Jobs, gas prices and ending wars: factchecking Trump’s State of the Union claims

Explainer Jobs, gas prices and ending wars: factchecking Trump’s State of the Union claims The president’s lengthy speech to Congress contained myriad inflated, misleading or simply false claims Donald Trump officially made the longest State of the Union address in history on Tuesday night, with broad claims about the successes achieved during the first year of his second term. But the speech that stretched across more than an hour and 41 minutes was filled with strong statements, many of them inflated, misleading or simply untrue. Here are some of the claims made by the president during his address: Factcheck: economy, jobs and investments Trump repeatedly touted his economy, boasting “we are the hottest country anywhere in the world” and claiming “we have more jobs, more people working today than ever before in the history of our country.” But data shows job gains under Trump slowed in 2025, and were far smaller than any other non-pandemic year. According to revised data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier this month, the US gained just 181,000 jobs in 2025. That number, PolitiFact notes, is “well below the 1.5 million to 2.5 million typical under both Trump during his first term and former President Joe Biden”. Trump also said the US had, under his leadership, secured $18tn in investments “pouring in from all over the globe”. But a review from CNN last year found that the White House was counting pledges – vague amounts promised – rather than actual investments. The White House website on investments lists total US and Foreign Investments at $9.7tn. Factcheck: killer of Iryna Zarutska was not an immigrant When Trump introduced the mother of Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian woman killed on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina last year, he falsely claimed the man who stabbed Zarutska was “ a hardened criminal set free to kill in America came in through open borders”. However, DeCarlos Brown Jr, the man arrested and charged with killing Zarutska, is not...