Trump Spews Lie-After-Lie in Longest Congressional Address On Record
Tonight, Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union Address at the Capitol – the longest on record – bragging about his alleged “golden age” and “greatest economy in American history.” His delusion sharply contradicts the lived experiences of the American people. Millions of American families continue to struggle with tariff-fueled inflation, job market instability, skyrocketing health care costs, and a housing crisis that’s put homeownership out of reach for millions. While Trump touts his “accomplishments,” working families are facing real hardship. His fantastical claims about economic success don’t match the facts on the ground, and his policies have failed to deliver relief for ordinary Americans facing his affordability crisis – but they’ve been great for billionaires.
Here are the key facts about what’s actually happening in Trump’s terrible economy:
CLAIM: “Prices are plummeting downward”
THE FACTS: Wage growth has shrunk since Trump took office, and a year into Trump’s term grocery prices are still rising. The cost of key grocery staples has risen steeply since last January. The average pound of coffee is up 18% from a year ago, and beef and veal prices reached record highs in 2025, rising over 15%. It costs more to cook the food too; utility costs rose 13% in 2025 and pots, pans, and silverware are up 13.1% since last year – rising more than five times faster than inflation overall.
CLAIM: “This is the golden age of America”
THE FACTS: During Trump’s first year in office, the U.S. economy saw almost no job growth. Layoff announcements topped 1.1 million in 2025 – the most since the last time Trump was in office during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both the U.S.-born unemployment rate and unemployment overall has risen since Trump took office. Outside of the two most recent recessions, 2025 saw the lowest pace of average monthly job growth since 2003. People are spending longer looking for jobs and millions of Americans are involuntarily working part-time or scrambling to string together multiple gigs just to survive. The economy grew at just 2.2% in 2025 – lower than in every year of the Biden administration
CLAIM: “America is the hottest country in the world.”
THE FACTS: Americans hate what Donald Trump has done to the economy. Since Trump took office, consumer sentiment has plunged by 26% and now sits near all-time lows, while the president’s approval rating on the economy has fallen deeply underwater.
- Just 35% of Americans approve of Trump’s performance on the economy according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll.
- 37% of Americans approve of how Trump is handling the economy, according to the latest AP-NORC poll.
- Just 36% of Americans approve of President Trump’s handling of the economy, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.
- 57% of Americans blame the current state of the U.S. economy on President Trump, according to the most recent Quinnipiac poll.
CLAIM: “The economy is roaring like never before.”
THE FACTS: Donald Trump promised a manufacturing and blue-collar jobs boom, but month after month, we’re losing blue-collar jobs. Over 108,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in Trump’s first year in office and there’s no end in sight with the manufacturing economy “going in reverse” according to the Wall Street Journal. Logistics, manufacturing, and supply-chain firms started 2026 with a fresh surge of layoffs, facility closures, and bankruptcy filings, impacting as many as 9,300 manufacturing workers nationwide already.
CLAIM: Energy costs are going down so much “it’s like another tax cut.”
THE FACTS: Overall energy costs are rising more than twice as fast as inflation and one in six U.S. households is behind on utility bills, owing billions to electric and gas utilities. Residential electric bills are up 17% nationwide, rising more than seven times faster than inflation overall, and retail gas prices are already up 3% this year. Three in four (73%) Americans are concerned about their electric and gas utility bills rising and 80% of Americans say they feel powerless over how much they are charged for utilities.
CLAIM: Trump is solving the “Biden-created housing crisis.”
THE FACTS: More than 8 in 10 Americans say it is harder today to buy a home than it was for earlier generations and Trump’s policies are doing nothing but driving up new home costs by tens of thousands of dollars. The Center for American Progress estimates that tariff-induced higher building costs will lead to 450,000 fewer homes being built over the next five years, exacerbating the housing supply shortage. Insuring your home is more expensive too, with homeowners and renters insurance prices going up 7% in 2025. Trump’s housing affordability policies are doing nothing to alleviate the crisis and his plan to stop us from becoming a “nation of renters” only encourages that very thing.
