In the first State of the Union address of his second term, President Donald Trump proclaimed that “our nation is back, bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before.” But our review of his speech found that he distorted a number of facts about the state of the economy, health care, immigration and other topics.
In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has made a series of claims about the economy, a topic that should feature prominently in his State of the Union address to Congress on Feb. 24.
In the second and third quarters of 2025, the U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in two years. Those growth rates were not “numbers unheard of,” or figures the U.S. “never had” before, as President Donald Trump has claimed.
Through President Donald Trump’s first full 10 months in office, the cumulative U.S. trade deficit in goods and services was down 3.9% from the same period in 2024. His claim that he has “slashed our trade deficit by 77%” appears to compare the monthly trade deficit in January 2025 to the deficit nine months later in October.
Minnesota allows individuals with a permit to carry a gun in public, concealed or not, and there is no state law against having a gun while at a demonstration. That contradicts FBI Director Kash Patel’s claim suggesting that “you cannot bring” a loaded firearm “to any sort of protest” in the state.
Prior to announcing on Jan. 21 that he has reached a “framework of a future deal” on Greenland with the secretary general of NATO, President Donald Trump had insisted that the United States needed to acquire Greenland for national security reasons. In this story, we’ll present what the president has said and the facts.
At the one-year mark of Trump’s second term, we launch our “numbers” series, providing various statistical measures of his presidency thus far.
President Donald Trump said one reason that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela and “indefinitely” control its oil sales is because “years ago” Venezuela “took our oil away from us” and “stole our assets.” That’s an oversimplification of what happened when Venezuela assumed greater control of its energy sector.
Several Democrats have claimed that the Trump administration’s Jan. 3 military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, was “illegal,” violating both domestic and international law.
For months, President Donald Trump or members of his administration have used federal data showing a large increase in employment for U.S.-born workers and a decrease in employment among foreign-born workers to claim that “all net job creation” in his second term has been for citizens. And for months, multiple economists and labor experts have said that officials should not do that because these specific figures are misleading.