President Donald Trump's speech to the United Nations on Tuesday was absolutely filled to the brim with disinformation, CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale wrote on X.
This comes amid much other drama surrounding the speech, including technical glitches that led Trump and his followers to rage at the U.N. staff but which may in fact have been his own staff's fault.
"President Trump’s speech to the UN was one of those 'where do you even start' addresses from a fact-check perspective," wrote Dale.
For one thing, he said, Trump's claim inflation has been "defeated" is completely wrong: "it's been rising since the spring and is now, at 2.9%, just shy of the 3.0% from when he returned to office in January, when he says he inherited an 'economic calamity.'" He similarly said electricity prices and groceries are down, but in reality, both are rising rapidly.
His foreign policy claims are off base, too, Dale continued.
"Trump didn't end a 'raging' war between Egypt and Ethiopia because the two countries were not in a war at all; they’re in an argument over a dam that is ongoing," said Dale. "He’s previously claimed he stopped Serbia and Kosovo from starting a new war, not that he resolved an existing war, which makes more sense because they weren’t at war under Trump, either. And the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo hasn’t ended despite the Trump administration-brokered June peace deal, which, critically, didn’t involve the rebel coalition doing the fighting."
Then there's a laundry list of other lies the president told, Dale continued.
"Trump’s current poll numbers aren’t close to his highest ever," he wrote. "Trump’s '$17 trillion' investment figure is $8 trillion higher than the figure his own press secretary used *yesterday.* President Biden didn’t let in 25 million migrants. Biden didn’t lose 300,000 kids. Global warming isn’t a 'hoax.' Scientists haven’t ceased using the phrase 'global warming.' Coal isn’t 'clean.' The US didn’t have to pay '$1 trillion' under the Paris climate accord. That the wind sometimes doesn’t blow doesn’t make wind power useless; batteries exist, and wind is used as part of a mix of power sources. China doesn’t 'barely' use wind energy; in fact it’s by far the world’s leading user of wind power, and it’s rapidly building more domestic capacity."
Senior diplomats reacted in disbelief to the speech, with one telling a Washington Post reporter, "This man is stark raving mad. Do Americans not see how embarrassing this is?"