CNN
—
President Donald Trump made numerous false and misleading claims in his Tuesday speech to a joint session of Congress. The falsehoods spanned a variety of topics, including the economy, climate, immigration and more.
In his speech, just under one hour and 40 minutes, Trump also made a number of false claims about his predecessor, Joe Biden. Here is a fact check of some of Trump’s statements:
DOGE savings: Trump claimed that the Department of Government Efficiency, the initiative led by Elon Musk, has “found hundreds of billions of dollars” in fraud.
This figure, which is uncorroborated, needs context.
As of the day of Trump’s address to Congress, DOGE claimed on its website that its work has saved an estimated $105 billion for taxpayers.
But it hasn’t provided evidence to corroborate a figure that high.
DOGE listed about 2,300 contracts it claimed to have canceled across the federal government for a total claimed savings of about $8.9 billion. It also listed nearly 3,500 grants it claimed to have canceled for a total claimed savings of about $10.3 billion, but it provided no links or documentation for those cuts. And it listed about $660 million in savings from canceled government leases.
DOGE’s public tally has been marred with errors, and it has been repeatedly changed in recent weeks to remove some contracts identified as flawed by CNN and other media outlets — including a previous claim that it had saved $8 billion by canceling a contract that was actually worth a maximum of $8 million. Its website’s so-called wall of receipts has included contracts that were canceled during previous presidential administrations.
Musk and other Trump allies have claimed DOGE’s work is aimed at targeting waste, fraud and abuse. But DOGE has not released evidence that the contracts it has canceled were fraudulent. And at least some of the cuts have been reversed amid criticism.
From CNN’s Casey Tolan
DOGE and transgender mice: Trump claimed on Tuesday that the Department of Government Efficiency identified government spending of “$8 million for making mice transgender.” This claim needs context.
The morning after Trump’s speech, the White House provided a list of $8.3 million in federal grants to health studies that involve mice receiving treatments that can be used in gender-affirming health care. The White House list made clear what Trump, in the speech, did not: The studies were meant to figure out how these treatments might affect the health of humans who take them, not for the purpose of making mice transgender.
For example, the National Cancer Institute awarded $299,940 to one project in 2023 to compare breast cancer rates among female mice and those receiving testosterone therapy. Hormone regulation of breast development is similar in mice and humans, and the research allows for much faster findings than a prospective study in humans.
And awards totaling $455,120 went from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to two projects between the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years to test differences in the ways an HIV vaccine worked in mice that had received cross-sex hormone therapy. The research has an “ultimate goal of designing an HIV vaccine that maximizes efficacy but minimizes adverse outcomes,” according to the project description on the National Institutes of Health website.
From CNN’s Deidre McPhillips
An earlier version of this item incorrectly characterized as false Trump’s claim about federal money being spent for “making mice transgender.” The article has been updated with context about the spending, which was for research studies on the potential human health impacts of treatments used in gender-affirming care.
Trump’s tariffs: Trump, promoting his tariffs on imported foreign products, claimed that “we will take in trillions and trillions of dollars,” and he added that “I did it with China.” This is misleading at best. Tariffs are paid by US importers, not foreign exporters, and study after study, including one from the federal government’s bipartisan US International Trade Commission, found that Americans bore almost the entire cost of Trump’s first-term tariffs on Chinese products. It’s easy to find specific examples of companies that passed along the cost of the tariffs to US consumers.
From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Tami Luhby
Small-business optimism: Trump said that “small-business optimism saw its single-largest one-month gain ever recorded — a 41-point jump.”
This claim needs context. If Trump was referring to the commonly cited NFIB Small Business Optimism Index (his spokespeople didn’t respond to a previous CNN request to clarify), his claim about a 41-point increase appears to be a reference to one component of the index — the percentage of small-business owners expecting the economy to improve — rather than the index as a whole. That measure did soar a net 41 percentage points from pre-election October to post-election November.
And Trump didn’t mention that the total index then declined in January, to a level that is still high but lower than it was under Trump in September 2020 and October 2020 – less than five years ago.
From CNN’s Daniel Dale
Egg prices: Trump on Tuesday made the misleading claim that former President Joe Biden “let the price of eggs get out of control.”
The avian flu has caused egg prices to rise because the United States Department of Agriculture requires the culling of entire flocks to stop the spread if the virus is detected. It’s a practice that occurred during the Biden administration, but also one that is continuing under Trump as the virus continues to infect flocks nationwide.
When Biden took office, the average price of a carton of a dozen grade A eggs across US cities was $1.47, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. By January 2023, as avian flu spread to flocks nationwide, a dozen eggs rose to $4.82 on average, a 228% increase. By the time Biden left office in January, a carton of eggs cost $4.95 on average, a 2.7% increase from a year prior. Due to short supply, egg prices are projected to increase by 41.1% this year, according to the USDA’s food outlook as of February 25.
From CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Elisabeth Buchwald and Vanessa Yurkevich
Trump and “the Green New Scam”: Trump claimed that he terminated the “Green New Scam.”
