More Mendacity From Felon Trump's Speech to Congress
Fact check: Trump says car plants are "opening up all over the place"
Trump said: “We’re going to have growth in the auto industry like nobody’s ever seen. Plants are opening up all over the place. Deals are being made, never seen. That’s a combination of the election win and tariffs. It’s a beautiful word, isn’t it, that, along with our other policies, will allow our auto industry to absolutely boom. It’s going to boom. Spoke to the majors today, all three, the top people, and they’re so excited. In fact, already, numerous car companies have announced that they will be building massive automobile plants in America, with Honda just announcing a new plant in Indiana, one of the largest anywhere in the world.”
This is mostly false.
No automaker has announced a new plant since Trump took office and began instituting new tariffs. Reuters reported that Honda planned to produce 210,000 Civics in Indiana instead of Mexico, but the company hasn’t made a public announcement.
What’s more, it’s unclear whether Honda would expand its operations in Indiana, open a new plant or simply move production of the new Civic to the plant and reduce production of other vehicles there, too. Honda’s Indiana plant produces as many as 250,000 vehicles annually.
In addition, Trump’s move to impose a 25% tariff on all imports coming into the United States from Canada and Mexico could add thousands of dollars to the cost of each new vehicle.
Fact check: Trump claims illegal immigration "destroyed" Aurora, Colo., and Springfield, Ohio
Trump said: "Joe Biden didn’t just open our borders. He flew illegal aliens over them to overwhelm our schools, hospitals and communities throughout the country. Entire towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption like nobody has ever seen before. Beautiful towns destroyed."
This is false.
Springfield and Aurora have long been some of Trump’s favorite targets when it comes to examples of American cities he likes to nod to as being overrun by migrants, though he often misrepresents the situations there.
He didn’t mention any specific allegations about the two cities in his speech — but his reference to them is a clear reference to previous false allegations about them.
For example, Trump repeated a baseless claim about Haitian immigrants in Springfield eating dogs and other pets during a debate last year. The story provide false, however. The culprit was a non-migrant woman in a nearby town.
Fact check: Trump claims illegal immigration "destroyed" Aurora, Colo., and Springfield, Ohio.
Trump said: "Joe Biden didn’t just open our borders. He flew illegal aliens over them to overwhelm our schools, hospitals and communities throughout the country. Entire towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption like nobody has ever seen before. Beautiful towns destroyed."
Springfield and Aurora have long been some of Trump’s favorite targets when it comes to examples of American cities he likes to nod to as being overrun by migrants, though he often misrepresents the situations there.
He didn’t mention any specific allegations about the two cities in his speech — but his reference to them is a clear reference to previous false allegations about them.
For example, Trump repeated a baseless claim about Haitian immigrants in Springfield eating dogs and other pets during a debate last year. The story provide false, however. The culprit was a non-migrant woman in a nearby town.
Meanwhile, Trump also painted a sinister picture of Aurora during the campaign. At a rally there in October, he alleged the city had been overtaken by a Venezuelan prison gang — Tren de Aragua — after a social media clip went viral claiming the gang had taken over an apartment complex in Aurora.
Police at the time said there was no evidence the gang had taken over the complex, and Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican, called Trump’s descriptions “not accurate.”
Fact check: Is Canada, along with Mexico, to blame for the fentanyl crisis?
Trump said of Canada and Mexico: “They’ve allowed fentanyl to come into our country at levels never seen before, killing hundreds of thousands of our citizens and many very young, beautiful people, destroying families. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.”
This is partly false.
While fentanyl comes across the border from Mexico in significant numbers, Canada is hardly to blame for the crisis. In the 2024 fiscal year, fentanyl seizures at the northern border were just 43 pounds, according to Customs and Border Protection data. Meanwhile, more than 21,000 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the southern border during the same period.
Fact check: Trump says many migrants who entered the country the past four years were criminals.
Trump said: “Over the past four years, 21 million people poured into the United States. Many of them were murderers, human traffickers, gang members and other criminals from the streets of dangerous cities all throughout the world because of Joe Biden’s insane and very dangerous open border policies. They are now strongly embedded in our country, but we are getting them out and getting them out fast.”
This is misleading.
According to Customs and Border Protection data, the Biden administration had more than an estimated 14 million migrant encounters at and between ports of entry at U.S. borders.
More than 118,000 migrants with criminal backgrounds were apprehended at U.S. borders during that time — a small part of the more than over 14 million migrant encounters. There have been instances of migrants found to have criminal records from their home countries after they’ve entered the United States, but there is no evidence to support that it is widespread, and immigration officials have long cited challenges with getting criminal records from certain migrants’ home countries before they cross the border.
The Trump administration has frequently cited the presence of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in the United States and the high-profile killing of the Georgia nursing student Laken Riley last year by a Venezuelan national who entered the country illegally in 2022 as indicative of widespread migrant crime.
