Focus on misleading claims by Trump during US Congress address
The US President sought to highlight several initiatives during his first six weeks back in the White House.
US President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of US Congress highlighted several of the initiatives he has started in his first six weeks in office.
However, many of his comments included false and misleading information.
Here is a closer look at a few of his claims:
Mr Trump said: “Illegal border crossings last month were by far the lowest ever recorded. Ever.”
The facts: Mr Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday that Border Patrol apprehended 8,326 people on the US-Mexico border last month. But US government data show that Border Patrol routinely averaged below that number in the 1960s.
While February marked the lowest arrest total in decades, Border Patrol averaged less than February 2025 for the first seven years of 1960s.
The US government website does not track US-Mexico border totals before 1960. Border Patrol’s monthly average was 1,752 arrests in 1961.
– He inflated the number of people who entered America illegally under Joe Biden
Mr Trump said: “Over the past four years, 21 million people poured into the United States. Many of them were murderers, human traffickers, gang members.”
The facts: That figure, which Mr Trump cites regularly, is highly inflated. US Customs and Border Protection reported more than 10.8 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico from January 2021 through December 2024.
But that is arrests, not people. Under asylum restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, many people crossed more than once until they succeeded because there were no legal consequences for being turned back to Mexico. So the number of people is lower than the number of arrests.
There is no evidence other countries are sending their criminals or people with mental illness across the border, despite this frequent line from Mr Trump.
Mr Trump said: “Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it’s happening. And it will happen rather quickly. There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much.”
The facts: Mr Trump is banking on the idea that taxing imports is the road to riches for the United States. Most economists say Mr Trump’s tariffs would hurt the country, as they are tax increases that could raise the costs of goods in ways that could also harm economic growth. Mr Trump suggests that the impact on inflation would be minimal.
When the Yale University Budget Lab looked at the tariffs that Mr Trump imposed on Tuesday on Canada, Mexico and China, it found that inflation would increase a full percentage point, growth would fall by half a percentage point and the average household would lose about 1,600 dollars (£1,250) in disposable income.
– There is no evidence Social Security money is being paid to many people over age 100
Mr Trump told Congress: “Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119 … 3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129; 3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139; 3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149. And money is being paid to many of them, and we are searching right now.”
The facts: The databases may list those people, but that does not mean they are getting paid benefits.
Part of the confusion comes from Social Security’s software system based on the Cobol programming language, which does not use a specific format for dates.
This means that some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a reference point of more than 150 years ago. The news organisation Wired first reported on the use of Cobol programming language at the Social Security Administration.
Additionally, a series of reports from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general in March 2023 and July 2024 state that the agency has not established a new system to properly annotate death information in its database, which included roughly 18.9 million Social Security numbers of people born in 1920 or earlier but were not marked as deceased. This does not mean, however, that these people were receiving benefits.
The agency decided not to update the database because of the cost to do so, which would run upward of nine million dollars (£7.06 million). As of September 2015, the agency automatically stops payments to people who are older than 115 years old.
Mr Trump said: “Among my very highest priorities is to rescue our economy and get dramatic and immediate relief to working families. As you know, we inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare.”
The facts: US inflation peaked at 9.1% in 2022 under Joe Biden, but Mr Trump did not inherit a disastrous economy by any measure.
The unemployment rate ticked down to a low 4% in January, the month he took office, while the economy expanded a healthy 2.8% in 2024. Inflation-adjusted incomes have grown steadily since mid-2023.
And inflation, while showing signs of stickiness in recent months and still elevated at 3% in January, is down from its 2022 peak.
– Trump’s reference to an ‘EV mandate’ is inaccurate
Mr Trump said: “We ended the last administration’s insane electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto workers and companies from economic destruction.”
The facts: There was no federal mandate to force the purchase of EVs, as Mr Trump has falsely claimed many times before.
Mr Biden had set up a non-binding goal that EVs make up half of new cars sold by 2030. Mr Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office revoking that goal.
His policies tightened restrictions on pollution from petrol-powered cars and trucks in an effort to encourage Americans to buy EVs and car companies to shift from petrol-powered vehicles to electric cars.
According to Mr Trump: “I am pleased to report that in January, the US army had its single best recruiting month in 15 years.”
The facts: Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed that the army’s recruiting turnaround is tied to his time in office.
In fact, according to army data, recruiting numbers have been increasing steadily over the past year, with the highest total coming in August 2024 – before the November election. Army officials closely track recruiting numbers.
A significant driver of the recruiting success was the army’s decision to launch the Future Soldier Prep Course at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in August 2022. That programme gives lower-performing recruits up to 90 days of academic or fitness instruction to help them meet military standards and move on to basic training.
