President Donald Trump made a series of false claims, most of which have been previously debunked, during a prime-time address at the White House on Wednesday night. This is a fact check.
Inflation and the economy
Inflation under Trump: Near the end of his speech, Trump falsely claimed that “inflation has stopped.” Inflation hasn’t stopped yet; September’s year-over-year inflation rate of 3.0% was the same as when Trump returned to office in January—in fact, September’s rate was slightly higher if you count it to a few decimal places—and September marked the fifth straight month of rising year-over-year inflation.
Inflation under Biden: Trump reiterated his false claim that “when I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years and some would say the worst in the history of our country.”
Year-on-year inflation in December 2024, the last month of the Biden administration, was 2.9%; in January 2025, the month of Trump’s second inauguration, the figure was 3.0%. This is the same rate as last seen when Trump spoke on Wednesday, which was 3.0% in September 2025. (November rates are scheduled to be released Thursday morning.) We don’t know who Trump was referring to by “some would say,” but neither the December 2024 numbers nor the January 2025 numbers are anywhere near the worst inflation in decades or ever.
Granted, U.S. inflation hit a roughly 40-year high (not a 48-year high) in June 2022 under the Biden administration, at 9.1%, but even that was still a far cry from the all-time record of 23.7% set in 1920 — and that occurred more than two years before Trump’s return. Inflation had fallen sharply before Trump took office.
The cumulative price increase from the beginning to the end of Biden’s administration is not the worst in U.S. history. Federal data shows cumulative inflation under Biden is less than half what it was under Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
Grocery prices: After noting that egg prices have plummeted since March, Trump added, “Everything else is falling rapidly.” That’s not the case even if he’s specifically talking about rising grocery prices this year. Consumer Price Index data shows more groceries Increase Prices have dropped since he returned to the office. He spoke on Wednesday as the latest September Consumer Price Index (CPI) data showed average grocery prices rising about 2.7% from September 2024; from January 2025, the month Trump returned to office, to about 1.4%; from August to September, about 0.3%.
November data due to be released on Thursday will likely show grocery prices falling month over month, but they are almost certain to remain higher under Trump.
Prescription drug prices: Trump reiterated his false claim that his executive order on prescription drug prices would lower those prices by “as much as 400%, 500%, even 600%.” These numbers are mathematically impossible; if the president magically asked these companies to drop the price of all drugs to $0, that would be a 100% price reduction. You can read a longer fact check here.
Natural gas prices: Trump said, “Gasoline prices in most of the United States are currently below $2.50 per gallon, and by the way, there are some areas where the price has just reached $1.99 per gallon.” These claims require context.
As of Wednesday, only four states had an average price of less than $2.50 per gallon of regular gas: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa and Colorado, according to data released by AAA. (There are nine additional states with average prices between $2.50 and $2.60 per gallon.) AAA’s national average is $2.905 per gallon.
No state has an average price lower than Oklahoma’s $2.339 per gallon. While some stations across the country offer gas for $1.99 a gallon or less, the numbers are small; Patrick De Haan, GasBuddy’s director of petroleum analysis, estimates there are 75 to 100 stations in a GasBuddy orbit of tens of thousands across the country. (This does not include others offering special discounts.)
Investment in the United States this year: Trump reiterated his false claim that U.S. investment reached “$18 trillion” during his second term as president, saying Wednesday that “I’ve had a record $18 trillion invested in the United States.” That number was fictional. When he spoke on Wednesday, the White House’s own website called the figure “$9.6 trillion,” but even that was a gross exaggeration; a detailed CNN review in October found that the White House was counting trillions of dollars in vague investment commitments that were about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchanges” rather than investment in the United States, or were vague statements that didn’t even rise to the level of commitments. You can read more here.
Immigration and foreign policy
Trump and the war: Trump reiterated his false claim that he had ended eight wars this year, saying on Wednesday, “I have restored America’s strength and resolved eight wars in 10 months.” While Trump has played a role in resolving some conflicts (at least temporarily), the “eight” number is clearly an exaggeration.
Trump has previously explained that his list of so-called resolved wars includes the war between Egypt and Ethiopia, but that is not actually a war; it is a long-running diplomatic dispute over a massive Ethiopian dam project on a tributary of the Nile River. Trump’s list included another supposed war between Serbia and Kosovo that did not actually happen during his presidency. (He has sometimes claimed to have prevented a new war from breaking out between the two entities, offering few details of what he meant by that, but that is not the same as settling an actual war.) His list includes purported successes in ending wars involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, but which have continued despite a peace deal brokered by the Trump administration this year — one that the main rebel alliance involved in the fighting never signed.
Trump’s list also includes armed conflicts between Thailand and Cambodia, which flared up again this month and continued into this week despite a peace deal brokered by the Trump administration earlier this year.
One can argue about the importance of Trump’s role in ending other conflicts on his list, or it’s fair to question whether some of them are actually over; for example, the killings in Gaza continued in November after Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire. In any case, Trump’s “eight” number is clearly too large.
Immigration and Biden: Trump reiterated his false claim that “25 million” immigrants entered the United States under Biden. The number “25 million” is false; even the number “21 million” previously proposed by Trump is an exaggeration. As of December 2024, the final month of the Biden administration, the federal government had documented fewer than 11 million “encounters” with immigrants nationwide, including millions of people who were swiftly deported. Even adding in House Republicans’ estimate of so-called test-evaders at about 2.2 million, the total is nowhere near the number Trump says he is.
On January 24, a U.S. Army soldier closed the gate at the U.S.-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, Texas, as President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of additional military personnel to the Mexican border as part of a series of measures to address immigration issues. – Charlie Triballo/AFP/Getty Images/File
Trump also reiterated his unsubstantiated claims that foreign countries emptied prisons and mental hospitals during the Biden administration and somehow sent people in prisons and mental hospitals to the United States as immigrants, claiming that “many” members of the so-called “25 million-strong army” “come from prisons and jails, mental hospitals and lunatic asylums.” Trump has never provided support for such claims about foreign countries or the specific places he has mentioned in the past: Venezuela and “Congo.” Experts on Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring Republic of Congo say they see no basis for Trump’s stories during the Biden administration. Both Congolese governments have told CNN the stories are false, and an expert on global prison populations told CNN she has “absolutely no evidence” that any country is emptying prisons to somehow release prisoners into the United States.
Other topics
Trump’s bill and Social Security: Trump reiterated his false claim that the massive domestic policy bill he signed earlier this year included “no tax on Social Security.” The legislation does create an additional, temporary $6,000 annual tax break for individuals 65 and older (with smaller deductions for those making $75,000 or more), but the White House itself has implicitly acknowledged that millions of Social Security recipients 65 and older will continue to pay taxes on their benefits — and this new credit, which expires in 2028, doesn’t even apply to Social Security recipients younger than $75,000. 65.
Biden, crime and law enforcement: Trump falsely claimed that under Biden, “crime is at record levels, law enforcement and that sort of thing is absolutely prohibited.” Neither statement is correct.
There is no ban on the use of the term “law enforcement” under Biden; the Biden administration itself has used the term several times. Crime rates haven’t even reached record highs under Biden. The crime rate in the United States in the early 1990s and in the 1970s and 1980s was much higher than the crime rate in the 2020s under Biden or Trump.
Murders surged across the country amid the turmoil of the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic under Trump in 2020 and Biden in 2021. But FBI data shows that under Biden, violent crime and property crime declined nationwide in 2023 and 2024. Trump has questioned the FBI data, and while it does have flaws and limitations, the notion that crime is at record highs in the Biden era is simply unfounded.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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