Trump said: “We’re going to have growth in the auto industry like nobody’s ever seen. Plants are opening up all over the place. Deals are being made, never seen. That’s a combination of the election win and tariffs. It’s a beautiful word, isn’t it, that, along with our other policies, will allow our auto industry to absolutely boom. It’s going to boom. Spoke to the majors today, all three, the top people, and they’re so excited. In fact, already, numerous car companies have announced that they will be building massive automobile plants in America, with Honda just announcing a new plant in Indiana, one of the largest anywhere in the world.”
This is mostly false.
No automaker has announced a new plant since Trump took office and began instituting new tariffs. Reuters reported that Honda planned to produce 210,000 Civics in Indiana instead of Mexico, but the company hasn’t made a public announcement.
What’s more, it’s unclear whether Honda would expand its operations in Indiana, open a new plant or simply move production of the new Civic to the plant and reduce production of other vehicles there, too. Honda’s Indiana plant produces as many as 250,000 vehicles annually.
In addition, Trump’s move to impose a 25% tariff on all imports coming into the United States from Canada and Mexico could add thousands of dollars to the cost of each new vehicle.
Fact check: Trump claims illegal immigration "destroyed" Aurora, Colo., and Springfield, Ohio
Trump said: "Joe Biden didn’t just open our borders. He flew illegal aliens over them to overwhelm our schools, hospitals and communities throughout the country. Entire towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption like nobody has ever seen before. Beautiful towns destroyed."
This is false.
Springfield and Aurora have long been some of Trump’s favorite targets when it comes to examples of American cities he likes to nod to as being overrun by migrants, though he often misrepresents the situations there.
He didn’t mention any specific allegations about the two cities in his speech — but his reference to them is a clear reference to previous false allegations about them.
For example, Trump repeated a baseless claim about Haitian immigrants in Springfield eating dogs and other pets during a debate last year. The story provide false, however. The culprit was a non-migrant woman in a nearby town.
Fact check: Trump claims illegal immigration "destroyed" Aurora, Colo., and Springfield, Ohio.
Trump said: "Joe Biden didn’t just open our borders. He flew illegal aliens over them to overwhelm our schools, hospitals and communities throughout the country. Entire towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption like nobody has ever seen before. Beautiful towns destroyed."
Springfield and Aurora have long been some of Trump’s favorite targets when it comes to examples of American cities he likes to nod to as being overrun by migrants, though he often misrepresents the situations there.
He didn’t mention any specific allegations about the two cities in his speech — but his reference to them is a clear reference to previous false allegations about them.
For example, Trump repeated a baseless claim about Haitian immigrants in Springfield eating dogs and other pets during a debate last year. The story provide false, however. The culprit was a non-migrant woman in a nearby town.
Meanwhile, Trump also painted a sinister picture of Aurora during the campaign. At a rally there in October, he alleged the city had been overtaken by a Venezuelan prison gang — Tren de Aragua — after a social media clip went viral claiming the gang had taken over an apartment complex in Aurora.
Police at the time said there was no evidence the gang had taken over the complex, and Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican, called Trump’s descriptions “not accurate.”
Fact check: Is Canada, along with Mexico, to blame for the fentanyl crisis?
Trump said of Canada and Mexico: “They’ve allowed fentanyl to come into our country at levels never seen before, killing hundreds of thousands of our citizens and many very young, beautiful people, destroying families. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.”
This is partly false.
While fentanyl comes across the border from Mexico in significant numbers, Canada is hardly to blame for the crisis. In the 2024 fiscal year, fentanyl seizures at the northern border were just 43 pounds, according to Customs and Border Protection data. Meanwhile, more than 21,000 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the southern border during the same period.
Fact check: Trump says many migrants who entered the country the past four years were criminals.
Trump said: “Over the past four years, 21 million people poured into the United States. Many of them were murderers, human traffickers, gang members and other criminals from the streets of dangerous cities all throughout the world because of Joe Biden’s insane and very dangerous open border policies. They are now strongly embedded in our country, but we are getting them out and getting them out fast.”
This is misleading.
According to Customs and Border Protection data, the Biden administration had more than an estimated 14 million migrant encounters at and between ports of entry at U.S. borders.
More than 118,000 migrants with criminal backgrounds were apprehended at U.S. borders during that time — a small part of the more than over 14 million migrant encounters. There have been instances of migrants found to have criminal records from their home countries after they’ve entered the United States, but there is no evidence to support that it is widespread, and immigration officials have long cited challenges with getting criminal records from certain migrants’ home countries before they cross the border.
The Trump administration has frequently cited the presence of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in the United States and the high-profile killing of the Georgia nursing student Laken Riley last year by a Venezuelan national who entered the country illegally in 2022 as indicative of widespread migrant crime.
