President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered a sweeping speech to Congress outlining his legislative priorities and vision for the country.
He chose his words carefully and largely stuck to the script, avoiding the freewheeling style that has defined many of his public appearances and stump speeches.
The result: Trump hewed closer to the facts on a range of issues.
Still, he made several misleading statements in his Tuesday night address. Here’s CNN’s quick take fact checks of Trump’s address:
Trump: Keystone and Dakota pipelines will create “tens of thousands of jobs”
REALITY CHECK: Misleading
The Keystone XL pipeline is only slated to create as many as 3,900 construction jobs while the Dakota Pipeline would create between 8,000 and 12,000 construction jobs, according to the State Department and Dakota Access, respectively. The pipelines are also estimated to create thousands of more indirect jobs. But both pipelines will create very few permanent jobs.
Trump: Obamacare premiums up double digits; 116% in Arizona
REALITY CHECK: True
The Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the Obamacare premium increases for 2017 in the final months of the Obama administration — an average of 25% in states served by the federal Obamacare exchange, healthcare.gov. Arizona was slated to see an average 116% premium increase, the highest of any state by far. These hikes are for the benchmark silver plan upon which subsidies are based.
Trump: 94 million Americans are out of the labor force
REALITY CHECK: Misleading
Yes, 94 million Americans aren’t in the US labor force. But citing that statistic as a measure of the state of the US economy is misleading. Most of those individuals are out of the labor force because they’re retired (44 million) or disabled (15.4 million) or students (15.5 million), according to numbers for the most recent quarter from the Atlanta Federal Reserve.
Trump: We’re removing gang members and dangerous criminals
REALITY CHECK: Misleading
Trump’s executive order on immigration changed immigration enforcement priorities for deportation, broadening the criteria beyond serious criminals to allow immigration enforcement officers to also arrest and deport undocumented immigrants charged with any crime. But the new guidelines also give immigration officers broad discretion to deport any undocumented immigrant.
Trump: We’ve imposed a ‘5-year ban on lobbying’
REALITY CHECK: Misleading
Trump claimed that he’s “begun to drain the swamp…by imposing a 5-year ban on lobbying by Executive Branch Officials.” He did impose a 5-year ban, but it only bans officials from lobbying the agency they worked for 5 years — not the rest of the executive branch.
Trump: Murder rate had largest single-year increase in half-century
REALITY CHECK: True
Trump claimed Tuesday that “the murder rate in 2015 experienced its largest single-year increase in nearly half a century.” That’s a true statistic. Trump in the past has falsely claimed the murder rate was at a 50-year high. The rate still remains at decades-old lows despite the 2015 spike.
This story has been updated.
