President Donald Trump made a series of false claims during his prime-time address from the White House on Wednesday night, most of which have been debunked before. Here is a fact check of some of his assertions.
Inflation and the economy
Inflation under Trump: Near the end of the speech, Trump falsely claimed, “Inflation is stopped.” Inflation hasn’t stopped; the most recent available year-over-year inflation rate at the time he spoke on Wednesday, 3.0% in September, was the same as the rate when Trump returned to office in January – in fact, if you go to multiple decimal places, the September rate was a tiny bit higher – and September was the fifth consecutive month the year-over-year rate had increased. The year-over-year November rate released the morning after Trump’s speech was 2.7%, but that means prices are rising less quickly than they were in September, not that inflation ceased. (The October number wasn’t calculated because of the government shutdown, which also impacted the government’s data collection in November.)
Inflation under Biden: Trump repeated his false claim that “when I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country.”
The year-over-year inflation rate in the last full month of the Biden administration, December 2024, was 2.9%; it was 3.0% in January 2025, the month of Trump’s second inauguration. That’s the same as the most recent available rate at the time Trump spoke on Wednesday, 3.0% in September 2025. (Again, the November rate released Thursday morning was 2.7%).
