What was false and misleading?
Fact-checking Trump's State of the Union address
ABC News
ABC NEWS
Wed, February 25, 2026 at 12:13 AM EST
2.5K
Just over a year into his second term, President Donald Trump delivered the State of the Union address Tuesday, making his case for sweeping policy changes and executive actions that have come to define America's current moment.
From steep global tariffs that were recently struck down by the Supreme Court to an overhaul of domestic immigration enforcement and mounting tensions with Iran, all eyes were on the president speaking before Congress at the Capitol.
An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released Sunday found that Trump's overall disapproval rating is at 60% -- a high for his second term.
With midterm elections in November looming, where control of Congress is at stake, Trump rolled out several new measures to address affordability and tout his administration's efforts to boost the U.S. economy.
Throughout Trump's remarks Tuesday night, ABC News live fact-checked some of the president's statements that may have been exaggerated, need more context or are false.
TRUMP CLAIM: "In the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States."
FACT CHECK: False, but crossings are down drasticallyAfter using executive authority to enforce a series of restrictive policy measures at the southern border, the Trump administration has severely decreased the number of people who crossed the border illegally, down from the record highs of the Biden administration.
According to the data collected by Customs and Border Protection, in 2024, the last full year of Biden’s presidency, there were over 1.5 million encounters with migrants attempting to illegally cross the border. In 2025, the first full year of Trump’s second term in office, that number dropped to just under 28,000.
Those low trends continue in 2026, but have never been at “zero” as the president has often suggested. The numbers suggest migrants are still attempting to cross the border, and it would be impossible to know if any had gone through unnoticed.
-ABC News' Luke Barr and Justin Fishel
Trump State of the Union updates: Trump hammers Iran, immigration, economy and airs grievances
TRUMP CLAIM: "My administration has driven core inflation down to the lowest level in more than five years."
FACT CHECK: Yes and NoWhile it’s a positive development that inflation has come down in recent months, this hasn’t led to reduced prices across the board. The state of play is more complicated.
The facts are that when Trump took office, inflation was at 3% and today it's down to 2.4%
The most recent inflation report was positive.
But prices for everyday products for Americans are impacted by more than just inflation.
The president’s tariffs have impacted the cost of fresh produce, beef and coffee. Ground coffee prices are up 34% in the past year. And even those increased costs aren’t all due to tariffs.
Bureau of Labor and Statistics data also show Americans are paying more for energy (in many cases due to the data centers needed to power AI technology), up 6.3 percent from January 2025 to January 2026.
-ABC News' Zunaira Zaki
TRUMP CLAIM: "In 12 months, I secured commitments for more than $18 trillion pouring in from all over the globe."
FACT CHECK: Lacks evidenceIt is unclear where the $18 trillion number is coming from. It is a huge number. US GDP is $31 trillion. On their website, the White House says they have secured $9.6 trillion in domestic and foreign investments since Trump took office for his second term. A White House official confirmed that this figure includes “investments that have materialized or committed,” but they did not answer ABC’s questions about where the president’s $18 trillion number is coming from.
The White House’s $9.6 trillion in investments also appears to be inflated, as other sums are included in their calculations. For example, the website lists a $1.2 trillion “foreign investment” from Qatar. But according to a White House fact sheet distributed when the deal was made, the U.S. and Qatar had agreed to “generate an economic exchange worth at least $1.2 trillion" -- not an explicit investment.
-ABC News' Zunaira Zaki
TRUMP CLAIM: "I took prescription drugs, a very big part of health care, from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest."
FACT CHECK: Needs more contextMost favored nation pricing ties what the U.S. pays for a drug to the lowest price that the drugmaker charges in other wealthy countries, according to the health information non-profit KFF. Trump said Americans pay the highest drug prices in the world, and one recent study supports that, finding U.S. prices run about 2.7 to 4.2 times higher than in other wealthy nations for the same medicines. But KFF reports the policy has faced legal and industry pushback and has not broadly lowered prices across the U.S. market.
Trump has pointed to discount efforts such as his website, TrumpRX, and direct negotiations with manufacturers to slash prices. Some lower cash prices have appeared for certain IVF and weight-loss drugs, largely for uninsured and cash-paying patients, but overall U.S. drug prices remain high and many insured patients have not seen major reductions.
Ben Jolley, senior fellow for healthcare at the American Economic Liberties Project, said manufacturers were already under pressure to cut prices and that the discounts apply to limited purchasing channels, not overall list prices. He noted that some of the largest recent price cuts stem from earlier laws, including the Medicare drug price negotiation program under the Inflation Reduction Act and higher Medicaid rebates under the American Rescue Plan, both signed into law by Joe Biden. Jolley, who is a pharmacist, said pharmacists have not seen sweeping day-to-day reductions at the counter clearly tied to executive actions during Trump’s second term.
