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Summary
In a half-hour inaugural address, newly sworn-in President Donald Trump twisted some facts while painting the last few years under his predecessor, Joe Biden, as a time of “decline” and promising that “the golden age of America begins right now.”
We also flagged a few falsehoods in Trump’s subsequent remarks to supporters in Emancipation Hall in the Capitol.
- Trump said “we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.” But Trump’s proposed tariffs would be paid by U.S. importers — not foreign nations — who often pass such costs on to U.S. consumers through higher prices on products.
- He falsely stated that the U.S. recently experienced “record inflation” under the Biden administration. Consumer prices have increased at faster rates during multiple other periods in U.S. history.
- Trump wrongly claimed that 38,000 American lives were lost during construction of the Panama Canal and that China now operates the canal. A Hong Kong-based company manages ports at either end of the canal.
- Citing North Carolina and other states post-Hurricane Helene, Trump misleadingly claimed that the federal government “can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency.” FEMA was actively involved in providing food, water and other supplies, offering more than $344 million in assistance within weeks of the disaster.
- He said the U.S. has “the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth,” but several other countries have larger estimated oil and natural gas reserves than the U.S.
- Trump blamed high inflation on “massive overspending and escalating energy prices.” But his claim oversimplifies the causes of inflation, which increased in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The president said he will “revoke the electric vehicle mandate” and allow people “to buy the car of your choice.” But there is no “mandate” on electric vehicles. The Biden administration finalized rules that require automakers to reduce tailpipe emissions and raise fuel efficiency standards beginning in 2027, but carmakers are free to decide how to comply.
- Trump said, “We are going to bring law and order back to our cities.” It’s worth noting that violent crime has gone down slightly since he left office, according to data from the FBI and other sources.
- Trump referred to his well-worn claim that many immigrants crossing the border illegally are from “prisons and mental institutions.” And in remarks after his address, he suggested that “the jails of every country in the world, virtually, [are] being deposited into the United States.” There is no evidence to support that.
- In his post-address remarks, the president continued to insist the 2020 election was “totally rigged.” But as we have written repeatedly, there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
- Trump also falsely claimed that the House select committee that looked into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack “destroyed all the evidence” from its investigation. The committee released an 800-plus page report and additional documentation presenting and analyzing the evidence about what happened that day.
- He made the false claim that he “offered 10,000 [National Guard] soldiers” to protect the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, wrongly adding that she “admitted it on tape.”
Analysis
Tariffs
After promising to “immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries,” Trump then said “we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”
But, as we’ve written, Trump’s proposals to increase tariffs on foreign products imported into the U.S. would not be a tax on other nations. Instead, importers in the U.S. would pay the tariffs in the form of customs duties, which are collected at ports of entry by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
And then those increased costs, according to economists, are often passed on to U.S. consumers in the form of higher prices.
No ‘Record Inflation’ Under Biden
Trump incorrectly claimed that the U.S. recently experienced “what was record inflation” under the Biden administration. As we’ve written before, the largest 12-month increase in the Consumer Price Index occurred from June 1919 to June 1920, when the CPI rose 23.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in a 2014 publication marking the 100th anniversary of the agency’s tracking price changes.
Under Biden, the biggest price increase occurred during the 12-month period ending in June 2022, when the CPI rose 9.1%. The BLS said it was the biggest increase since the 12 months ending in November 1981.
Inflation has slowed since then. According to the BLS, the CPI has increased by 2.9% in the last 12 months ending in December.
Overall, the CPI increased by 21% under the Biden administration — an average of 5.3% in each of his four years in office.
This is nowhere close to the largest increase in consumer prices under a single presidential term. For example, the CPI increased by 47.2%, or 11.8% per year, under the Carter administration from 1977 to 1981.
By comparison, the CPI rose 7.5% under Trump in his first term — an average of 1.9% per year in office.
Panama Canal
As he has numerous times in recent months, Trump repeated his intent for the U.S. to take back control of the Panama Canal, which he said was “foolishly given” to Panama. But in making his case for the move, Trump manipulated some facts.
“The United States, I mean think of this, spent more money than ever spent on a project before, and lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal,” Trump said. “We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made. And Panama’s promise to us has been broken. The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated. American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form, and that includes the United States Navy. And above all, China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
To start, Trump severely overstated the number of American lives lost building the canal. About 7,600 people died during the more than decade-long American phase of the construction of the Panama Canal, which started in 1904, according to Noel Maurer, an associate professor of international affairs and international business at George Washington University, and co-author of the book, “The Big Ditch: How America Took, Built, Ran, and Ultimately Gave Away the Panama Canal.”
