Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, has said a lot of outrageous things about COVID, infrastructure, voting, and everything else since leaving Washington. Most of these claims have been carefully fact-checked by independent journalists. Here’s our fact-check of more than a dozen of his recent statements. Specifically, it reveals a coordinated, aggressive campaign to misinform the American public on critical political, economic, and social issues.
The biggest whopper is probably the one regarding Trump’s claim that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was responsible for him getting impeached. She is indeed on tape,” he declared. Through her admissions, she supposedly confessed to turning down an offer of 10,000 National Guard, which would have possibly safeguarded the Capitol on January 6, 2021. This assertion has no evidence to back it up and has been thoroughly discredited.
In another instance, Trump inaccurately claimed that “20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000,” suggesting that the prevalence has increased significantly since then. Today, it’s estimated that about 1 in 31 children are diagnosed with autism, a claim that completely undermines Trump’s claim.
Trade and Economic Misrepresentations
Trump’s statements on international trade have come under fire as well. On that basis he completely lied. He noted that the European Union has a significant trade barrier that prevents U.S. cars from being sold in Europe. In truth, of course, tariffs and standards exist, but they do not ban American cars from European markets altogether.
Trump crowed that he thwarted a Biden administration initiative to send $50 million worth of condoms to Hamas in Gaza. He would later go on to inflate this number, claiming the real figure was $100 million. There is simply no factual basis for this claim, since such funding is non-existent.
Trump is out here telling everybody he got “almost 75 million votes” in the 2020 election. This figure is misleading and wildly overstates the vote count. The certified final count was about 74 million— still a record—but below Trump’s exaggerated number.
“The deal is a deal that I choose…We are a department store, and we set the price.” – Donald Trump
Claims on Education and Grocery Prices
Education statistics have not escaped Trump’s misstatements. He challenged the status quo by audaciously pronouncing that the U.S. ranks as dead last in international education. More specifically, he said it was “40th out of 40 developed countries.” This claim distorts the findings of multiple evaluations. As ongoing research from advocacy groups like Fordham Foundation and OECD illustrate, when compared properly the U.S. is immensely competitive across nearly all categories of education.
Ever since Trump’s presidency started, grocery prices have continued to increase. This increase directly refutes his assertion that these hikes weren’t occurring while he was in office. Grocery prices were hit hard, spiking from February to March 2023. This increase was one of the biggest month-to-month increases since October 2022.
Beyond education and food price inflation, Trump has made statements on other issues affecting U.S. deficits. He now projected the deficit for 2024 to be at least $263 billion. That figure is less than any of the annual deficits seen throughout Trump’s presidency.
Environmental and Infrastructure Statements
The unusual nature of Trump’s environmental claims have made environmentalists raise their eyebrows too. He asserted that Germany closed 18 coal plants by 2024 and has no plans to open new ones. That said, some idled coal plants were temporarily brought back online to help meet energy deficits in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As these media reports acknowledged, those plants were decommissioned again soon after.
Trump’s false statement that he let out “2 billion-plus gallons of water” from dams in California’s Central Valley. This water was ostensibly intended to benefit Los Angeles. In reality, the water was shipped elsewhere — to an area more than 100 miles north of Los Angeles.
As recently as April 17, Trump was bragging that gas prices had fallen to $1.98 a gallon—in one of two states. Marketing gimmick aside, this statement is incorrect—average gas prices nationwide are still considerably higher.
“They began these Military payments during my first term.” – Donald Trump