This claim is inaccurate in various ways. Biden didn’t pass the original “Green New Deal,” a nonbinding resolution introduced by progressive congressional Democrats in 2019 that was never turned into law. Trump hasn’t yet terminated the major environmental law Biden did pass, which is what Trump might be referring to as “the Green New Scam.” Trump has previously claimed the policy cost $9 trillion.
Biden signed a law in 2022 known as the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, containing $430 billion in climate and clean energy spending and tax credits. Independent estimates later raised the cost of that law to over $1 trillion by 2032, but the IRA actually saved the government $240 billion because of its increased tax enforcement and prescription drug savings, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. And importantly, the IRA’s tax credits spurred companies to build new factories and solar and wind farms in the US, creating jobs with it.
Trump and congressional Republicans haven’t killed the law, although they are aiming to take parts of it out later this year. Trump has effectively killed other climate policies Biden imposed through executive order, but it will take an act of Congress to reverse the former president’s signature climate bill.
From CNN’s Ella Nilsen
Paris climate agreement: Trump touted withdrawing a second time from the Paris climate agreement, claiming in his speech to Congress that the landmark climate deal was costing the US “trillions of dollars that other countries were not paying.”
This claim is inaccurate. Biden pledged to pay $11.4 billion per year toward international climate financing upon taking office. However, the US contribution to a global finance goal ended up being far lower because Congress appropriated far less money than Biden’s goal. Biden’s State Department announced it had allocated $5.8 billion to international climate finance by 2022. US climate finance contributions have never reached trillions of dollars.
The US wasn’t the only laggard on its climate finance commitments; other nations have struggled to meet a collective $100 billion climate financing goal meant to help countries vulnerable to sea level rise and droughts. China, the UK and the EU have all contributed. That goal was tripled to $300 billion annually by 2035 at the most recent United Nations Climate Conference.
From CNN’s Ella Nilsen
Trump on border crossings and migrants
Illegal border crossings: Trump claimed that, since taking office again, he has already achieved the lowest number of illegal border crossings “ever recorded.” That’s false.
He could have accurately said the number of Border Patrol apprehensions at the southern border in February – the first full month of his second term – is the lowest in many decades, at least if it’s true that the number was 8,326, as he claimed on social media in early March. But official federal statistics show there were fewer Border Patrol encounters with migrants at the southwest border in various months of the early 1960s, as well as in various months of previous decades.
From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Devan Cole
Migrants coming from mental institutions: Trump repeated his familiar claim Tuesday night about how other countries have supposedly released people from their “mental institutions and insane asylums” into the US as migrants. There is no evidence for the president’s claim, which Trump’s own presidential campaign was unable to corroborate. (The campaign was unable to provide any evidence even for his narrower claim that South American countries in particular were emptying their mental health facilities to somehow dump patients upon the US.)
From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Haley Britzky
Weaponizing the Justice Department: Trump claimed that Biden used his office to “viciously” prosecute him. That’s false.
Trump’s two federal indictments were brought by a special counsel, Jack Smith. Smith was appointed in November 2022 by Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee, but that is not proof that Biden was involved in the prosecution effort, much less that Biden personally ordered the indictments. Garland had said that he would resign if Biden ever asked him to act against Trump but that he was sure that would never happen. For Trump’s part, he has never provided any evidence that Biden was personally involved in the federal prosecutions.
The two cases were dropped by Smith after Trump was reelected.
From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Devan Cole
Inflation under Biden: Trump falsely claimed in his address to Congress that under the Biden administration America suffered the “worst inflation in 48 years, but perhaps even in the history of our country, they’re not sure.”
Trump could fairly say that the year-over-year US inflation rate hit a 40-year high in June 2022, when it was 9.1%, but that’s not “48 years” — and this 9.1% rate was not close to the all-time record of 23.7%, set in 1920. The rate in the last full month of the Biden administration, December 2024, was 2.9%. It was 3% in January 2025, a month partly under Biden and partly under Trump.
Trump did qualify the claim with the word “perhaps” and “they’re not sure,” but there is no basis for the claim regardless, and those numbers are certain: The Consumer Price Index data goes back to 1913.
Inflation’s rapid ascent, which began in early 2021, was the result of a confluence of factors, including effects from the Covid-19 pandemic such as snarled supply chains and geopolitical fallout (specifically Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) that triggered food and energy price shocks. Heightened consumer demand boosted in part by fiscal stimulus from both the Trump and Biden administrations also led to higher prices, as did the post-pandemic imbalance in the labor market.
From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Alicia Wallace
Undocumented immigrants: Trump falsely claimed Tuesday that 21 million undocumented immigrants came into the US during Biden’s tenure.
Through December 2024, the last full month of Biden’s presidency, the country had recorded under 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants during that administration, including millions who were rapidly expelled from the country; even adding in so-called gotaways who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no way the total is “21 million.”
From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Devan Cole
Agricultural purchases by China: Trump repeated a false claim that he got China to purchase $50 billion worth of agricultural goods during his first administration and that the Biden administration “didn’t enforce it.” That is misleading.