Most of those deaths weren’t Americans, Maurer told us via email. “Rather, about two-thirds of them were either West Indian (mostly from Barbados), and a smaller unknown share of Spanish laborers who were hired at the start of construction.” In total, fewer than 1,000 Americans died due to accident or infectious disease during the canal’s construction phase, he said.
As for whether the U.S. is being overcharged, the Panama Canal Treaty signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 — in which the U.S. relinquished control of the canal to Panama in 2000 and guaranteed its neutrality — states: “Tolls and other charges for transit and ancillary services shall be just, reasonable, equitable and consistent with the principles of international law.”
According to Maurer, tolls are now running around 2.5 times higher than when the U.S. operated the canal, after adjusting for inflation.
“Is that exorbitant?” Maurer said. “It’s not crazy to think so, especially given how much revenue is generated by American exports.”
Based on Panamanian-provided statistics, American exporters and domestic users paid Panama about $2 billion in 2023, or 59% of all canal revenue, Maurer said. Trump’s comment about American ships being “severely overcharged and not treated fairly” could leave the false impression that U.S. vessels are charged higher prices than those from other countries.
“The U.S. gets no special deal,” Maurer said, though the Panama Canal treaty “allows U.S. government vessels to jump the queue to pass through the Canal, meaning that the U.S. Navy can go through whenever it wants, pushing commercial traffic out of the way. But Navy ships have to pay tolls just like everyone else.”
The leader of the Panama Canal Authority says there are no preferential rates for any country. “Rules are rules and there are no exceptions,” Ricaurte Vásquez Morales told the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 8. “We cannot discriminate for the Chinese, or the Americans, or anyone else. This will violate the neutrality treaty, international law and it will lead to chaos.”
As for Trump’s claim that “China is operating the Panama Canal,” that’s not accurate. But a Hong Kong-based company manages ports at either end of the canal, which has raised concerns among some in the U.S., including the head of U.S. Southern Command who last year warned Congress the ports could be used by the Chinese military as “points of future multi-domain access.”
Ryan C. Berg, the director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the New York Times earlier this month that China could use shipping data and maritime operations to gather intelligence on the U.S.
“China exercises, or could exercise, a certain element of control even absent some military conflagration,” Berg said. “I think there is reason to be worried.”
Nonetheless, Maurer told us, Panama continues to operate the Panama Canal.
“I understand why this might worry some Americans, but as long as Panama remains allied to the United States it means nothing,” Maurer said. “Chinese investments in Panama are subject to Panamanian law.” And, he said, “none of this has anything to do with the management of the Panama Canal itself.”
“The accusations that China is running the Canal are unfounded,” Vásquez Morales, leader of the Panama Canal Authority, told the Wall Street Journal. “China has no involvement whatsoever in our operations.”
Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, also disputed Trump’s claim saying, “There is absolutely no Chinese interference or participation in anything that has to do with the Panama Canal.”
Hurricane Relief
Echoing false and misleading claims he has previously made, Trump misleadingly suggested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had taken little or no action following Hurricane Helene’s devastation of many southeastern states at the end of September.
“Our country can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency, as recently shown by the wonderful people of North Carolina,” he said. “They’ve been treated so badly. And other states who are still suffering from a hurricane that took place many months ago.”
“Or more recently, Los Angeles, where we’re watching fires still tragically burn from weeks ago without even a token of defense,” Trump continued. “Everyone is unable to do anything about it. That’s going to change.”
FEMA, however, did respond to both disasters — and in December, Biden signed a spending bill that avoided a government shutdown and provides $100 billion in disaster aid, including $29 billion for FEMA (Biden had requested $40 billion).
In the case of Hurricane Helene, more than 1,000 FEMA staff were on the ground in North Carolina alone. Within about two weeks, the agency had shipped some 17 million meals and 14 million liters of water and delivered more than $344 million in disaster assistance for 375,000 households across the South.
As of mid-October, FEMA had approved $441 million to storm survivors and more than $349 million for community rebuilding projects. And as of Nov. 7, the agency’s National Flood Insurance Program had paid out about $830 million to policyholders. Last month, FEMA issued $292 million in grants to reimburse local governments and others in North Carolina for recovery efforts.
For the L.A. wildfires, FEMA is providing housing and other disaster aid assistance, with some $31 million approved as of Jan. 20, according to an agency website.
A week ago, an X account managed by Trump’s campaign may have left the impression that victims of the L.A. wildfires would be eligible for just a single $770 government payment. As before, when Trump made a similar claim about $750 for Hurricane Helene survivors, the emergency payment is just one form of aid available — not the totality of the government’s help.
During the campaign, Trump falsely alleged that following Hurricane Helene, the Biden administration did not send help or helicopters for days — despite abundant evidence to the contrary. He also incorrectly claimed that the Biden administration “stole” hurricane recovery funds and spent the money on housing for people in the U.S. illegally. There’s no evidence any disaster relief money went “missing.”
