President Donald Trump delivered his first speech to Congress of his second term Tuesday night, celebrating the big spending cuts, crackdown on migration and economic vision from the opening weeks of his administration, NBC News reported.
During his remarks, Trump bent the facts on issues including Social Security, immigration, fentanyl and the Russia-Ukraine war.
Here's what Trump got right — and wrong — in during his 100-minute address.
Economic issues
Fact check: Are millions of people older than 100 — including some older than 160 — collecting Social Security?
Trump said: “We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors.”
This is false.
Trump alleged in his speech that millions of senior citizens over age 100 — including some he maintained were older than 160 — were collecting Social Security checks, according to Social Security Administration data.
Trump specifically said that SSA records indicated that 4.7 million people 100 to 109 were getting checks, that 3.6 million 110 to 119 were, that 3.47 million 120 to 129 were, that 3.9 million 130 to 139 were, that 3.5 million 140 to 149 were, that 1.3 million 150 to 159 were — and that even 130,000 people older than 160 years old were still getting checks.
He also alleged that several hundred people older than 220 were still getting checks, according to SSA data — and that “one person is listed at 360 of age.”
The alleged fraud that Trump — and DOGE chief Elon Musk — have pointed to doesn’t exist. Rather, the numbers they refer to are products of a known problem with the government’s data.
There are millions of people over age 100 in the Social Security Administration’s database, but the vast majority aren’t receiving benefits.
Inspectors general at the agency have repeatedly identified the issue, but the Social Security Administration has argued that updating old records is costly and unnecessary.
Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, shares what he was saying to President Donald Trump during his address to a joint session of Congress that led to being removed from the chamber.
An SSA IG report from 2023 showed 18.9 million people listed as 100 years or older — but not dead — were in the database. But “almost none” currently receive SSA payments.
The SSA’s inspector general also found in a report released in July that that from 2015 to 2022, only 0.84% of benefits payments were improper. That 0.84% of improper benefits payments totaled $71.8 billion over eight years. The report also says most of the improper payments were overpayments — not payments to dead people or people who didn’t qualify.
In addition, per the agency’s online records, just 89,106 people — not tens of millions — over age 99 received retirement benefits in December, out of the more than 70 million people who receive benefits every year.
Fact check: Under whose watch did egg prices spike?
Trump said: "Joe Biden especially let the price of EGGS get out of control — and we are working hard to get it back down."
This needs context.
It’s true that egg spices spiked during Joe Biden’s presidency, as inflation rose steadily. The average price of one dozen Grade A eggs peaked during the Biden administration in January 2023 at $4.32, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. It eventually retreated, falling to less than half that by late 2023, before it rose again last year.
According to that government data, however, the average price of one dozen Grade A eggs peaked in January 2025 at $4.95, a month in office that Trump shared with Biden — a product of the growing transmission of bird flu among chickens. That is nearly double the price they were in January 2024 ($2.52).
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 has made not 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.
President Donald Trump lays out his national security plans for the takeover of the Panama Canal and the building of a "Golden Dome" type missile defense system.
Plus, 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.
Immigration
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 tonight’s speech — but his reference to them is a clear nod 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 to blame for 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.”
While fentanyl comes across the border from Mexico in significant number, 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 U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. Meanwhile, more than 21,000 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the southern border during the same time 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 murders, 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.
During his speech to Congress, President Donald Trump revived a racial slur for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), referring to her as "Pocahontas.”
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.
Fact check: Is Trump responsible for "the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever"?
Trump said: “Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history — and we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded.”
This appears to be true, but questions about the specifics remain.
It is unclear whether Trump is speaking about border crossings, encounters and/or apprehensions.
According to Customs and Border Protection data from 2000 to 2019 that compares apprehensions across the various sectors by month, the month with the fewest crossings on record April 2017, at 11,677.
CPB says, “From Jan. 21 through Jan. 31, 2025, the number of U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions along the southwest border dropped 85% from the same period in 2024.”
Trump claimed last month on Truth Social: “There were only 8,326 apprehensions of Illegals by Border Patrol at the U.S. — Mexico Border.”
Health
Fact check: Trump says more children are being diagnosed with autism
Trump said: “As an example, not long ago, and you can’t even believe these numbers, one in 10,000 children had autism. One in 10,000 and now it’s one in 36, there’s something wrong. One in 36, think of that, so we’re going to find out what it is.”
This needs context.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this ratio is correct. But this statistic is often used to justify opposition to vaccination.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has pointed to vaccines to explain the substantial rise in autism diagnoses in recent decades, which have ballooned from an estimated 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 36 today.
But the science is clear that vaccines don’t cause autism.
Rather, research suggests that much of the increase is due to increasing awareness and screening for the condition; changing definitions of autism to include milder conditions on the spectrum that weren’t recognized in previous years; as well as advances in diagnostic technology.
Finding the causes of autism is complicated, because it’s not a single disorder, scientists and experts explained to NBC News previously. In addition, those scientists and experts have said they believe that people develop autistic traits due to a combination of genetic vulnerability and environmental exposures.
During his joint speech to Congress, President Donald Trump said he seeks to end the “lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body.”
International
Fact check: Trump claims U.S. spending much more on Ukraine than Europe
Trump said: “Europe has sadly spent more money buying Russian oil and gas than they have spent on defending Ukraine by far. Think of that. They’ve spent more buying Russian oil and gas than they have defending. And we’ve spent perhaps $350 billion, and they’ve spent $100 billion. And we have an ocean separating us, and they don’t. And Biden has authorized more money in this fight than Europe has spent.”
This is mostly false.
From Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to last December, the United States had allocated $114.2 billion in aid to Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute, which is tracking aid to Ukraine. That’s not more than Europe spent: Those nations allocated more than $132.3 billion, with plans to allocate more.
Trump is correct in pointing out that Europe has spent more on oil and gas than it spent on military assistance last year, according to estimates from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Oil and gas taxes account for a huge share of Russia’s revenues each year.
Polling
Fact check: Is the share of Americans who think the country is on "right" track at a record high?
Trump said: “For the first time in modern history, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction.”
This is false.
Trump appears to be cherry-picking a single poll result here and ignoring a few strong numbers from early in President Joe Biden’s term. While he doesn’t cite his source, it seems likely he’s pointing to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll showing that 47% say America’s on the “right track.”
Rasmussen is a right-wing poll that regularly partners with conservative authors and outlets to sponsor its polling. And it’s controversial — the polling aggregation site FiveThirtyEight removed the poll from its averages last year over concerns about its partisanship and its methodology.
It is true that many polls have shown a bump in the classic “right track, wrong track” question since Trump took office. For example, NPR/Marist/PBS’ newest poll found 45% saying the country is moving in the right direction, up from 35% in December and from even lower during earlier parts of the Biden administration.
But those highs have been hit before — 47% said America was moving in the right direction in a July 2021 poll from NPR/Marist/PBS (49% thought it was moving in the wrong direction). And just months earlier, a Politico/Morning Consult poll found 51% of registered voters saying the country was going in the right direction.
A 13-year-old cancer survivor who always wanted to be a police officer can be made an "official" agent of the U.S. Secret Service, Trump said.
Alexandra Bacallao, Matt Rivera, Caroline Kenny, Julia Ainsley, Ben Kamisar, Yamiche Alcindor and Didi Martinez contributed.
This article first appeared on chof360.com. Read more from NBC News here:
