FactChecking Trump’s Address to Congress

In his first address to a joint session of Congress in his second term, President Donald Trump distorted the facts on fraud, immigration, aid to Ukraine, the economy, autism and more.

Trump claimed that the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has “found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud.” However, the DOGE website currently states that the department has only generated $105 billion in savings, and only purports to provide evidence to support $19.8 billion of that total. It’s unclear how much, if any, of that is related to fraud.

The president read data purportedly showing that millions of dead individuals were incorrectly labeled as alive in the Social Security database, and misleadingly claimed that “money is being paid to many of them.” Social Security Administration internal audits show that the number of dead recipients still being sent benefits is likely in the thousands, not the millions.

In talking about aid to support Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion, Trump inflated U.S. aid by about double when he claimed that the U.S. has “spent perhaps $350 billion,” and he wrongly claimed Europe had spent only $100 billion. European aid is larger than that from the U.S.