 "US President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the US Capitol in Washington as Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson listen. AP")
Over a year into his second term, US President Donald Trump is delivering the State of the Union address — an opportunity for the American leader to tout his accomplishments and outline his agenda for his administration’s second year.
And after taking the podium in the US Congress, Trump set the record for the longest State of the Union speech, clocking in at one hour and 50 minutes, beating Bill Clinton’s record from his final address in 2000. In fact, before the State of the Union, the US president had warned that he planned to deliver a “long speech” to tick off what he calls a string of victories in the first year of his historic second term.
However, Trump’s long-winding speech was littered with exaggerated claims and half-truths
‘I inherited a stagnant economy, high inflation’
Addressing the US Congress, Trump noted that he inherited a “stagnant economy” from the Biden administration and that it is now “roaring like never before.”
The numbers, however, don’t agree with the US president. The US economy was in solid shape before President Trump returned to the White House for his second term in January 2025. In fact, in October 2024, The Economist labelled the American economy “the envy of the world,” because it had bounced back from the pandemic recession in stronger shape than most of its peers.
Trump also claimed that he inherited the highest inflation levels from his predecessor, Joe Biden. He added that Biden “gave us the worst inflation in the history of our country.”
The US president pointed out, “In 12 months, my administration has driven core inflation to the lowest level in more than five years.”
The facts are that when Trump took office, inflation was at three per cent, and currently it’s down to 2.4 per cent.
However, prices for everyday products for Americans are being impacted by Trump’s favourite tool — tariffs . The levies have impacted the cost of fresh produce, beef, and coffee.
Additionally, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics data also shows Americans are paying more for energy, up 6.3 per cent from January 2025 to January 2026.
‘Biden allowed 11,888 murderers to enter US as migrants’
During his speech, Trump also criticised Biden’s border policies — a hot topic for the Republicans — stating that the Biden administration allowed 11,888 murderers to enter the US as migrants, “They were murderers, 11,888 murderers. They came into our country.”
However, there is no data to support this claim. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the “11,888” number is about non-citizens who entered the US not just under Biden but over the course of multiple decades, including during Trump’s own first administration.
Data also shows that a significant portion of the so-called “worst of the worst” undocumented migrants that Trump is going after have not been convicted of a crime.
According to the data, about one fourth (or 26 per cent) of detainees on February 7 were considered “convicted criminals.” Another 26 per cent had pending criminal charges. In other words, 73 per cent of detainees on February 7 had no criminal convictions.
“My first 10 months, I ended eight wars”
In his speech, Trump once again made a false claim about ending wars. The American leader noted that he ended eight wars in his first few months in office.
But this is an exaggeration.
Trump has had a hand in brokering truces between warring countries, but peace remains elusive. For instance, after the Trump administration helped negotiate a temporary peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, violence between the two sides has persisted, with hundreds of civilians killed. Trump has also taken credit for brokering a peace deal between Cambodia and Thailand, but both sides have accused the other of violations.
The same goes for Israel and Hamas in Gaza, where Gaza officials recently said an Israeli strike on a tent camp killed a three-year-old Palestinian boy. Over 500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the October ceasefire agreement, according to The Associated Press.
There’s also the India-Pakistan battle from last year. Once again, Trump stated that he brokered peace between the two countries. He said that the situation could have spiralled into a nuclear war. “Pakistan and India would have been in a nuclear war,” Trump said, adding that “35 million people, said the prime minister of Pakistan (Shehbaz Sharif), would have died if it were not for my involvement.”
However, while Trump claims to have brokered the ceasefire , India has refuted these claims, stating that Islamabad had approached them for a deal.
‘The US military obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons programme’
Trump once again repeated his oft-stated claim that the US “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme during one day of bombing in Iran last June. “In a breakthrough operation last June, the United States military obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program with an attack on Iranian soil known as Operation Midnight Hammer. For decades, it had been the policy of the United States never to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon,” said Trump in his State of the Union address.
While there’s a broad consensus that the strikes inflicted major damage on Iran’s nuclear programme, it’s difficult to ascertain how damaging they were, as Iran has not allowed international inspectors to examine their nuclear facilities.
Joseph Rodgers, an expert on nuclear issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Politifact, that it was a “slight exaggeration” to say the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” the programme, but said the operations “crippled key elements in Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle.
“Tariff revenues are saving the US”
It would have been surprising if the US president didn’t touch upon his favourite topic — tariffs.
In his speech, Trump, while rebuking the US supreme court justices for their decision on tariffs, said that tariff revenues are saving the US and are “paid for by foreign countries.”
“As time goes by, I believe that tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love,” said the US president in his State of the Union address.
However, economists say the vast majority of tariff bills are being paid by businesses in the US that import products. Also, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that his tariff policy would raise about $300 billion annually. However, that’s not enough to pay down the country’s annual budget deficit, which reached $1.78 trillion last year.
“The cheating is rampant in our elections. It’s rampant.”
When Donald Trump lost the 2020 US presidential elections, he pegged it to voter fraud.
Since then, the US president has claimed that non-citizens are voting in American elections. And at the State of the Union address, he once again raised the issue of cheating in elections when he said, “Cheating is rampant in our elections. It’s rampant.”
However, evidence doesn’t back Trump’s claim. In Michigan, an audit after the 2024 election found 16 alleged noncitizen votes out of the state’s roughly 5.7 million cast. In Iowa, it was 35 votes out of 1.67 million cast.
So, even as Trump claimed a “turnaround for the ages” in his State of the Union speech, it seems much of it was bluster.
With inputs from agencies