Fact checking Trump's 2026 State of the Union address and Spanberger's response

CBS News fact checked President Trump's 2026 State of the Union address Tuesday night, in which he highlighted his record on the economy, immigration and tariffs, and also assessed a claim made by Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger during her Democratic response. 

Here are some of the claims and CBS News' ratings and context for those statements:

True: Trump claims murder rate saw its largest decline in recorded history last year

"Last year, the murder rate saw its single largest decline in recorded history. This is the biggest decline, think of it, in recorded history — the lowest number in over 125 years."

Details: 

• Preliminary data from independent researchers suggests that homicides may have hit an 125-year low last year, although the FBI's official annual crime report for 2025 will not be released until later this year.
• A January study by the Council on Criminal Justice, or CCJ, found a "strong possibility" that the 2025 homicide rate will drop to about 4 per 100,000 residents, which would be the lowest recorded in law enforcement or public health data dating back to 1900. The homicide rate has been declining since 2022, according to annual FBI reports.
• The CCJ report also noted that the reasons for last year's decline are not clear, but researchers say possible influences include "changes in criminal justice policies and programs, shifts in the use of technology, and broader social, economic, and cultural trends."

By Laura Doan

Partially true: Trump claims that in the past 9 months, no illegal immigrants have been admitted into the U.S.

"In the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States."

Details: 

Mr. Trump is likely referring to the number of migrants released by Border Patrol after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

Over the past nine months, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported zero releases of migrants by Border Patrol along the U.S. southern border.

That does not necessarily mean every single migrant who has entered the U.S. illegally since Mr. Trump took office has been deported.

Some migrants initially arrested by Border Patrol and then transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement could be released by that agency, though the Trump administration has sought to bar those who entered the U.S. illegally from being eligible for bond.

Border Patrol's numbers also do not account for migrants who enter the U.S. illegally surreptitiously, without being caught by Border Patrol agents. It's unclear how many of those so-called "got-aways" have been recorded under the second Trump administration.

Overall, illegal border crossings have plummeted under Mr. Trump's second administration, falling to the lowest level since 1970 in fiscal year 2025. Still, thousands of migrants continue crossing into the U.S. illegally each month. In January, Border Patrol apprehended roughly 6,000 migrants after they crossed the southern border unlawfully, government data show.

By Camilo Montoya-Galvez

Misleading: Trump claims more Americans working today than at any time in U.S. history 

"More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country. Think about that — any time in the history of our country, more working today. And 100% of all jobs created under my administration have been in the private sector."

Details: 

Preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics show there are roughly 158.6 million people employed in the U.S., as of January 2026, which is more than at any other point on record. But the total number of employed people usually rises as the population grows. About 157 million people were employed when President Joe Biden left office in January 2025.

Economists generally rely on the share of people working to compare labor market strength over time, which has remained largely flat over the past year. The labor force participation rate sat at 62.5% in January, which is identical to the rate in December 2024, Biden's last full month in office. 

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate has ticked up under Mr. Trump to 4.3% from 4.1% in December 2024.

By Aaron Navarro 

False/not supported: Trump claims he's secured $18 trillion in new investment in the U.S.

"In four long years, the last administration got less than $1 trillion in new investment in the United States. And when I say less, substantially less. In 12 months, I secured commitments for more than $18 trillion, pouring in from all over the globe."

Details: 

• According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, new foreign direct investments over Biden's four years in office did add up to less than $1 trillion.
• But a CBS News review found no evidence that total commitments or new investments approach the scale the president has cited. New investment of $18 trillion would represent almost 60% of U.S. GDP.
• The administration's own list of major investment commitments "made possible by President Trump's leadership" totaled $9.6 trillion as of the latest update in November, but even that figure is exaggerated and includes some investments announced while Biden was president.
• Additionally, federal data shows corporate investment levels are similar to levels last year, with U.S. companies on track to invest over $5 trillion in 2025. Overall, since the end of the pandemic, corporate investment has been rising.

By Jui Sarwate

False: Trump claims gas is "now below $2.30 a gallon in most states"

"Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states under my predecessor — it was, quite honestly, a disaster — is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states, and in some places, $1.99 a gallon. And when I visited the great state of Iowa just a few weeks ago, I even saw $1.85 a gallon for gasoline."

Details: 

While gas prices have dropped from a national peak of $5.02 in June 2022 to $2.95, according to AAA, they are not below $2.30 in most states. 

Only one state, Oklahoma, had an average gas price around $2.30 as of Feb. 24, according to AAA data. According to GasBuddy, which tracks prices at roughly 150,000 stations nationwide, the cheapest 10% of all stations had gas priced at $2.30, as of February 23. Only eight gas stations nationwide were selling a gallon of gas for under $2, GasBuddy told CBS News. 

