DUBIOUS

Trump Exaggerated, Misled in SOTU More Than 30 Times: WaPo

Many of the false claims the president made in his speech Tuesday night have already been fact-checked. Repeatedly.

President Trump made at least 30 stretched, false facts and dubious claims Tuesday night in his State of the Union address, The Washington Post’s fact-checking team reports. Several of the claims in his speech had already been fact-checked repeatedly. The Post did not apply its “Pinocchio Test”—the sliding scale the newspaper uses to fact-check claims of a politician, political candidate, diplomat or interest group—to Trump’s speech, but referred to repeated claims that already have a “Pinocchio” rating. Early in his address, Trump boasted, “I am thrilled to report to you tonight that our economy is the best it has ever been.” According to the Post, the president has made this claim, which is false, 260 times. The unemployment rate reached a 3.5 percent low under Trump, but it was as low as 2.5 percent in 1953.

Trump also claimed that, under his administration, “the United States has become the No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas in the world, by far”; in fact, the nation has led the world in natural-gas production since 2009. He also said that “America is now energy independent”; the Post said that’s false, as the country continues to import energy, roughly 9.94 million barrels per day of petroleum, according to an Energy Information Agency report. Trump asserted that Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S.-ordered missile strike last month, was “actively planning new attacks.” There is no publicly available evidence of any possible impending attack, according to the Post.