President Trump used his presidency’s final speech on Wednesday morning to repeat many of the same falsehoods and exaggerations he has recounted over the past four years.
He falsely claimed, as he has done almost 300 times, to have approved the “biggest tax cut and reform in the history of our country”, despite the 2017 tax cut being below several others.
Mr. Trump also boasted again that he chaired the “biggest economy”, with “numbers” that were “at a level that no one had ever seen before”. Average annual growth, even before the coronavirus pandemic decimated the economy, was less under Trump than under ex-presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.
And he announced his legacy in the transformation of the judiciary, exaggerating the number of nominations to “almost 300” and claiming it was “record”. In fact, Mr. Trump has appointed 229 judges, a large number for one term president, but well below the total number of presidents Barack Obama (320), George W. Bush (322) and Bill Clinton (322).
Mr. Trump also used his final speech as president to once again take credit for the creation of the Veterans Choice health program, which was sanctioned by his predecessor in 2014. As president, Mr. Trump signed a measure that alters the program.
He also falsely claimed that the Veterans Affairs Department could not fire employees before he took office. In fact, Mr. Trump signed a law to encourage whistleblowing and made it easier to fire bad employees in the department.