A pitiful fact check
There is room for good impartial fact checking. But too often fact checkers either get it wrong or just nit pick and miss the woods for the trees. Here’s a great example from AP which claims seven of Trump’s claims in his SOTU speech were false.
TRUMP: “Illegal border crossings last month were by far the lowest ever recorded. Ever.”
THE FACTS: Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday that Border Patrol apprehended 8326 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.
This is just pitiful. The difference between the lowest ever and the lowest in 75 years is irrelevant to most people. You could also argue that the much smaller population in the 1960s means the 2025 is smaller as a proportion.
TRUMP: “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 Trump cites regularly, is highly inflated. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported more than 10.8 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico from January 2021 through December 2024.
But that’s 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 getting turned back to Mexico. So the number of people is lower than the number of arrests.
This is pretty pitiful also. The issue is a secure border. The fact some people illegally cross more than once doesn’t make it less of a problem.
TRUMP: “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: Trump is banking on the idea that taxing imports is the road to riches for the United States. Most economists say Trump’s tariffs would hurt the country, as they’re tax increases that could raise the costs of goods in ways that could also harm economic growth.
This is not something that can be fact checked. It is Trump’s subjective opinion. Now I disagree with him 100%, but again this is a misuse of a so called fact check.
TRUMP: “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: Inflation peaked at 9.1% in 2022 under US President Joe Biden, but 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.
Again a claim that the economy was a catastrophe is an opinion, not a fact.
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