AS USUAL, TRUMP PRAISES SELF WITH "ALTERNATIVE FACTS"

By Jane C. Timm
NBC News

President Donald Trump delivered his third State of the Union address Tuesday, mixing fact with falsehood in his address to the nation.

The president said the state of the union was "stronger than ever before," offering a deeply partisan speech that celebrated the economy and his recent trade deals while warning against Democrats' election promises to rework the health care system.

Claim 1

"Thanks to our bold regulatory reduction campaign, the United States has become the Number 1 producer of oil and natural gas in the world, by far," Trump said, according to an excerpt of the speech released in advance.

The facts: Trump is taking undue credit here. The U.S. has been the largest natural gas and oil producer since 2011 and 2014, respectively, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the agency that tracks this information. Trump took office in 2017.

Claim 2

"After losing 60,000 factories under the previous two administrations, America has now gained 12,000 new factories under my administration," Trump said, according to the remarks prepared for delivery.

The facts: Trump is mostly right, although his numbers are slightly off. The U.S. lost 53,659 factories during the two previous administrations, not 60,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS. But he's correct in saying the trend has reversed under his administration. From 2017 to the second quarter of last year, the U.S. added 12,074 factories, according to the most recently available data from the BLS.

Claim 3

"Since my election, we have created 7 million new jobs, 5 million more than government experts projected during the previous administration," Trump said.

The facts: This number is misleading. Trump is taking credit for months of job gains that occurred during the administration of President Barack Obama. The economy, however, doesn't move that quickly. Since Trump took office, the country has added 6.7 million job in 36 months. He also suggests that this is unprecedented success that no one could have predicted, but it's not: In the 36 months before Trump took office, 8.2 million jobs were created during the Obama administration.

Claim 4

"If we had not reversed the failed economic policies of the previous administration, the world would not now be witnessing this great economic success," Trump said.

The facts: Economists believe the current period of economic growth began during the Obama administration. Some say Trump's tax cuts might have boosted it, but the economy was not on the decline when Trump took office.

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