Fact check: Trump’s false and misleading State of the Union claims

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President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address included a series of claims that an Associated Press fact check said did not hold up under available data and documented reporting. AP said Trump presented a distorted account of the state of the nation on issues spanning inflation and jobs, foreign investment, foreign conflicts, tariffs, prescription drug pricing, violent crime, immigration and elections.

On the economy, Trump said that when he last spoke to Congress 12 months earlier, he had “inherited a nation in crisis” with a “stagnant economy.” AP reported that the U.S. gross domestic product rose 2.8% in 2024 after adjusting for inflation, and that this growth pace was stronger than the 2.2% achieved last year at the start of Trump’s second term.

AP also challenged Trump’s assertion that “Incomes are rising fast, the roaring economy is roaring like never before.” AP said after-tax incomes adjusted for inflation rose only 0.9% in 2025, down from 2.2% in 2024, the last year of the Biden administration. AP added that wage and salary gains—described as the largest component of incomes—had slowed as hiring cooled, leaving workers with smaller wage increases than in the prior year.

On investment, Trump claimed: “I secured commitments for more than $18 trillion pouring in from all over the globe.” AP said Trump offered no evidence that the U.S. has secured that level of domestic or foreign investment. AP said the total appears exaggerated and speculative, noting that the White House website offers a far lower figure of $9.6 trillion and that this includes some investment commitments made during the Biden administration, while a January study raised doubts about whether more than $5 trillion in investment commitments last year by major U.S. trading partners would materialize.

The AP fact check also disputed Trump’s jobs framing. Trump said: “More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country.” AP said the number of Americans with jobs naturally rises as the population grows and that the relevant measure—the proportion of Americans with jobs—had fallen over the past quarter-century, with the jobs proportion peaking at 64.7% in April 2000 and falling to 59.8% in January. AP said the unemployment rate was low at 4.3% and noted that it was lower at 4% when Biden left office in January 2025, after having fallen during Biden’s presidency to a 50-year low of 3.4%.

In foreign wars, Trump claimed: “My first 10 months I ended eight wars.” AP said the statistic was “highly exaggerated,” describing two instances where no wars existed to end: it cited no fighting between Serbia and Kosovo and friction rather than fighting between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. AP said other conflicts Trump counts as those he “solved” ranged from Israel and Hamas, to Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, Rwanda and Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Cambodia and Thailand, with AP saying Trump’s influence varied.

AP also challenged Trump’s tariff-related claims about the budget and who pays. Trump said tariff revenues were “saving our country, the kind of money we’re taking in.” AP said the new import taxes were not sizable enough to address government budget deficits and that they did not correspond with manufacturing job gains. AP cited a Congressional Budget Office estimate that Trump’s new taxes would raise $3 trillion over 10 years, or $300 billion annually, and said that amount fell short of Trump’s $4.7 trillion in tax cuts, which AP said included additional interest cuts for companies and wealthy Americans. AP said last year’s budget deficit was $1.78 trillion, also larger than the estimated annual tariff-revenue increase.

Trump further asserted that tariff revenues paid for by “foreign countries” would “substantially replace” income taxes. AP said that, under Trump, tariff revenues had risen to $195 billion in the budget year ending Sept. 30 from $77 billion the year before, but that import taxes made up less than 4% of federal revenue, while income taxes and payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare made up 84%.

On health care, Trump said: “I took prescription drugs, a very big part of health care, from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest.” AP said this was impossible, arguing that cutting drug prices by more than 100% would imply people were being paid to take medications. AP quoted Geoffrey Joyce, director of health policy at the University of Southern California’s Schaeffer Center, who said in August that Trump’s claim is “total fiction,” adding that it would mean drug companies paying customers.

AP also disputed Trump’s crime claims. Trump said: “Last year, the murder rate saw its single largest decline in recorded history. This is the biggest decline… the lowest number in over 125 years.” AP said Trump took credit for a significant decrease in violent crime during 2025, including a claim that the murder rate fell to its lowest in 125 years, but said that was misleading because crime was already trending down in recent years. AP cited a January report from the independent Council on Criminal Justice that drew on homicide data from 35 U.S. cities, saying it showed a 21% decrease in the homicide rate from 2024 to 2025. AP said the report also noted that when the FBI later released nationwide data for jurisdictions of all sizes, homicides in 2025 could drop to about 4 per 100,000 residents—described as potentially the lowest rate in law enforcement or public health data going back to 1900.

For immigration, Trump said: “We will always allow people to come in legally, people that will love our country and will work hard to maintain our country.” AP said Trump had instead taken steps to restrict who can emigrate to the U.S., including suspending the refugee program on his first day in office and later resuming it in October but only in limited numbers for white South Africans. AP also said Trump placed travel and emigration restrictions on people from nearly 40 countries, many in Africa.

On taxes, Trump claimed his “big… beautiful bill” included “no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security.” AP said that while Trump often said the bill meant no tax on Social Security, it was not true for everyone. AP said not all Social Security beneficiaries could claim the deduction, which AP said lasts until 2029, and said it would not apply for the lowest-income seniors who already do not pay taxes on Social Security, for people who claim benefits before age 65, and for those above a defined income threshold due to phased-out deductions.

AP also challenged Trump’s election messaging. Trump said he was asking Congress to approve the “Save America Act” to stop “illegal aliens and other… unpermitted persons from voting” and said, “The cheating is rampant in our elections.” AP said Trump and his allies had not produced evidence of rampant election cheating, with experts saying voter fraud is extremely rare and that very few noncitizens slip through. AP cited a review in Michigan that identified 15 people who appeared to be noncitizens who voted in the 2024 general election out of more than 5.7 million ballots, and said 13 were referred to the attorney general for potential criminal charges, with one case involving a voter who had died and the final case still under investigation.

Finally, AP disputed Trump’s framing of the country’s founding. Trump said: “The revolution that began in 1776 has not ended…” AP said the American Revolution started the previous year, on April 19, 1775, that the colonies declared independence in 1776, and that it ended Sept. 3, 1783.