Trump specifically mentioned $1.85 gas in Iowa. AAA did report Iowa among the 10 states with the lowest prices – but the average price in the state was $2.50.

By Laura Doan, Julia Ingram, John Kelly

Misleading: Trump claims "members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer"

"When it comes to the corruption that is plundering — really, it's plundering America — there's been no more stunning example than Minnesota, where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer."

Details: 

• President Trump's "estimated $19 billion dollars" figure refers to the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported over a dozen state-run programs in Minnesota since 2018.
• The exact extent of the fraud and losses is still being investigated. In December 2025, a top prosecutor suggested the total amount of fraud could be $9 billion or more.
• More than 90% of the people charged in major fraud cases announced before December 2025 were of Somali descent, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for Minnesota. But the number of people of Somali descent charged, 82 individuals, is a small fraction of the Somali community across the state. Census Bureau data shows that there are more than 107,000 people who identify as Somali in the state.
• Prosecutors have said the mastermind behind Feeding Our Future, Minnesota's biggest fraud scheme to date, is Aimee Bock, a White woman. 

By Emma Li

Misleading: Trump claims tariffs are paid for by foreign countries and take "a great financial burden off the people that I love"

"As time goes by, I believe that tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love."

Details: 

Mr. Trump and the White House maintain that it's foreign companies and exporters who pay for tariffs. He wrote in a January Wall Street Journal op-ed that data shows tariffs have "fallen overwhelmingly on foreign producers and middlemen."

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York published an analysis in February that found over 90% of Mr. Trump's 2025 tariffs were passed onto U.S. consumers and businesses in the form of higher costs. It found that from January through August of last year, U.S. importers bore 94% of tariff costs. That decreased slightly in November, as exporters began to take up more of the burden, but U.S. importers still remained on the hook for 86% of the tariffs, according to their analysis.

The Harvard Business School study that the president cites in his Wall Street Journal op-ed found that U.S. consumers paid for roughly 43% of the tariff-induced border costs after seven months of Trump's tariffs, "with the remainder absorbed mostly by U.S. firms."

As for the idea that tariff revenue can offset or replace income taxes — even if a president imposed 50% tariffs on all imports — the income generated would represent less than 40% of income tax revenue, according to the Peterson Institute.

Historians who study U.S. trade note that tariffs have not been viewed as a primary way to raise revenue since income taxes were introduced in 1913. Income taxes generate over $2 trillion each year, according to the Treasury Department.

In 2024, tariff collections on imports represented just 1.7% of the more than $4.9 trillion in total federal revenue. And according to the Congressional Research Service, tariffs have not accounted for much more than 2% of federal revenue in the last 70 years.

By Aaron Navarro

Misleading: Trump claims new MFN agreements mean Americans, who've paid "highest prices of any nation" for prescriptions will now pay "the lowest price anywhere" 

"Under my just enacted Most Favored Nation agreements, Americans who have for decades paid by far the highest prices of any nation anywhere in the world for prescription drugs will now pay the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs."

Details: 

• It's true that prescription drug prices in the U.S. tend to be much higher than in other countries. In 2024, the RAND Organization published its review of prescription drug data, which showed that through 2022, prescription drug prices in the U.S. were on average 2.8 times higher than in 33 other nations. Brand-name drugs averaged 4.22 times as much in the U.S.
• Mr. Trump did sign an executive order in May that threatened regulatory action against drug companies that failed to take steps to lower drug costs for Medicare or Medicaid recipients.
• But health policy experts say there are scant public details that lay out the full scope of Trump's MFN agreements, including which drugs are included and how prices are determined. It's also unclear how these deals would be extended to all Americans.

By Emma Li, Laura Doan

Partially true/Misleading: Trump claims price of eggs is down 60%, and the prices of chicken, butter, fruit, hotels, autos and rent are "lower today than when I took office by a lot"

"The price of eggs is down 60%. Madam Secretary, thank you. The cost of chicken, butter, fruit, hotels, automobiles, rent is lower today than when I took office by a lot."

Details: 

• The president's claim about eggs is accurate — the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data from January shows average retail egg prices for shoppers are down about 59% from their peak in March 2025 of $6.23 per dozen.
• But Bureau of Labor Statistics data from March 2025 through January 2026 shows relatively flat changes in price for the other products and index items he mentioned:
• The prices have stayed flat from March 2025 through January for whole fresh chicken ($2.06 to $2.04) and boneless chicken breast ($4.16 to $4.17). Prices of bone-in chicken legs decreased only 4%, from $1.82 to $1.74 in the same time frame.
• According to BLS data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the average price of the stick of butter has decreased 9% ($4.82 to $4.38) from March 2025 to January.
• According to the USDA, retail fresh fruit prices fell by 0.8% from November 2025 to December 2025 but were 0.7% higher in December 2025 than in December 2024.
• The price of new vehicles has remained the same from March 2025 to January 2026 ($178.63 to $179.20).
• The rents of primary addresses have remained fairly consistent from March 2025 to January, increasing only 2.3%, $431.80 to $441.72.
• And while prices vary across products, Consumer Price Index data shows average cost of groceries in January increased by 0.2% from the previous month and by 2.4% from last year.

