Quick take: Trump’s 18-minute address mixed accurate trends with several misleading or incorrect numeric claims. Wage growth has outpaced inflation recently but not by the dramatic margin implied. Major errors include an inflated border-crossing number, exaggerated price drops for eggs and turkeys, and an $18 trillion investment claim that appears to count broad pledges rather than realized capital. Drug-price and job-creation claims are likewise overstated or misinterpreted.
Fact Check: Trump’s Claims On Wages, Prices, Immigration, Investment And Drug Deals — What The Data Shows
President Trump delivers an address to the nation from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House on Weds., Dec. 17. (Doug Mills / Reuters)
President Donald Trump delivered an 18-minute address in which he made a rapid series of claims about economic performance, immigration, investment and drug pricing during the first year of his second term. Some points reflect real trends, but several numerical claims are exaggerated, misleading or contradicted by public data. Below is a claim-by-claim fact check with context and official figures.
Claim: “Wages are going up much faster than inflation.”
There is a kernel of truth: wages have generally grown faster than inflation recently. But the qualifier "much" overstates the case. Average hourly wages increased about 4.1% in January but slowed to roughly 3.5% by the October/November jobs reports. Inflation has been near 3.0% and has ticked up month-to-month since April, narrowing the gap between wage growth and price increases.
Claim: “Our border was open... an army of 25 million people... many from prisons and mental institutions.”
This is false. U.S. Customs and Border Protection data show about 7.4 million undocumented encounters outside legal ports of entry during the Biden administration. Including people who crossed at ports of entry without proper documentation brings the total to roughly 10.2 million. Protected-status and other legal programs under that administration accounted for about 800,000 additional entries. There is no credible evidence supporting a 25 million figure or the allegation that many arrivals came from prisons or mental institutions.
Claim: “The price of eggs is down 82% since March, and everything else is falling rapidly.”
Incorrect. The Consumer Price Index shows egg prices down about 43.9% since March, not 82%. Some individual goods have become cheaper, but broad measures of consumer prices continue to show year-over-year increases. Note that some recent monthly CPI releases were delayed due to a government shutdown at the time of the original report.
Claim: “Gasoline is now under $2.50 a gallon in much of the country... in some states... $1.99 a gallon.”
Partly accurate but misleading. Gasoline prices have fallen, yet the nationwide average reported by the U.S. Energy Information Administration was about $2.89 (AAA reported roughly $2.90) — noticeably above $2.50. Station-level trackers such as GasBuddy list a small number of stations selling gas near $1.99 in a few states, but those are isolated and not representative of wide regional averages.
Claim: “The price of a Thanksgiving turkey was down 33% compared to Biden last year.”
False. Wells Fargo’s Agri-Foods Institute reported that national-brand Thanksgiving turkey prices fell about 3.7% year over year, and the overall cost of a Thanksgiving meal declined roughly 2–3%, far below the 33% claimed.
Claim: “Already, I’ve secured a record-breaking $18 trillion of investment into the United States.”
This figure is not supported by independent analyses. The White House listed a cumulative total near $9.6 trillion on its website at the time, while other fact checks (including Bloomberg) place realizable investment closer to $7 trillion. Much of the larger headline figure appears to include broad pledges, frameworks or aspirational commitments that may never materialize or be enforceable.
Claim: “All net creation of jobs was going to foreign migrants... Since I took office, 100% of all net job creation has gone to American-born citizens.”
The claim misinterprets how labor statistics are produced. Counts of native-born vs. foreign-born workers rely on population projections and sample-based estimates, and many foreign-born people are naturalized citizens. A clearer comparison is unemployment rates: over the 12-month interval cited, the unemployment rate among native-born workers rose from 3.9% to 4.3%, while the foreign-born unemployment rate fell slightly from 4.5% to 4.4%.
Claim: “I negotiated... to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400%, 500% and even 600%... your drug costs will be plummeting downward.”
This dramatic phrasing is unsupported. The administration and drugmakers have announced several deals, but public documentation does not show anywhere near the quoted percentage cuts across the market. Pfizer described an agreement that could lower costs on average 50% and in some scenarios more, while Novo Nordisk’s price cut of about 40% for certain products is contingent on sales through a yet-to-launch platform (TrumpRX). Many deals are confidential, conditional or represent tentative commitments, leaving uncertainty about actual consumer savings. At the same time, the administration’s tariffs on some pharmaceutical imports (as high as 20% before recent limited rollbacks) complicate the overall pricing picture.
Bottom line: The speech blended accurate observations with exaggerated or incorrect numeric claims. Key errors include overstated declines in egg and turkey prices, an inflated immigration figure, an investment total that counts pledges rather than realized capital, and drug-price-reduction claims far beyond documented agreements.
