Trump repeated some of his favorite falsehoods in his farewell speech, which was released on Tuesday, and in his final speech on Wednesday morning at Andrews Joint Base.
Again, here is a summary of fact checking.
In the video speech, Trump said he had appointed “almost 300 federal judges”. In his final speech, likewise, Trump said he got “almost 300 federal judges and three great Supreme Court judges”. He added in the speech: “This is a record number.”
Facts first: Trump was incorrect, both with his number and with his claim to have set a record. He had 234 judges in total confirmed for the Supreme Court, district courts and appellate courts, according to data from the Brookings Institution visiting his colleague Russell Wheeler; even if you round generously, that doesn’t qualify as almost 300. And President Jimmy Carter appointed 261 judges in total, according to Wheeler – 39% of the judges available at the time compared to Trump’s 27%.
Veterans Choice
Trump stated in the video’s speech, for the 160th time as president, that he is responsible for creating the Veterans Choice health program: “We passed the VA Choice.” (He made a less explicit version of the statement in his final speech.)
Facts first: Trump was wrong again. Former President Barack Obama sanctioned the Veterans Choice program in law in 2014. What Trump signed was a 2018 law, the VA MISSION Act, which modified and expanded the Choice program eligibility criteria.
The 2014 law that Obama signed, which allowed certain veterans to be covered by the government for health care provided by doctors outside the VA system, was a bipartisan initiative led by two senators that Trump has repeatedly criticized, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and the late John Arizona’s McCain.
We call Trump’s claim that he got the Veterans’ Choice as one of his 15 most notable lies in office.
Oil and gas production
Trump stated in the video address: “We have also unlocked our energy resources and become the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas by far.”
Facts first: Although US energy production really increase under Trump, Trump does not deserve credit for the U.S. achieving first place in global energy production. The USA really became the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas under President Barack Obama in 2012, according to data published by the government’s Energy Information Administration. It was crude oil, in particular, in which the U.S. became the world’s largest producer during Trump’s term.
“The United States is the world’s largest producer of natural gas since 2009, when the production of natural gas in the United States surpassed that of Russia, and it is the world’s largest producer of petroleum hydrocarbons since 2013, when its production surpassed that of Saudi Arabia” , informs Energy Information Administration, says.
The border wall
Trump said in the video address that, under him, the United States built “more than 450 miles of a new powerful wall”.
Facts first: This needs context. It is true that more than 450 miles of border barriers were built under Trump – 453 miles on January 8, 2021, according to official U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics provided to CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez. However, only 47 of those 453 miles were built where no barrier existed before.
Of the other 406 miles: 351 miles replaced previously existing primary barriers that the government describes as dilapidated or outdated; 22 miles replaced previously existing dilapidated or outdated secondary barriers; 33 miles were new secondary barriers where previously there were only primary barriers.
We must not dismiss the importance of even barriers of substitution, as many of the barriers of the Trump era are significantly
Bigger, more expensive and more controversial than the barriers they replaced. But it is important to note that Trump did not place 450 miles of barriers on terrain that previously had no defense.
Trump’s total votes in 2020
Trump said in his final speech that “we just got 75 million votes”, a record for an incumbent president.
Facts first: This is another small exaggeration. Trump received 74.2 million votes in the 2020 election, which does not reach 75 million. Trump’s total is indeed a record for an incumbent president, but Trump also didn’t recognize that Joe Biden got 7 million more votes than he did.
– Tara Subramaniam
Unemployment rates
Trump boasted in the video’s speech that he “has reached a record low level of unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, women …”
Facts first: There are two inaccuracies here. First, the unemployment rate for women has never reached a record low under Trump. (Before the coronavirus pandemic, it was among the lowest in US history, but not the lowest.) Second, unemployment rates for all of these groups are no closer to record levels; Trump’s ostentation ignores the fact that unemployment rates skyrocketed at the beginning of the pandemic and remain high today.
The December 2020 unemployment rate for African Americans was 9.9%. This is well above the 8.0% of Trump’s first full month in office, February 2017, and the record 5.2% in August 2019.
The December 2020 unemployment rate for Hispanic Americans was 9.3%. This is well above the 5.6% in February 2017 and the record 4.0% in September 2019.
The female unemployment rate in December 2020 was 6.7%. This is well above the 4.6% in February 2017 and the 2.7% record in May 1953.
The December 2020 unemployment rate for Asian Americans was 5.8%. (This rate has no seasonal adjustment; the rates for the other groups in this fact are included in the seasonal adjustment.) This is well above the 3.5% in February 2017 and the record of 2.0% in May 2018.
Trump’s job record
In his final speech, Trump boasted of his job history, saying “we have good – and we have had – such good job numbers. The job numbers have been absolutely incredible.” He continued: “When we started, if we hadn’t been hit by the pandemic, we would have numbers that would never have been seen – our numbers are already the best ever.”
Facts first: Trump’s grammar makes that statement a little difficult to verify – he seemed to go back and forth from bragging about the past to bragging about the present – but he obviously “no longer” has any president’s best job history. In fact, thanks to the great job loss of the pandemic era, he leaves the job with the US about 3 million jobs less than when he took office. No other president in the post-World War II era, a period for which we have good official data, it had a negative job record.
Trump’s track record in job creation lagged that of several other presidents, even before the pandemic.
Trump tax cuts
Trump said, both in the farewell video and in his final speech, that he approved the biggest tax cuts in the history of the United States.
Facts first: Trump’s tax cuts in 2017 were not the largest in American history. There have been major tax cuts, whether measured in inflation-adjusted dollars or as a share of the national economy.
Tax cuts in 1981, 2010 and 2013 were greater, both in inflation-adjusted dollars and in proportion to the economy. As part of the economy, there were even bigger ones, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank focused on fiscal policies.
The Tax and Employment Reductions Act, passed in 2017 under Trump, provided for cuts that are among the largest in nominal terms, but are still smaller than the tax cuts passed in 2013.
– Katie Lobosco
