Fact Check: Trump's 2026 State of the Union speech packed with big claims — How do they stack up?

President Donald Trump's 2026 State of the Union address, delivered on February 24, was a marathon speech spanning 1 hour and 48 minutes—the longest in U.S. history. While Trump touted his administration as having achieved a "turnaround for the ages", claiming that the American economy under his presidency has been blooming, a lot of his statements were exaggerated or based on inflated figures. Here's a list of the President's statements that seem to deviate from verifiable data, historical context, and official reports provided by government and independent oversight agencies.

The $18 trillion investment

President Trump claimed that he had "secured commitments for more than $18 trillion" in global investments during his first year in office. "I secured commitments for more than $18 trillion, pouring in from all around the globe," Trump said, inviting a thunderous applause from the attendees. "Think of this, much less than $1 trillion for four years versus much more than $18 trillion for one year. What a difference!" the President added.  

However, economists and fact-checkers have labeled this figure "pure fiction," with White House data showing investments at less than half of what the President claimed. On February 24, the night of the speech, the White House's "Investment Tracker" pegged total U.S. and foreign investments at $9.7 trillion. This number, too, as per analysts, is heavily padded as the list includes aspirational, multi-year pledges, routine business expansions, and future purchases of U.S. goods rather than actual new investments.

Gas prices below $2.30 a gallon

Touting his administration's policies, which he claimed bring down inflation, President Trump said that gasoline in the country was "now below $2.30 a gallon in most states." "In some places $1.99 a gallon, and when I visited the great state of Iowa just a few weeks ago, I even saw $1.85 a gallon for gasoline," the President said. 

However, numbers provided by AAA and the Energy Information Administration tell a different story. While prices are down from their 2024 peaks, as of late February 2026, the national average for a gallon of regular gas stood at $2.92. Oklahoma was the only state with an average even approaching that level ($2.34), and a tiny fraction of gas stations nationwide offered promotional $1.99 prices; these, however, are not representative of "most states".

U.S. strikes 'obliterated' Iran's nuclear program

Speaking about Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 airstrikes by the U.S. Air Force and Navy that targeted three nuclear facilities in Iran, President Trump said that Iran's nuclear enrichment programme had been 'obliterated'. "In a breakthrough operation, last June, the United States military obliterated Iran's nuclear weapons programme with an attack on Iranian soil known as Operation Midnight Hammer," Trump said. 

While the June 2025 operation created a significant setback for Iran's nuclear programme, causing massive damage to the country's Fordow and Natanz enrichment sites, Trump's claim of it being "obliterated" appears exaggerated. Intelligence briefings from the IAEA and Western agencies in early 2026 indicate that while the facilities were set back by roughly two years, Iran's institutional knowledge and undisclosed enrichment capabilities remain intact. The U.S.'s recent military buildup in the Gulf also contradicts the claim that the threat has been eliminated. 

Crime 'down 100 percent' in Washington, D.C.

The President asserted that his declaration of a federal crime emergency in Washington, D.C. led to "100 percent" decrease in crime in January 2026. "We have almost no crime anymore in Washington, D.C. How did that happen? In fact, crime in Washington is now at the lowest level ever recorded, and murders in D.C. this January were down close to 100% from a year ago," Trump said.

While crime has seen a downward trend in the capital, the President’s statement here appears exaggerated. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) data confirms that in the first two months of 2026, D.C. saw over 2,500 reported offenses, including 10 homicides and 146 robberies. The data also shows that the crime rate is not "the lowest ever recorded."

Unemployment and '100% jobs' in the private sector

President Trump, who has often accused his predecessor Joe Biden's administration of generating government jobs that were "unnecessary" to tackle unemployment, said, "We've added 70,000 new construction jobs in just a very short period of time." Indicating that unemployment under his administration was at an all-time low, Trump added, "More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country. Think about that — any time in the history of our country, more working today, and 100% of all jobs created under my administration have been in the private sector."

Trump's claims here are statistically misleading. As per an NPR report, while unemployment has remained low (at just 4.3% in January), it is higher than the 4% a year ago when Trump returned to the White House. Additionally, while the private sector did add jobs in 2025, the total net employment growth was the lowest in over two decades for a non-recession year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the "100%" figure is reached only because the federal government actually lost roughly 168,000 jobs through attrition and cuts, which cancels out public sector gains in the data.

Lowest drug prices in the world

Trump touted the launch of TrumpRx.gov, after claiming that he is "ending the wildly inflated costs of prescription drugs like it has never happened before." Stating that prior presidents were "all talk and no action," Trump said that he got it done through his "Most-Favored-Nation" agreement. He said that Americans "will now pay the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs" with price differences of "600% and more." 

While the direct-to-consumer website, TrumpRx, provides brand-named drugs at a discount, a staff report from the House Energy and Commerce Committee found that TrumpRx is "largely a rebranding of existing market forces." The report noted that nearly half of the 40 drugs on the platform were already available at similar prices through pre-existing discount programs like GoodRx. Additionally, as per a Yale study, published in January, more than 70% of widely used branded medications "are priced at least four times higher in the U.S. than in comparable countries."

Minnesota's Somali community pillaged $19 billion

When it comes to the "corruption that is plundering America", the President claimed that there is no better example than the state of Minnesota, where "members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer." "This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn’t believe," the President added, announcing that Vice President J.D. Vance would be leading the "War on Fraud."  

While the White House points to the recent arrests of almost 100 defendants—many of Somali descent—charged by the Department of Justice in connection with alleged fraud in federal social safety net and child welfare programs, the $19 billion figure appears to be a massive exaggeration. In late 2025, the U.S. Attorney for Minneapolis clarified that the total amount billed by the specific Medicaid services under investigation since 2018 was only $18 billion in total. Fraud can't exceed the total amount of money spent.

One Big Beautiful Bill was the largest tax cut in history

Touting his One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Trump asserted that it provided the "largest tax cut in the history of our country." "Last year, I urged this Congress to begin the mission by passing the largest tax cut in American history, and our Republican majority delivered so beautifully," Trump said. "All Democrats voted against these really important and very necessary massive tax cuts. They wanted large-scale tax increases to hurt the people instead, but we held strong, and with the great Big Beautiful Bill, we gave you no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on social security," he added.  

However, historical tax records and analyses from the Treasury Department indicate this claim is factually incorrect. While the cuts are significant, as per a November analysis published by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, they are the sixth largest in American history. Moreover, the cuts do not rank as the largest in U.S. history when measured as a percentage of GDP.