Oil and Gas Drilling
Trump claimed that the U.S. has “the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth,” adding that “we are going to use it.” But as we’ve written, several other countries rank above the U.S. when it comes to their estimated oil and natural gas reserves.
An article by energy experts at the Brookings Institution notes that while “estimating reserves is an inexact science and methodologies differ,” the U.S. generally ranks between ninth and 11th in the world in the size of its crude oil reserves. The U.S. ranks higher when it comes to natural gas, with the fourth or fifth largest reserves of any nation.
For context on the nation’s production, 2023 was the sixth straight year the U.S. has led the world in crude oil production, according to the Energy Information Administration. Crude oil production increased from an average of 9.36 million barrels a day in 2017 to 11.3 million barrels in 2020, during Trump’s first term. Under Biden, crude oil production hit a record 13.2 million barrels of oil per day on average in 2024, and EIA expects 2025 production to be another record. The U.S. is also the largest producer of natural gas.
Causes of Inflation
Trump said, “The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices, and that is why today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill.”
Trump and congressional Republicans have blamed the stimulus spending by the Biden administration in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic for the high inflation earlier in Biden’s term. Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which became law in March 2021 and included $1,400 checks to most Americans, contributed to inflation, economists say. That injection of cash into the economy came after two other pandemic-related stimulus laws enacted under Trump.
But the pandemic relief spending was not the primary factor leading to inflation, as we’ve written. The root of the problem was the pandemic itself, which led to economic shutdowns, supply shortages, and increased consumer spending and bank lending — all of which contributed to the high inflation rate during Biden’s administration. Also, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, resulting in western sanctions on Russian oil, pushed up oil prices, exacerbating high inflation, experts say.
In addition, Trump’s plan to “drill, baby, drill” may not bring down prices as much as he has claimed. During the campaign, Trump promised to “cut energy prices in half within 12 months.”
Experts told us that increasing the domestic supply of oil and natural gas could lower prices at least for a short time. But oil and gas companies would have to agree to increasing the supply, and they wouldn’t be inclined to produce more for lower profits.
Another expert told NPR that even if U.S. companies heeded Trump’s wish to produce more energy, oil producers in other countries would respond to that increased supply, and prices wouldn’t decline very much.
EVs and ‘Green New Deal’
Trump said he “will end the Green New Deal” and “revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry” and allowing people “to buy the car of your choice.”
Yet, as we’ve written before, there is no “mandate” for electric vehicles and no regulation is forcing people to buy EVs over conventional gas-powered cars.
In 2024, the Biden administration finalized environmental regulations aimed at reducing carbon emissions and other pollutants from cars and trucks, beginning with model year 2027 vehicles. These strong regulations are expected to significantly boost the number of EVs on the road. However, automakers retain flexibility in how they meet these standards and are not mandated to exclusively produce EVs.
The Environmental Protection Agency projected that new EV sales could be 30% to 56% of car sales in 2032 following the new regulations. As we’ve mentioned, after the EPA moderated the pace of the implementation of the standards, automakers’ reactions have been positive.
As for the Green New Deal, a nonbinding resolution introduced by Democrats in 2019 to tackle climate change, it is not clear what Trump means when claiming he will end it.
The resolution, which was blocked by Republicans in the Senate, has become a catchall phrase to refer to climate action. As we wrote, during the campaign, Trump rebranded the Inflation Reduction Act and other efforts to fight climate change as the “green new scam.” The IRA includes several climate-related provisions, such as funding for renewable energy projects and tax credits that could reduce emissions from several sectors, as we’ve explained.
‘Law and Order’
Trump said, “We are going to bring law and order back to our cities,” an echo of his frequent campaign claims about violent crime. It’s worth noting that violent crime has gone down slightly since he left office, according to data from the FBI and other sources.
As we wrote in “What Trump Inherits, Part 2,” FBI crime statistics released in September showed declines in 2023 compared with the previous year and compared with 2020, Trump’s last year in office, in the number and rate per 100,000 population for violent crime, murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
The number of violent crimes declined 4.3% from 2020 to 2023, and the number of murders and nonnegligent manslaughter went down 14.5%. (See table 1 after downloading CIUS Estimations for FBI data for 2004 through 2023.)
In most major cities, the drop in homicides, rape, robbery and aggravated assault continued through September, according to the most recent preliminary data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Homicides went down 17.8% in 69 cities in the first nine months of 2024, compared with the same time period in 2023. Declines occurred in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia, four of the five largest cities. Murders also went down in New York, the largest U.S. city, which wasn’t included in that report, by 3.6% for the full year in 2024 compared with 2023, according to the city’s police department.
