Fact-checking President Trump’s 2025 inaugural address
Inaugural addresses, with their emphasis on lofty rhetoric, are generally not fertile ground for fact-checking. But President Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration speech was more akin to a State of the Union address, with a laundry list of proposals and plans – and a hefty dose of false claims that we’ve fact-checked before. Here’s a quick rundown of what was inaccurate or misleading in Trump’s address, in the order in which he made the claims. We’ll ignore rhetoric that is expressed more as an opinion – “for many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens” – even though the factual basis for such statements is thin.
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“The vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end.”
Trump refers to “weaponization,” code for President Joe Biden supposedly using the resources of the U.S. government to target his political opponent. There is no evidence that Biden directed the Justice Department or local prosecutors to pursue prosecutions of Trump – and the actions were not violent.
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“It fails to protect our magnificent law-abiding American citizens, but provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions that have illegally entered our country from all over the world.”
This statement was a regular staple of Trump’s campaign speeches, but immigration experts know of no effort by other countries to empty their prisons and mental institutions, a claim Trump appears to have invented. As someone who came to prominence in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Trump appears to be channeling Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s 1980 Mariel boat lift. About 125,000 Cubans were allowed to flee to the United States in 1,700 boats – but there was a backlash when it was discovered hundreds of refugees had been released from jails and mental health facilities.
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“We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders, but refuses to defend American borders, or more important, its own people.”
Trump appears to be referencing aid to Ukraine after it was attacked by Russia, but there is nothing unlimited about the aid. Congress, after lengthy debate, appropriated the money – most of which benefited Americans. The Fact Checker examined the $95 billion aid package for Ukraine and Israel, approved in April, and found that nearly 80 % went either to weapons manufacturers in the United States to replenish stocks or supply weapons or to fund Defense Department operations in the United States and overseas.
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“Our country can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency, as recently shown by the wonderful people of North Carolina, been treated so badly.”
From the moment North Carolina was struck by Tropical Storm Helene, Trump claimed without evidence that the Biden administration treated rural areas in the state with disdain. The Federal Emergency Management Agency provided $292 million in public assistance grants and $202 million for debris removal, while the Federal Highway Administration made available $100 million to repair damaged roads and bridges. FEMA also says more than 7,600 households checked into FEMA-funded hotels.
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“Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history.”
This is highly debatable. George Washington, the first president, had to create a solid foundation for a new country. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, presided over a nation riven by a bloody Civil War. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president, led the United States through the Great Depression and World War II.
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“The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices.”
Trump is leaving out the biggest factor for the 9 % inflation in June 2022, the highest level in 40 years: the COVID pandemic.
Inflation initially spiked because of pandemic-related shocks – increased consumer demand as the pandemic eased and an inability to meet this demand because of supply chain problems, as companies reduced production when consumers hunkered down during the pandemic. Indeed, inflation rose around the world – with many peer countries doing worse than the United States – because of pandemic-related shocks that rippled across the globe.
Inflation in December was 2.9 %.
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“I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill.”
Trump reprises another campaign line, ignoring once again that U.S. crude oil production hit record highs under Biden (13.2 million barrels a day) – and was projected by the Energy Information Administration to increase even more, no matter who was president.
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“With my actions today, we will end the Green New Deal and we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers.”
Biden never passed the Green New Deal (which was a nonbinding resolution proposed by liberals years ago), and he never mandated the purchase of electric vehicles. Instead, the Biden-Harris administration promoted incentives for electric vehicles – not the same as a mandate – to counter China’s rise in the EV market.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American motor vehicle manufacturing employment hit a 34-year high in July, auto and auto parts employment reached a 16-year high in July, and the number of people with auto manufacturing jobs in Michigan is at the highest level since before the Great Recession in 2007.
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“Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”
Trump is flat wrong to claim that tariffs are paid by a foreign country. Economists agree that tariffs – essentially a tax on domestic consumption – are paid by importers, such as U.S. companies, which in turn pass on most or all of the costs to consumers or producers who may use imported materials in their products. As a matter of demand and supply elasticities, overseas producers will pay part of the tax if there are fewer goods sold to the United States. Domestic producers in effect get a subsidy because they can raise their prices to the level imposed on importers.
There is little debate over the fact that consumer prices will rise in response to tariffs.
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“I am pleased to say that as of yesterday, one day before I assumed office, the hostages in the Middle East are coming back home to their families. Thank you.”
The outgoing Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration worked together to secure the ceasefire agreements – which mirrored a proposal advanced by Biden months ago.
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“The United States, I mean, think of this, spent more money than ever spent on a project before and lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal. … China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama. And we’re taking it back.”
Trump made a series of false claims about the Panama Canal, a 51-mile waterway that was returned to Panama in 2000 under a treaty approved by the Senate in 1977. In 1964, the two countries agreed to begin negotiations on the status of the canal. The United States gained possession of the canal, which was completed in 1914, through unscrupulous means – using military pressure to force a newly independent country to accept a payment that was smaller than a deal concluded between Colombia (which had controlled Panama) and a French company.
Trump is correct that at the time this was the biggest public works project undertaken by the United States – about $7.5 billion in 2024 dollars. The United States also spent the equivalent of nearly $1 billion to buy the New Panama Canal Company and paid the Panamanian government $10 million (about $250 million in today’s dollars), along with an annual annuity.
But his estimate of 38,000 dead is exaggerated. The accepted estimate is less than 6,000, mainly from injury and disease, though an earlier French effort (when Panama was still a province of Colombia) led to the death of 22,000, many from malaria and yellow fever.
Trump is also wrong to claim China controls the canal, which is operated by a Panamanian government agency. For decades, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings has managed two ports at the canal’s entrance. But some lawmakers and military officials have suggested this now may pose a national security threat since China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong, previously a British territory.