By Jui Sarwate

False: Trump claims SAVE AMERICA Act must be passed "to stop illegal aliens" from voting in U.S. elections because "the cheating is rampant in our elections"

"I'm asking you to approve the SAVE AMERICA Act to stop illegal aliens and others who are uncommitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections. The cheating is rampant in our elections. It's rampant."

Details: 

• Multiple studies have found that noncitizen voting in federal elections, which is illegal, is rare. 
• The conservative Heritage Foundation, which maintains a database of voter fraud cases brought by prosecutors, includes only 85 cases involving allegations of noncitizen voting over a two-decade period from 2002 to 2023, according to a Washington Post analysis. The nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found only 30 cases of suspected noncitizens voting reported by election officials in 2016 among 23.5 million votes cast across 42 jurisdictions reviewed. 
• States have also conducted their own audits of voter roles. A 2024 audit in Georgia found that 20 noncitizens out of 8.2 million registered voters, according to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. An audit in Texas found 2,724 potential noncitizens among 18.6 million registered voters, the secretary of state's office said. 
• Noncitizens who vote in federal elections risk deportation and prison time. While only some states require a photo ID, when registering to vote, individuals must attest under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens, and provide a driver's license number or the last four digits of their social security number. 

By Julia Ingram

Misleading: Trump claims Democrats' refusal to vote to fund DHS means "nobody's getting paid" 

"Tonight, I'm demanding the full and immediate restoration of all funding for the Border Security, Homeland Security of the United States and also for helping people clean up their snow. We have no money because of the Democrats, and it would be nice- love to give you a hand at cleaning it up, but you gave no money. Nobody's getting paid."

Details: 

During the partial government shutdown, some Department of Homeland Security personnel are paid even when annual appropriations lapse — because their pay comes from other budget authorities that are still valid (like fee revenue or previously enacted legislation).

For instance, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and officers are expected to be paid because vast parts of their budgets are funded by prior legislation, not just the expired DHS annual appropriation. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law last year by Mr. Trump allocated an unprecedented $170 billion for immigration enforcement, with ICE alone getting $75 billion.

The other immigration agency at DHS, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees legal immigration, is mostly funded by application fees, so its operations and workforce continue largely uninterrupted.

Most frontline "essential" DHS workers (including TSA agents, FEMA staff, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency employees, Secret Service agents, Coast Guard personnel whose funding has lapsed, etc.) are working but not receiving paychecks until the shutdown ends.

By Nicole Sganga, Camilo Montoya-Galvez

False: Trump claims Biden and Democrats "gave us the worst inflation in the history of our country"

"The Biden administration and its allies in Congress gave us the worst inflation in the history of our country. But in 12 months, my administration has driven core inflation down to the lowest level in more than five years. And in the last three months of 2025, it was down to 1.7%."

Details: 

Under President Biden, year-over-year inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022. That was the highest monthly rate in about 40 years, but not the highest ever. The 1970s and early 1980s saw inflation rates between 12% and 14%, according to Federal Reserve data.  

By the time Biden left office, the inflation rate had eased to about 3%, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The figures Trump cited regarding inflation during his second term used a less-common metric called "core inflation," which excludes food and energy. 

Core inflation was 2.5% in January 2026, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the lowest since 1.6% in March 2021 – nearly five years ago.

The source for Trump's claim of 1.7% core inflation in the final three months of 2025 is not clear. Core inflation was 2.6% in both November and December 2025, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Federal inflation data for October 2025 is missing because of the 2025 federal government shutdown.

By Steve Reilly

Misleading" Trump suggests there are currently states that "rip children from their parents' arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents' will"

"But surely we can all agree, no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents' arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents' will. Who would believe that we're even talking about — we must ban it, and we must ban it immediately."

Details: 

There are no states that have laws that allow them to "rip" or take into custody minors and then give them access to gender transition surgeries, without parental input. In fact, most medical care for minors, including gender-affirming care, still requires parental consent, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.  

There are 35 states that do not force school staff to inform family members if their minor child is transgender, according to the Movement Advancement Project. On Mr. Trump's call for bans, 27 states have enacted laws to limit youth access to gender-affirming care in some way, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. 

What prompted the president to talk about this is the case of Sage Blair, who suffered from gender dysphoria as a 14-year-old in 2021, according to a filing of her family's ongoing lawsuit against a Virginia school board. 