As we’ve reported, in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a spike in violent crime, due to increases in murders and aggravated assaults. Experts have said that the economic impact of the pandemic was one factor behind the increase.
‘Prisons and Mental Institutions’
Trump claimed that the outgoing administration “provide[s] sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions, that have illegally entered our country from all over the world.” Shortly after his inaugural address, in remarks to supporters, Trump said that he had eschewed a focus on the economy during his campaign in favor of a focus on immigration, saying, “We don’t want the jails of every country in the world, virtually, being deposited into the United States.”
These comments are similar to Trump’s frequent unsupported claim that countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions and sending those people to the U.S. We’ve written several times about it, and we included the claim in our list of whoppers for 2023.
“It’s hard to prove a negative — nobody’s writing a report saying ‘Ecuador is not opening its mental institutions’ — but what I can say is that I work full-time on migration, am on many coalition mailing lists, correspond constantly with partners in the region, and scan 300+ RSS feeds and Twitter lists of press outlets and activists region wide, and I have not seen a single report indicating that this is happening,” Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, told us in March 2023 when we wrote about these claims.
“As far as I can tell, it’s a total fabrication,” Isacson said.
To give a sense of how many individuals with criminal histories have been recorded trying to enter the country illegally, U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered about 17,000 criminal non-citizens in fiscal year 2024 trying to enter between legal ports of entry compared with a total of about 1.6 million apprehensions in the same time period.
But there is no evidence to support Trump’s claim or suggestion of countries emptying their jails. “We have no evidence that the Venezuelan government is emptying the prisons or mental hospitals to send them out of the country, whether to the USA or any other country,” Roberto Briceño-León, founder and director of the independent Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, told us when we specifically looked at Venezuela, a country Trump often mentions.
2020 Election
In his remarks in Emancipation Hall following his inaugural address, Trump continued to make the baseless claim that the 2020 election he lost to Biden was “totally rigged.”
In comments since the 2020 election, Trump has wrongly made accusations of voting machines changing votes in favor of Biden, vote tampering by election officials and dead people voting, among other instances of voter fraud that he insists swung the election against him.
And on Inauguration Day, 2025, Trump again raised the issue.
“2020, by the way, that election was totally rigged,” Trump said. “It was a rigged election.”
But as we have written, numerous state and federal judges rejected Trump’s claims, saying the Trump legal team provided no evidence of fraud, and election security officials labeled it “the most secure in American history.”
William Barr, who served as the attorney general under Trump, told a House committee in testimony released June 13, 2022: “In my opinion then, and my opinion now, is that the election was not stolen by fraud, and I haven’t seen anything since the election that changes my mind on that.”
Testimony collected by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol also revealed that after the election, top White House aides and other Justice Department officials repeatedly told Trump there was no evidence of widespread fraud.
Jan. 6 Committee Evidence
In his remarks to supporters, Trump again claimed without evidence that the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol “destroyed all the evidence” and “deleted everything.” “There’s virtually nothing left,” Trump falsely said.
We’ve previously written about claims, first made by Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk, that the Jan. 6 committee failed to adequately preserve some documents, data and video depositions. But unlike Trump, Loudermilk did not claim that all, or most, evidence from the investigation was deleted or not preserved.
In fact, much of the committee’s work was published in its nearly 850-page report that was made public. The documentation included more than 140 publicly released transcripts and documents.
In addition, in a letter to Loudermilk on July 7, 2023, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, reported that more than a million records had been prepared for publication and archiving in coordination with several governmental offices, including the National Archives and Records Administration and the Committee on House Administration. But, in a footnote to that letter, Thompson did explain that “the Select Committee did not archive temporary committee records that were not elevated by the Committee’s actions, such as use in hearings or official publications, or those that did not further its investigative activities.”
National Guard Troops
Trump repeated his false claim that Rep. Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, rebuffed his offer of thousands of National Guard soldiers to defend the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I offered her 10,000 soldiers,” Trump said of Pelosi in his remarks to supporters. “She knows it. She admitted it on tape that her daughter made.”
We’ve written before that the House Jan. 6 committee found “no evidence” of Trump making any such offer to Pelosi. In fact, the committee noted that then-Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller said there was “no direct … order from the president” to have 10,000 National Guard troops on standby.
Furthermore, Pelosi never “admitted … on tape” that Trump offered any number of National Guard soldiers. In a video that her daughter recorded on Jan. 6, 2021, Pelosi, who was in a car at the time, can be seen questioning the security plans and taking some responsibility for the inadequate security. But she didn’t say anything about Trump offering 10,000 National Guard troops for the Capitol.
In early 2021, a spokesperson for Pelosi told the Washington Post that Trump’s initial claim that she rejected 10,000 troops was “completely made up.”
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