President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening made a rapid-fire series of claims about the economic, military and societal impact of the first year of his second administration — some of which were accurate or close to reality, while others seemed either misleading or false.
Trump covered a wide range of topics in his 18-minute speech, touching on everything from wages and employment to the strength of the military and his efforts to tackle illegal immigration.
NBC News selected eight key claims to provide context and data.
- “Wages are rising much faster than inflation,” Trump said.
Wages are outpacing inflation, but “a lot” is up for some debate as the pace of wage growth slows significantly this year. In January, average wages rose by 4.1%. As of Tuesday, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its jobs report for October and November, the pace had fallen to 3.5%. The inflation rate is currently 3.0% and has been rising every month since April.
It is also worth noting that while the Biden administration has tolerated much higher inflation rates, wages have broadly kept pace with rising prices even for low-wage workers.
- Trump said: Under former President Joe Biden, “our borders were open, and for this reason, our country was invaded by an army of 25 million people, many of whom came from prisons, detention centers, mental institutions, and mental health facilities.”
This claim is incorrect. In fact, 7.4 million illegal immigrants crossed the border outside legal checkpoints during the Biden administration, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
Counting people who crossed the border at legal entry points but without documents, the number is still only 10.2 million.
About 800,000 migrants entered the country through legal programs established under Biden, such as protected status programs for residents of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
- “The price of eggs is down 82% since March, and everything else is falling fast,” Trump said.
This assertion is incorrect. The price of eggs has fallen 43.9% since March, according to government Consumer Price Index data. Prices of some items included in the BLS’s inflation report may decline, but prices continue to rise broadly.
The BLS has not released price data covering the past two months due to the government shutdown. Inflation data for November will be published on Thursday morning.
- “The price of gasoline is now less than $2.50 per gallon in most parts of the country. And in some states, by the way, it has reached $1.99 per gallon,” Trump said.
Trump’s broader point that gasoline prices are falling is accurate. However, the average price he mentioned is not so. According to the Federal Energy Information Administration, the average price of regular gas is $2.89. According to AAA, the national average is $2.90.
GasBuddy, a service that tracks thousands of gas stations across the country, lists a small number of service stations in seven states with a gas price closer to $1.99. But, for example, in Missouri and South Dakota there are only two stations. In Tennessee, there is only one. Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma have fewer than a dozen stations each.
- Trump said: “The price of Thanksgiving turkeys decreased by 33% compared to Biden’s price last year.”
This claim is incorrect. The price of Thanksgiving turkeys fell this year, but only by 3.7% for national brands, according to data from Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute. Overall, the institute said, the cost of a Thanksgiving meal fell 2% to 3% this year.
- “We’ve already got a record $18 trillion in investments in the United States,” Trump said.
This number is incorrect. Experts say the real number is several trillion dollars lower, and the White House itself includes that on the list The $9.6 trillion figure is on its website As of Wednesday evening.
Other analyzes of Trump’s evolving numbers on foreign investments have suggested that he includes in his tally amorphous pledges made by U.S. trading partners that have pledged investments by companies in those countries — promises that the government has little authority to implement.
Modern Bloomberg News fact checked I found the real number to be closer to $7 trillion. But there were also many investments that were vague pledges or parts of framework trade agreements that had not yet been signed.
- “The year before I was elected, all net job creation went to foreign immigrants. Since I took office, 100% of net job creation has gone to American-born citizens,” Trump said.
This statistic does not mean what Trump claims it means. The number of foreign-born and native-born workers in the U.S. labor force at any given time is a complex estimate based on population projections and samples, not an absolute number.
Likewise, the fact that people were not born locally does not mean they are not citizens today – in 2024, the most recent year in the data, The United States has granted citizenship to more than 800,000 people.
To get a better idea of how each group in the workforce is performing, experts suggest comparing the performance of each group in the workforce Unemployment rate between the two groups.
Over the past 12 months, The unemployment rate among native-born workers rosefrom 3.9% in November 2024 under Biden to 4.3% last month under Trump.
During the same period, The unemployment rate among foreign-born workers fellfrom 4.5% in November of last year under Biden to 4.4% last month under Trump. By this measure, Trump was better for foreign-born workers than Biden.
- “I have negotiated directly with drug companies and foreign countries, who have been taking advantage of our country for many decades, to lower drug and pharmaceutical prices by up to 400%, 500%, and even 600%,” Trump said. “In other words, your drug costs will go way down.”
Trump and drug companies have promoted a variety of deals, but it is not clear whether consumers have benefited from them.
There is little data available to substantiate Trump’s broad claims or know whether companies have delivered on their promises. None of the announced deals came close to the level of price cuts described by Trump.
Pfizer said in an announcement that it had reached an agreement with management to reduce costs “by an average of 50%.” She said the savings can be up to 85%.
One area where Trump has made multiple deals — the weight-loss drug GLP-1 — was particularly risky. Experts said that the deals, despite their ambition, left key questions unanswered.
Ozempic manufacturer Novo Nordisk and management have reached an agreement to reduce prices by about 40%. The deal is contingent on sales through the TrumpRX platform, which has not yet been launched.
The companies that reached deals with the White House said the specific terms of the agreements were confidential or that the details had not yet been fully finalized.
In addition, Trump has hit trading partners like the European Union, whose members Germany and Ireland are major sources of U.S. drug imports, with tariffs as high as 20%. Before Trump took office, those imports were largely tariff-free. In early December, the administration reached an agreement with the United Kingdom to return pharmaceutical tariffs to 0%, but imports from many other trading partners still face tariffs. Some EU pharmaceutical imports currently face tariffs of 15%.