At his marathon combined cabinet meeting and press conference earlier this week, Donald Trump unfurled his version of the “facts” in an effort to persuade viewers that his administration was off to a good start. For example, he declared 2025 to be “the most consequential and successful first year of any administration,” choosing to ignore Franklin Roosevelt’s 1933 launch of the New Deal. Some of his falsehoods were contradicted by his own website; while he claimed that companies have announced $18 trillion of new investments in the U.S. since he started his second term, his website only claims $9.6 trillion and experts believe even that number is inflated.
The list of exaggerations, misstatements and outright lies was long; I’ve chosen six that can be refuted easily with a chart.
Trump: “I inherited the worst inflation in history.”
The Facts: Not even close. Remember the late 1970s, after the Arab oil embargo, when oil prices soared and other prices rose with it? Inflation reached more than 12% in November 1974. Six years later, the problem recurred with inflation hitting nearly 15%. (It also reached double digits in the aftermath of World War II.) In comparison, the Covid-related inflation peaked at 9% in June 2022. And by Trump’s inauguration, it was down to 3%
Trump: “We’ve stopped inflation in its tracks.”
The Facts: It never stopped, in its tracks or otherwise. Yes, it declined modestly in Trump’s first few months but never below 2.3%. And since April, it has been accelerating, in part due to Trump’s tariffs, which function as a kind of sales tax. As of September (the latest data available), inflation had risen to 3%, essentially where it was when Trump took office. (In contrast, before Trump’s arrival, Goldman Sachs had projected that inflation would have declined to 2.3% by now.
Trump: “And we’re going to be giving back refunds out of the tariffs because we’ve taken in literally trillions of dollars and we’re going to be giving a nice dividend to the people, in addition to reducing debt … you won’t even have income tax to pay because the money we’re taking in is so great.”
The Facts: Where to start? For one thing, tariff revenue will never be even remotely big enough to replace the income tax. In the last fiscal year, income tax revenue totaled about $2.5 trillion. In comparison, tariff revenue was $80 billion. Even this year, tariff revenue was only $259 billion through November and in the current fiscal year, Trump’s own Office of Management and Budget is expecting it to be just $400 billion. Then there’s the debt. The federal government ran a $1.8 trillion deficit in its last fiscal year and is expected to have a gap of roughly the same size this year. So rather than reducing debt, Washington is still increasing it by nearly $2 trillion a year.
Trump: “The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats.”
The Facts: While affordability has long been a concern, it took on new urgency when inflation soared during the pandemic. All income groups lost considerable ground, with lower incomes faring relatively better because of increased minimum wages and tight labor markets. Even after inflation dropped to just over 3.1%, no income group made up a meaningful amount of the lost ground and the top two-thirds fell further behind. Now, perhaps not coincidentally, incomes for the top third are rising faster than inflation while they are still falling short for the rest of Americans.
Trump: “Obamacare was made to make the insurance companies rich. Their stocks have gone up 1,000 percent in a short period of time”
The Facts: Because of how it increased competition, the Affordable Care Act has been a bad business proposition for most insurers. I don’t know what Trump meant by a “short period,” but consider the fact of the two largest players in the Obamacare marketplace: UnitedHealthcare and Elevance Health. Both stocks are up just 25% over the past five years, a far cry from 1,000%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 has risen by 112%. (Other factors contributed to the poor performance of these companies but the A.C.A. certainly didn’t help.)
Trump: “We have reduced drug prices by 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 percent, depending on the drug.”
The Facts: The statement displays simple ignorance of sixth grade math. If the price of a $60 drug drops by 50%, it would then cost $30. If it drops by 100%, it would be free. But it can’t drop by 200% (or anything above 100%) or drug companies would be paying people to use the drug.