-ABC News' Liz Neporent
TRUMP CLAIM: “I want to stop all payments to big insurance companies and instead give that money directly to the people so they can buy their own health care.”
FACT CHECK: Lacks evidenceLast month, with tax breaks for the Affordable Care Act marketplace expiring and premiums increasing by 100% for some -- Trump unveiled his idea for a health care plan that he claimed could replace the ACA. The so-called "The Great Healthcare Plan" proposes to shift government insurance subsidies directly to consumers and take advantage of its "most favored nation" drug price initiative.
During his speech, Trump said the health care plan would “stop all payments to big insurance companies, and instead give that money directly to the people so they can buy their own health care.”
However, the video message and one-page fact sheet posted by the White House were light on specifics about how much money would actually go directly to Americans, how much funding the plan would require or how the funds would be distributed. Some health policy experts previously told ABC News that there's no way to tell how impactful these ideas could be and if they will expand on the plans already in existence through the ACA.
Additionally, the original ACA included cost-sharing reduction payments, which are federal reimbursements that compensate insurers for reducing out-of-pocket costs. The first Trump administration halted direct federal payments, but “The Great Healthcare Plan” appears to reinstate the payments to insurers.
-ABC News' Mary Kekatos
TRUMP CLAIM: "In many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country. They're blocking the removal of these people out of our country," Trump said of illegal immigrants and sanctuary cities.
FACT CHECK: Most DHS detainees have no criminal recordWhile the Trump administration has claimed the Department of Homeland Security is going after the “worst of the worst,” undocumented migrants, ICE data show a significant portion of detainees at immigration detention facilities have not been convicted of a crime. According to the latest ICE data available, on Feb. 7, there were 68,289 people in detention. That’s down from over 70,000 just a few weeks prior, which immigrant advocacy organizations say was a record high.
According to the data, about one fourth (or 26%) of detainees on Feb. 7 were considered “convicted criminals.” Another 26% had pending criminal charges. 47% or 32,364 detainees were classified as “other immigration violators,” people with no criminal convictions or pending charges.
In other words, 73% of detainees on Feb. 7 had no criminal convictions.
-ABC News' Armando Garcia and Jack Date
TRUMP CLAIM: “The cheating is rampant in our elections, it's rampant.”
FACT CHECK: FalseTrump has repeatedly alleged that undocumented immigrants have improperly influenced federal elections, but state voting data suggest that such instances are incredibly rare.
In 2024, voter roll audits in states including Georgia, Ohio, and Iowa, leading up to the 2024 election, uncovered very few instances of noncitizen voting in federal elections. A comprehensive audit of Georgia's voter rolls -- which include 8.2 million registered voters -- uncovered 20 noncitizens who registered to vote, including nine instances when noncitizens actually cast a ballot. A similar audit of Iowa's 2.3 million voters revealed 87 instances where individuals cast ballots and later self-reported as noncitizens.
According to research from the non-partisan nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research, allegations of sweeping and coordinated voter fraud generally arise from “misunderstandings, mischaracterizati
ons, or outright fabrications about complex voter data,” and most instances of voting fraud are rare and swiftly prosecuted by authorities.
-ABC News' Peter Charalambous
TRUMP CLAIM: "Crime in Washington is now at the lowest level ever recorded, and murders in D.C. this January were down close to 100% from a year ago."
FACT CHECK: ExaggeratedAlthough President Donald Trump claimed Washington, D.C., is at the “lowest level ever recorded” for crime, he did not define “crime” or cite data to support his claim that it is at an "all-time-low."
The Metropolitan Police Department’s year-to-date figures show violent crime down 29% and homicide down 67% as of Feb. 24, reflecting a significant decline. While this is a significant reduction in crime, it's not clear how he concludes this is an all-time low.
Trump also said, “murders in DC this January were down close to 100% from a year ago.” Homicides were extremely low in January. D.C. police reported two homicides in January, one of which stemmed from a 2025 death that was later ruled a homicide. That is a sharp drop, but not a drop to zero.
There have been nine homicides in the Nation's capital this year compared to 27 murders at the same time last year.
Violent crime and homicides were already declining before President Trump surged federal law enforcement and the National Guard last August. At the end of 2024, the Justice Department said violent crime in Washington fell in 2024 to its lowest level in more than 30 years. MPD year-end totals show homicides fell 32% from 2024 into 2025.
-ABC News' Beatrice Peterson
TRUMP CLAIM: "We wiped it out and they want to start all over again," Trump said of Iran's nuclear program.
