, on April 19, 1775. The colonies declared independence in 1776. It ended Sept. 3, 1783.
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Related Press writers Rebecca Santana, Fatima Hussein, Josh Boak, Paul Wiseman, Christopher Rugaber, Elliot Spagat and Matthew Daly contributed to this portray.
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Gain AP Truth Tests here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.
