President Donald Trump blitzed through a prime-time address to the nation on Dec. 17, but while short, Trump’s speech contained a number of inaccurate or misleading claims, many of which he has repeated in public speeches for months.
Our annual recap of the worst falsehoods of the year.
In a campaign-style rally in Pennsylvania on Dec. 9, President Donald Trump honed a message of “lower prices, bigger paychecks” ahead of next year’s midterm elections. Some of his talking points on the economy missed the mark.
Nearly eight years ago, President Donald Trump denied using the word “shitholes” to describe African countries during an Oval Office meeting on immigration. But now he has fessed up.
In a disparaging attack on Somalia in which he said he didn’t want people of Somali descent in the United States, President Donald Trump said Somalis “ripped off” Minnesota “every year” for “billions of dollars,” an apparent reference to a fraud investigation, and suggested that “like 88%” of Somalis receive “welfare” benefits. But the White House didn’t provide us with evidence for either of those figures.
President Donald Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, on Dec. 1, claiming without evidence that his prosecution had been a “setup” by the Biden administration and that Hernández was targeted because he was president of a country where drug cartels operated.
In the aftermath of the deadly ambush shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump and others in his administration immediately blamed Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, for failing to vet the Afghan national accused of the attack. Here, we’ll answer some questions about what we know so far about the suspect and the vetting process.
The House voted nearly unanimously on Nov. 18 to force the Department of Justice to release “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein. In the days before and after the bill passed, representatives from both parties hurled accusations against political opponents related to Epstein and the contents of some recently released documents.
After six congressional Democrats released a video advising members of the U.S. military and national security community to “refuse illegal orders,” President Donald Trump said the lawmakers should be tried in court for “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” But legal experts told us this was not sedition and that the legislators were restating the law that only lawful orders must be followed.
Addressing a meeting of McDonald’s restaurant owners, President Donald Trump distorted his predecessor’s record on employment, falsely claiming that government jobs were increasing while “real jobs” were declining. The number of private-sector jobs increased every year under former President Joe Biden’s term and was up about 12% by the time he left office.