On February 25, 2026, President Trump delivered his State of the Union address to Congress. Every major fact-checking organization — CNN, FactCheck.org, NBC News, PBS, ABC News, and CBS News — documented widespread false and misleading claims throughout the speech.
The most embarrassing error was self-inflicted: Trump claimed he had secured $18 trillion in foreign investment commitments for the United States. His own White House website listed the actual figure at $9.7 trillion — nearly half of what he said on national television. He was contradicted by his own administration's data in real time.
Trump falsely claimed he inherited a “stagnant economy” with “inflation at record levels.” In reality, GDP growth under Biden was 2.5% or higher every year, and inflation had fallen from its 2022 peak to near-normal levels by the time Trump took office. He claimed crime was “rampant,” but the US violent crime rate in 2024 was the lowest since 1969 and the property crime rate was the lowest since 1961. Murder fell at the fastest rate ever recorded in both 2023 and 2024.
Trump repeated his regular false claim that tariffs are “paid for by foreign countries.” Tariff payments are made by US importers, who often pass costs to consumers. He claimed credit for the $35 insulin cap, which was actually signed into law by Biden in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. He claimed the “largest tax cuts in American history,” which is also false by multiple measures.
The speech was delivered to a divided chamber, with at least 12 Democratic lawmakers boycotting to attend the “People's State of the Union” counter-rally on the National Mall.