Fact Check: Was Trump Genuine in His Inauguration Day Speeches? | News about Donald Trump

President Donald Trump took his second oath of office on January 20 as the 47th president of the United States, offering a program that largely foreshadowed his campaign promises.

Speaking from the Rotunda of the US Capitol amid sub-zero temperatures, Trump said: “America’s golden age is starting right now.”

He promised to crack down on undocumented immigration, increase domestic oil drilling, impose tariffs, repeal federal targets for electric vehicles, declare that there are only two sexes assigned at birth, rename Mount Denali in Alaska back to Mount McKinley, and scrap diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

“This is all going to change starting today,” he said, “and it’s going to change very quickly.”

Appearing in the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall shortly after his inaugural address, Trump lashed out at known rivals, including an “unelected committee of political thugs” — a reference to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and received last-minute preemption. pardoning President Joe Biden. Trump rebuked two members of that committee, calling former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney a “crying nutcase” and saying former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger was “always crying.”

Here are our fact-checks on Trump’s claims during his inaugural address followed by claims during his subsequent remarks at Emancipation Hall.

Do tariffs enrich the country that imposes them?

Arguing his plan to impose tariffs, Trump said: “Instead of taxing our own citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our own citizens.”

However, most economists disagree that tariffs will “enrich” Americans, and there are few real-world examples of tariffs working that way. Consumers in countries where tariffs are levied often suffer from these deals as prices rise, they said.

“Tariffs artificially raise the cost of doing business, which depresses overall economic output in the form of lower gross domestic product, artificially higher prices and fewer goods sold,” Boise State University political scientist Ross Burkhart, who studies trade policy, told PolitiFact in August. “For the consumer, this means a reduction in purchasing power.”

Tariffs also mean manufacturers pay more as prices rise for materials used to make domestic products. American manufacturers can expect retaliatory tariffs, which may also raise prices for American consumers. Also, the decline in international competition hurts consumers because it allows the remaining producers to raise prices.

Was there ever a Green New Deal ‘mandate’?

Trump was wrong when he said, “With my actions today, we will end the Green New Deal and repeal the electric vehicle mandate.”

No “Green New Deal” is in force. Senator Edward Markey and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both Democrats, introduced a resolution in 2019 that offered a broad vision for responding to climate change, but it never became law. After Biden became president, Congress passed legislation, including the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, that advanced some climate policy goals. Trump cannot overturn laws by executive order.

In 2024The Biden administration, building on a goal set in year one, issued a rule that 56 percent of all new cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. be electric or hybrid by 2032.

Was there ‘record inflation’ under Biden?

Trump said: “I will next direct all members of my government to direct the vast powers at their disposal to defeat record inflation and rapidly lower costs and prices.”

The highest annual inflation rate according to Biden’s observation was about 9 percent in the summer of 2022. That was the highest inflation rate in about 40 years.

The highest sustained inflation rates in the US have been recorded year after year seventies and early eighties of the last centurywhen the price increase sometimes ranged from 12 to 15 percent. In one year – 1946, after the US won World War II – the overall annual inflation rate exceeded 18 percent.

Do countries send migrants from prisons, mental institutions?

Trump repeated a campaign claim that people “from prisons and mental institutions … have illegally entered our country from all over the world.”

However, there is no evidence that countries are emptying their prisons or that mental institutions are sending people to migrate illegally to the US.

Immigration officials arrested about 108,000 noncitizens with criminal convictions (either in the U.S. or abroad) from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal data show. This includes people stopped at and between ports of entry; not everyone is allowed in.

Does China control the Panama Canal?

Trump, who has reiterated his goal of regaining control of the Panama Canal, has misrepresented the canal’s operations.

“And above all, China controls the Panama Canal,” Trump said.

That is false.

The Republic of Panama has owned and operated the Panama Canal since December 31, 1999, when Panama took over its full management.

The Panama Canal Authority, an autonomous state body managed by an Management board of 11 membersmanages the waterway.

China has influence on the channel. The Panama Ports Company — a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports — operates the ports of Balboa and Cristobal, which serve as entry and exit points to the canal. However, he has final authority over the ports and the canal Panama Canal Authoritypart of the Panamanian government.

How many people died building the Panama Canal?

Trump claimed that the US “lost 38,000 lives” during its construction.

That’s more than the official death toll. It’s possible that Trump was adding up the numbers from decades of efforts to build the canal, including by the French beginning in 1881.

“Over a period of more than three decades, at least 25,000 workers died building the Panama Canal,” wrote author Christopher Klein in History.com article from 2023.

We found similar numbers published in else articles about the death toll in the USA and the death toll in France.

Have apple prices doubled under Biden?

In his second speech of the day, at Emancipation Hall, Trump claimed, among other things, that apple prices had doubled under Biden.

“How many times can you say an apple has doubled in price,” Trump said. “I’d say that and hit hard.”

Even at their peak, apples didn’t cost twice as much as they did when Biden took office in January 2021.

Apple prices today are almost the same as at the beginning and end of Biden’s term, producer price index the data show. (This statistic is an index tied to 100, not a dollars and cents measurement.)

Apple prices have risen during Biden’s presidency, along with the prices of many groceries and other consumer products. But even at its short-lived peak, in February 2023, apple prices were about 1.4 times higher than when Biden took office, not twice as much.

Did Biden pardon 33 murderers?

Alluding to former President Biden, Trump said that “they pardoned” 33 murderers.

Two days before Christmas 2024, Biden he said commuted—not pardoned—the sentences of 37 of the 40 people who faced the federal death penalty for such crimes as the killings of police officers and military service members, the killings of people in bank robberies, or the killings of guards or inmates at federal prisons.

With a commuted sentence, he will spend life in prison rather than face the death penalty. Substitution is not the same as pardon. AND commutation penalty reduces the sentence, but does not erase the conviction. A pardon is a presidential pardon.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these killers, I grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and I grieve for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in a statement on Dec. 23, 2024. But he added, “I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”

Biden’s action followed a moratorium on federal death sentences announced by his administration in 2021.