{"id":201602,"date":"2026-02-25T19:17:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T19:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/jobs-gas-prices-and-ending-wars-factchecking-trumps-state-of-the-union-claims-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T19:17:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T19:17:16","slug":"jobs-gas-prices-and-ending-wars-factchecking-trumps-state-of-the-union-claims-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/jobs-gas-prices-and-ending-wars-factchecking-trumps-state-of-the-union-claims-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Jobs, gas prices and ending wars: factchecking Trump\u2019s State of the Union claims – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

The president\u2019s lengthy speech to Congress contained myriad inflated, misleading or simply false claims
Analysis: Why longest-ever State of the Union address was most inconsequential<\/a>
US politics \u2013 live updates<\/a>
Sign up for the Breaking News US email<\/a>
Donald Trump officially made the longest<\/a> 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:
Trump repeatedly touted his economy, boasting \u201cwe are the hottest country anywhere in the world\u201d and claiming \u201cwe have more jobs, more people working today than ever before in the history of our country.\u201d
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<\/a> just 181,000 jobs in 2025.
That number, PolitiFact notes, is \u201cwell below the 1.5 million to 2.5 million typical under both Trump during his first term and former President Joe Biden\u201d.
Trump also said the US had, under his leadership, secured $18tn in investments \u201cpouring in from all over the globe\u201d. But a review from CNN last year found that the White House was counting pledges<\/a> \u2013 vague amounts promised \u2013 rather than actual investments. The White House website on investments lists total US and foreign investments at $9.7tn.
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 \u201c<\/strong>a hardened criminal set free to kill in America came in through open borders\u201d.
However, DeCarlos Brown Jr, the man arrested and charged with killing Zarutska, is not an immigrant. Trump has long insisted that non-citizens are responsible for violent crime throughout the US. Data shows<\/a> that relative to undocumented immigrants, US-born citizens are more than twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes, and 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes.
Trump suggested that energy prices are decreasing. \u201cWhen they see energy going down to numbers like that, they cannot believe it,\u201d he said.
But the average household energy bill went up by 6.7% from 2024 to 2025<\/a> in the US. That\u2019s despite Trump\u2019s oft-repeated promise to cut electricity costs in half within his first year back in office.
Since Trump retook the White House, utility companies have raised or sought to raise rates on American families by at least $92bn<\/a>, raising bills for 112 million electric customers and 52 million gas customers, according to an analysis<\/a> from the liberal thinktank the Center for American Progress. The president\u2019s attacks on clean energy expansion are also expected to increase electricity rates by up to 18% by 2035, data from the power research group Energy Innovation<\/a> shows.
The Trump administration has also gutted energy assistance<\/a> for US families. Last year, the administration eliminated tax credits for cost-cutting home energy-efficiency upgrades. It also attempted to eliminate the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps 6 million low-income Americans with their energy bills each year. The program survived, but has been significantly hindered after the administration laid off the program\u2019s entire staff. The cuts and a government shutdown caused unprecedented delays in the disbursement of aid.
Trump touted low gas prices during his State of the Union speech, saying they are \u201cnow below $2.30 a gallon in most states and in some places, $1.99 a gallon\u201d. But a major environmental rollback his administration enacted two weeks ago could push gas prices up.
The repeal of the endangerment finding \u2013 the legal underpinning for all greenhouse gas regulations in the US \u2013 is expected to create a rise in gas prices, as the Guardian explained in an analysis<\/a> last week. That\u2019s according to the administration\u2019s own data. Check it out here<\/a>.
Gas prices are also higher than the president claimed. According to AAA, which logs prices across the country, Oklahoma is the only state offering gas at $2.30 a gallon \u2013 or $2.374, to be precise. Prices in some states exceed $4.60.
The president claimed he ended eight wars in his first 10 months, a bold exaggeration. The US has been party to six peace agreements and several of them do not credit Trump specifically. Others were not considered wars to begin with.
While he was involved in efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel has continued to kill Palestinian civilians and carry out airstrikes since last October\u2019s truce was announced.
The century-long border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia<\/a> is one of the conflicts Trump claims to have resolved. Trump presided over the signing of a ceasefire deal<\/a> between the two sides in October, calling it \u201ca monumental step\u201d.
He had pressured leaders from both countries to make a deal by warning trade talks with the US would otherwise be put on hold. However, the underlying causes of the conflict, which is rooted in longstanding disagreements over colonial-era maps, has never been resolved. The ceasefire broke down just weeks later in November<\/a>, and fighting erupted again in December, forcing half a million people<\/a> to flee their homes.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The president\u2019s lengthy speech to Congress contained myriad inflated, misleading or simply false claimsAnalysis: Why longest-ever State of the Union address was most inconsequentialUS politics \u2013 live updatesSign up for the Breaking News US emailDonald Trump officially made the longest State of the Union address in history on Tuesday night, with broad claims about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-201602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}