CLAIM: Trump’s tariffs, which he said are “paid for by foreign countries,” are boosting the U.S. economy: “no inflation, tremendous growth.”
THE FACTS: Trump promised that foreign countries and corporations would pay for the cost of his massive tariffs. Instead, the CBO estimates that U.S. consumers have borne 96% of the burden of Trump’s tariffs, with the average American family paying nearly $1,700 in tariff costs since Trump took office in 2025. Far from experiencing tremendous growth, farmers across the country are projected to lose $44 billion in income this season. Farm bankruptcies surged 46% in 2025, the highest in half a decade, with more than 300 farms on the brink of closure. Lender surveys show less than 50% of agricultural borrowers are expected to remain profitable in 2026.
CLAIM: “We have lifted 2.4 million people off of food stamps.”
THE FACTS: The Trump-GOP Big Ugly Bill kicks nearly 15 million people off their health insurance, raises premiums for over 20 million more, cuts $1 trillion from Medicaid, takes food assistance away from at least 3 million Americans, and eliminates school meal access for more than 18 million kids – all while disproportionately cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans. This represents the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in American history while at the same time increasing deficits for all of us by $3.4 trillion over the coming decade.
CLAIM: Trump “got it done” on lowering drug prices.
THE FACTS: Since being elected to a second term in office, Trump has taken millions from Big Pharma, entertained drug and insurance company CEOs at Mar-a-Lago. In return, he signed a nearly $9 billion drug company bailout
CLAIM: Trump is giving people “better health care at a much lower cost.”
THE FACTS: Drug prices, health insurance premiums, and out-of-pocket costs are all up.
- Health care premiums have risen across the board, regardless of source. Americans who buy insurance through the ACA are paying 114% more on average, Americans who rely on small group insurance are paying 11% more, seniors who rely on Medicare are paying 10% more, and Americans with employer-based coverage are paying 9% more.
- Home health care is up nearly 13% year-over-year
- Inpatient hospital services are up 7.4% year-over-year
- The prices of 688 drugs increased an average of 5.5% since Trump took office.
CLAIM: Trump is waging a “war on fraud” and claimed “we’ll have a balanced budget overnight.”
THE FACTS: Far from fighting corruption and fraud, Trump has propped up fraudsters and profited off his presidency. Trump and his family have personally pocketed over $4 billion during his second term in office, and key members of his administration continue to profit from government contracts, insider trading and prediction markets. Meanwhile, Trump has pardoned several notorious fraudsters who cost the federal government hundreds of millions of dollars, waiving their multimillion-dollar fines. Trump hasn’t lifted a finger to balance the federal deficit, instead ballooning it by trillions of dollars at breakneck speed.
CLAIM: Trump’s immigration agenda is “protect[ing] American citizens.”
THE FACTS: Trump’s approval on immigration sits at a record low. The latest Reuters/IPSOS poll found a majority of Americans say Trump’s crackdown on immigration has gone too far. Just 39% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing on immigration, down from 50% last February, and 58% say ICE agents have gone too far. A majority of Americans also disapprove of how immigration enforcement officers are handling their jobs, with a majority saying ICE’s tactics are “too forceful.” Since Trump took office, seven people have been shot and killed by federal immigration officers, including unarmed U.S. citizens. Dozens of others have been shot or seriously injured by “less lethal” munitions. There have been at least 13 instances of immigration agents firing at or into civilian vehicles since July, and more than 40 cases of immigration agents using banned chokeholds and other moves that can cut off breathing. More than a third of the roughly 220,000 people arrested by ICE officers in the first nine months of the Trump administration had no criminal histories. In the highest profile ICE operations in Los Angeles; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and across Massachusetts, more than half of those arrested had no criminal record.
CLAIM: The SAVE Act will stop “rampant” cheating in our “sacred elections.”
The FACTS: Trump and the GOP’s SAVE Act will block millions of Americans from voting and disenfranchise many U.S. citizens – especially married women, Americans living abroad, and the approximately 21 million Americans who lack access to their citizenship documents like birth certificates and passports.
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