FACT CHECK: Mostly falseIran’s nuclear program was severely damaged last June after the U.S. military struck three key nuclear sites with bunker-busting bombs. But, analysts and international inspectors say it was not entirely destroyed.
Rafael Grossi, head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, said in a recent interview with the French television network TFI that much of Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium likely remains at those sites. Analysts also point to satellite imagery showing Iran rebuilding.
According to a translation, Grossi said, “Some of it [the enriched uranium] may be less accessible, but the material is still there.”
The IAEA estimates some 972 pounds of highly enriched uranium remain unaccounted for.
Trump has threatened to strike Iran if it doesn’t agree to new curbs on its program.
This weekend, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, who is leading negotiations with Iran on Trump’s behalf, suggested there was a newfound urgency.
“They're probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material, and that's really dangerous. So, [we] can't have that,” said Witkoff in a pre-taped interview with Lara Trump that aired on Fox News on Saturday.
-ABC News' Anne Flaherty
TRUMP CLAIM: Trump says Iran hasn’t said “we will never have a nuclear weapon.”
FACT CHECK: FalseWhen referencing recent diplomatic talks with Iran, Trump claimed that the U.S. hasn’t “heard those secret words, ‘we will never have a nuclear weapon.'" This is false.
Iran has plainly stated on multiple occasions that the country does not have or intend to have nuclear weapons.
Hours before Trump’s speech on Feb. 24, Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi posted on social media, “Our fundamental convictions are crystal clear: Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.”
Earlier, in a speech to the United Nations, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said, “I hereby declare once more before this Assembly that Iran has never sought and will never seek to build a nuclear bomb.”
On Sep. 21, 2022, former President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi said, “I explicitly declare that the Islamic Republic of Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons and such weapons have no place in our defense doctrine.”
Iran has maintained a position that it is cooperating with the UN’s expectations for denuclearization, though UN watchdogs and the President have suggested the opposite.
-ABC News' Nathan Lee
TRUMP CLAIM: "My first ten months, I ended eight wars."
FACT CHECK: Mostly falseTrump has claimed he has ended eight wars, that he is a “president of peace” and that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize because of it.
He said he ended conflicts in "Cambodia and Thailand, Pakistan and India, Kosovo and Serbia, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Congo and Rwanda, and of course, the war in Gaza."
While Trump has helped to broker ceasefires among various nations, conflict in some of those areas has largely continued; there were no long-term treaties ratified among those nations; and some nations even dispute that Trump did anything to help. Long-term, unresolved tensions still exist among many of the nations.
In the conflict between Cambodia and Thailand, for example, Trump started working the phones soon after fighting broke out last year, and at the time, Trump successfully encouraged Thailand to join ceasefire talks orchestrated by Malaysia and China. The president also put pressure on the countries to end the conflict by saying he would not halt trade negotiations until the fighting ended. However, fighting broke out again in December 2025, and 100 people were reported dead before another ceasefire was reached. Tensions remain high.
The leaders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda signed a peace deal brokered by the Trump administration in Washington in late June 2025. Though the agreement was widely celebrated, the prospects for peace were quickly questioned because the deal didn’t include all warring factions. In recent days, U.S. Senior Adviser for Africa Massad Boulos acknowledged ongoing violence in the Congo, blaming M23 rebels and Rwanda -- calling it a "serious breach" of the Washington accord signed in 2025.
With India and Pakistan, a ceasefire between the two warring countries exists, but only Pakistan has given the president credit for bringing it about. In fact, Pakistan formally nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump claims to have personally spoken to Indian Prime Minister Modi during the conflict, but India has denied that the Trump administration played a role.
The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a more clear-cut diplomatic win for the president. The leaders of both countries have both credited Trump for his role in setting the countries on the path to peace, and an array of European leaders have also praised the administration for the diplomatic advancements.
-ABC News' Mariam Khan
TRUMP CLAIM: “The Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer."
FACT CHECK: Lacks evidenceThere is no evidence to back the president's claims that the Somali community has defrauded taxpayers of $19 billion. It's unclear where he gets that figure. It appears to be a misinterpretation of a statement by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson in a press conference in December 2025.
He stated that half or more of the $18 billion in federal funds that support a variety of Minnesota social services programs may have been stolen. He did not provide evidence for that claim. In fact, the Justice Department has brought charges alleging about $300 million in fraudulent payments related to a food assistance program in Minnesota during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The investigation began during the Biden administration and has since expanded. Ninety-two people were charged in that case, including 82 Somali Americans. The 82 Somali Americans in that case represent a small fraction of the estimated 100,000 Somali Americans living in Minnesota, most of whom are U.S. citizens.