As a freshman, Blair began to refer to herself with male pronouns and was bullied. According to the lawsuit, in private sessions, high school counselors encouraged her to "embrace" her male identity, but allegedly did not inform her paternal grandmother, Michele Blair, about their communications with Sage. She ran away and was abducted by sex traffickers before ending up in the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services for two months, before running away again. Blair's family alleges that the school's actions in not informing her family about her safety at school resulted in her running away and being sex trafficked.

According to the filing, school counselors supported Sage's use of different pronouns, but they did not "rip" Sage from her parents and transition her "against her parents' will," as Mr. Trump and the White House have stated. The legal team for the school counselor referenced in the lawsuit said the alleged damages "were not, and could not have been caused" by their interactions with Blair. The case is ongoing and was sent to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia last year.

By Aaron Navarro

Misleading: Trump claims he ended 8 wars

"In my first 10 months, I ended 8 wars — including Cambodia…Cambodia and Thailand, Pakistan and India — would have been a nuclear war. Thirty-five million people said the prime minister of Pakistan, would've died if it were not for my involvement — Kosovo and Serbia, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Congo and Rwanda, and of course, the war in Gaza, which proceeds at a very low level, it's just about there."

Details: 

Mr. Trump claimed credit for ending eight wars in his term, but foreign policy experts say that overstates his record.

While he's helped broker ceasefires, including one between Israel and Iran, several of the foreign conflicts cited by the administration are not full-scale wars, and many remain unresolved. 

Mr. Trump has claimed he brokered peace between Ethiopia and Egypt, whose leaders have disagreed about Ethiopia's decision to build a hydroelectric dam in the Nile. Although Egypt previously threatened to go to war over the dam, the dispute has remained a diplomatic one.

The White House has also pointed to a peace deal announced in June between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo after days of talks in Washington in June. The deal aimed to end three decades of fighting over Congo's mineral reserves. Yet the violence has continued. Human Rights Watch reported that M23, an armed group U.S. officials believe is backed by Rwanda, killed over 140 civilians in eastern Congo in July.

Trump also cited Thailand and Cambodia, which agreed to a ceasefire last July, after an outbreak in fighting killed at least 35 people. Mr. Trump pressured both sides to come to the table by threatening trade consequences. But the border dispute continued and the countries then agreed to a second ceasefire late December, which both sides have since accused each other of violating.

India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire in May after weeks of cross-border missile and drone strikes. The deal ended the latest flare-up in their long-running dispute over Kashmir, which both nuclear-armed nations claim as their territory. However, Josh Kurlantzick, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CBS News it's a stretch to call the territorial dispute over Kashmir settled.

In 2020, President Trump helped negotiate a deal between Serbia and Kosovo to help normalize economic ties, but progress stalled soon afterward. Talks have continued with European leaders, but there have been no breakthroughs. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, which Serbia still does not recognize.

By Laura Doan, James LaPorta

Inconclusive: Trump claims 32,000 protesters were killed in Iran

"Just over the last couple of months, with the protests, they've killed at least it looks like 32,000 protesters in their own country. They shot them and hung them."

Details: 

Mr. Trump first cited a figure of 32,000 last week, on Feb. 20, without disclosing the source of the number. TIME magazine last month cited a figure of 30,000 from two senior officials within Iran's Ministry of Health. And other news outlets have since also put the figure at more than 30,000, based on estimates from Iranian doctors, internal documents and eyewitness reports. 

Two sources, including one inside Iran, told CBS News last month that at least 12,000, and possibly as many as 20,000 people had been killed in Iran during the protests. Israel's Mossad also told the U.S. government in mid-January that its estimate was at least 5,000, the Times of Israel reported.

Iran denies the higher figures — the Iranian foreign minister pushed back on Trump's latest estimate and said Tehran's official death toll is 3,117 victims.

It is exceptionally difficult to verify casualty numbers in Iran during protests because of repressive tactics used by Iranian regime that make it more difficult for civilians to communicate, including the imposition of information blackouts and a high-risk environment for journalists who are unable to report freely.

By Camilla Schick

Inconclusive: Spanberger claims that Trump's tariff policies have resulted in $1,700 in higher costs for American families

Spanberger: "Since this president took office last year, his reckless trade policies have forced American families to pay more than $1,700 each in tariff costs."

Details: 

Mr. Trump instituted a series of tariff increases starting in early 2025, and economists have found importers often pass on part of the cost of the tariffs to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Spanberger's statement reflects a report released this month by Democratic lawmakers on the Joint Economic Committee estimating that "American consumers overall paid more than $231 billion in tariff costs between February 2025 and January 2026, an average of roughly $1,745 per family."

But there is no settled methodology for quantifying the impact of tariffs on consumers, and other organizations have offered differing estimates. The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, estimated that in 2025, "the Trump tariffs amounted to an average tax increase per US household of $1,000."

By Steve Reillly