China agreed to increase agricultural purchases by $12.5 billion in 2020 and $19.5 billion in 2021, as part of a trade pact signed with the US in January 2020. That did occur in 2020 but not in 2021, when US agricultural exports to China increased by $6.4 billion compared with 2020, according to US Department of Agriculture data.
Nevertheless, the pact never specified that China would have to continue to keep up such purchase levels beyond 2021.
Rather, it said, “The Parties project that the trajectory of increases in the amounts of manufactured goods, agricultural goods, energy products, and services purchased and imported into China from the United States will continue in calendar years 2022 through 2025.”
Even still, 2022 surpassed 2021 levels of $33 billion, according to USDA data. However, by 2023, US agricultural exports to China declined by $9 billion.
From CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald
Autism rates: In his address to Congress on Tuesday, Trump spoke of the recent rise in autism prevalence in the US, saying that “not long ago, and you can’t even believe these numbers, one in 10,000 children had autism, one in 10,000, and now it’s one in 36.”
Some of the earliest studies on autism diagnosis from the 1960s and 1970s estimated reported autism prevalence to be in the range of 2 to 4 cases for every 10,000 children, but that was many decades ago. While the diagnosis rate has increased steadily in recent years, it was already 1 in 150 children in 2000, 25 years ago, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was indeed 1 in 36 children by age 8 in 2020.
Experts say significant improvement in identifying and diagnosing autism is a key driver behind the rise in reported rates.
From CNN’s Deidre McPhillips and Daniel Dale
Military recruitment: Trump claimed Tuesday that the US military is having “among the best recruiting results ever in the history of our services” and that the US Army had its “single-best recruiting month in 15 years” in January, adding that “just a few months ago” the US “couldn’t recruit anywhere.”
This needs context. According to the Defense Department, military recruitment was already up over 10% in fiscal year 2024 compared with the year prior, and the delayed entry program for the active-duty military was up 10% in fiscal year 2025. The delayed entry program is a way for recruits to join the military but not ship out until a later date.
And looking specifically at the Army’s recruitment, former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, who served until January 20, told Fox News that the uptick started before Trump was elected — and that the Army in fact started seeing increased numbers in February 2024.
From CNN’s Haley Britzky
Social Security benefits: In an extended claim, Trump said 4.7 million people who are at least 100 years old are still listed in the Social Security Administration’s database and that “money is being paid to many of them.” However, this claim needs context.
The vast majority of these people do not have dates of death listed in Social Security’s database. But that doesn’t mean they are actually receiving monthly benefits.
Public data from the Social Security Administration shows that about 89,000 people age 99 or over were receiving Social Security benefits in December 2024, not even close to the millions Trump invoked.
The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Leland Dudek, who was elevated to that post by the current Trump administration, tried to set the record straight in a February statement.
“The reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record. These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits,” Dudek said.
From CNN’s Tami Luhby and Daniel Dale
Aid to Ukraine: Trump repeated a regular false claim that the US has spent $350 billion, “like taking candy from a baby,” to support Ukraine’s defense while Europe has collectively provided just $100 billion in aid. That is not close to correct.
According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank that closely tracks wartime aid to Ukraine, Europe – the European Union plus individual European countries – had collectively committed far more total wartime military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine through December 2024 (about $263 billion at current exchange rates) than the US committed (about $126 billion). Europe had also allocated more military, financial and humanitarian aid (about $140 billion) than the US allocated (about $121 billion).
The US did have a slim lead in one particular category, military aid allocated, providing about $68 billion compared with about $66 billion from Europe. But even that was nowhere close to the giant gulf Trump described.
It’s possible to arrive at different totals using different counting methodologies, but there is no apparent basis for Trump’s “$350 billion” figure. The US government inspector general overseeing the Ukraine response says on its website that the US had appropriated nearly $183 billion for the Ukraine response through December 2024, including about $83 billion actually disbursed – and that includes funding spent in the US or sent to countries other than Ukraine.
From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Alicia Wallace
Panama Canal deaths: Trump delivered a slightly vaguer than usual version of his repeated false claim that 38,000 Americans died during the building of the Panama Canal. That figure is not even close to true, experts on the canal’s construction say.
Experts on the canal say it’s not even close to true that 38,000 Americans died during construction.
While the century-old records are imprecise, they show about 5,600 people died during the canal’s American construction phase between 1903 and 1914 – and “of those, the vast majority were Afro-Caribbeans,” such as workers from Barbados and Jamaica, said Julie Greene, a history professor at the University of Maryland and author of the book “The Canal Builders: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal.”
The late historian David McCullough, author of another book on the building of the canal, found that “the number of white Americans who died was about 350.”
Thousands of additional workers, perhaps around 22,000, died during the French construction phase that preceded the American phase. But Trump strongly suggested he was talking about American deaths, as he has explicitly said on previous occasions.
From CNN’s Daniel Dale
This story has been updated with additional information.
