The Three Biggest Lies in Trump’s Speech

The President Lies Like He Breathes, but Some Alternative Facts Are More Far-Reaching than Others

Donald Trump takes the oath of office without placing his left hand on the two Bibles held by his wife, Melania, in Washington. | Credit: AP

This story first appeared at SB Newsmakers.

Donald Trump lied, fabricated, and dissembled throughout his 30-minute “Liberation Day” inaugural address on Monday, a churlish and vainglorious oration well-suited to the aptitudes and values of a reality TV host and former condo salesman.

With his oligarchic posse of tech-bro billionaire masters of the universe looking on, Trump presented himself as a redoubtable monarch, set to sweep away all of America’s problems and activate a “Golden Age” with the swipe of a pen, rather than as the narrowly elected leader of a co-equal branch of government that oversees a democratic republic that is based on checks and balances and the rule of law.

Aside from myriad mundane lies that laced the speech — there is no federal electric car mandate for him to repeal, nor did Joe Biden order prosecutors to indict him, nor do other nations “dump” convicts and mental patients in the U.S. — there were three, more fundamental fabrications with which Trump framed his address, which underpin his political project and reveal its basic fraudulence.

1) Trump did not win a “mandate.”

In his 30-minute speech, Trump stated that, “our recent election is a mandate,” while boasting that “our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country.”

Not even close.

In November, a majority of voters actually cast ballots for someone other than Trump.

He narrowly defeated Democratic rival Kamala Harris 49.9 to 48.4 percent, a 1.5 percent edge that was the smallest presidential popular vote margin of the century, larger only than Al Gore’s 0.52 percent advantage over George W. Bush in 2000.

Trump’s 312-226 margin in the Electoral College was more substantial, but still no great shakes historically, where it ranks about in the middle of presidential elections, but doesn’t approach true landslides like FDR in 1936, Ronald Reagan in 1980, or even Barack Obama in 2008.

And while Republicans also captured both houses of Congress, such unified government, far from unusual, is more common in U.S. history than not:

According to data collected by the Office of the Historian and the Clerk of the House’s Office of Art and Archives, the U.S. government has been unified 48 times since 1857 — 23 times under Democrats and 25 under Republicans.

Throughout that time, the government was divided only 38 times. This means that a majority of elected governments have been unified since the advent of the modern party system.

Furthermore, the Republicans’ congressional majorities are hardly overwhelming, especially in the House.

With 219, somewhat fractious, votes in the House, GOP Speaker Mike Johnson has one vote to spare; in the Senate, the 53-to-47 seat advantage was a disappointment for Republicans, given the 60-vote filibuster rule; they lost as many competitive seats as they won, despite a politically advantageous election map, including four in states where Trump triumphed.

2) The economy is not in shambles.

In the rhetorical remix of his 2017 “American carnage” inaugural address, Trump on Monday declared that “the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair,” while asserting that his retaking of the White House means that “America’s decline is over”

“I will direct all members of my cabinet to marshal the vast powers at their disposal to defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices,” Trump said. “We will be a rich nation again.”

For starters, the U.S. already is a rich nation, either the first (national net wealth), third (average and media wealth per capita), or seventh (GDP per capita) richest in the world, depending on the metric.

Beyond that, however, President Biden is leaving behind a honey of an economy. After ravaging inflation spiked around 9 percent in 2022, Biden and the Federal Reserve Board oversaw a slow but steady recovery that has left the American economy currently strong and vibrant.

Inflation now is running around 2.6 percent (while it is true that prices remain high, it also is true that Trump’s promise that he will make them come down is shameless and not credible) and unemployment is at a low 4.1 percent, a combination that shows the economy achieved a “soft landing” that Biden postulated after the COVID-era economic mess Trump left behind in his first term.
Wages are up, the stock market last year had its best performance in a quarter-century, and manufacturing is stronger than at any time since the Bush era.
Energy production at its highest rate ever, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and annual production exceeded energy consumption during every year of Biden’s presidency, despite Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” demagoguery in his speech about sagging energy production.

“President Trump is inheriting an economy that is about as good as it ever gets,” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said in an interview with Peter Baker of the New York Times.

“The U.S. economy is the envy of the rest of the world, as it is the only significant economy that is growing more quickly post-pandemic than pre-pandemic,” Zandi added.

3) Americans don’t support the MAGA agenda.

The 49 percent president claimed in his speech that, “national unity is now returning to America.”

“As our victory showed, the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda with dramatic increases in support from virtually every element of our society,” Trump said.

Actually, not.

A Washington Post–University of Maryland poll last month asked 1,251 survey respondents whether they supported or opposed key elements of Trump’s authoritarian agenda.

There was overwhelming opposition on nearly every policy.

Pardoning January 6 felons. Two-thirds of those surveyed — 66 percent — said they opposed Trump pardons for those convicted of crimes stemming from the Jan. 6 insurrection, with fewer than one-third — 32 percent — in favor. (Trump ordered clemency for 1,600 of these felons and thugs on his first day back in office).
Investigating political rivals. A large majority of 60 percent said they opposed Trump’s “retribution” vow to use the Department of Justice to investigate his political opponents, compared to 38 percent who approved the idea.
Enemies of the state. Among many threats he has made against journalists, Trump repeatedly suggests that “dishonest” reporters who write critically about him should be jailed. In the poll, 88 percent opposed this, with 10 percent in favor.
Police using force against protesters. By a 72-to-24 ratio, survey respondents disagreed with Trump’s rhetorical proposals that police should use aggressive force against demonstrators protesting his policies.
Use of the military. A majority of 54 percent opposed Trump’s proposal to use the U.S. military to carry out mass deportations, compared to 42 percent who expressed support for the policy.

It’s also worth noting that in the poll, an equal number of respondents said they expected Trump to “rule as a dictator … with no checks and balances” as said they do not expect him to do so:

The poll finds 40 percent think he will try to rule as a dictator, 41 percent say he won’t, and another 19 percent aren’t sure.

Sadly, we’re about to find out who’s right.

Independent National Affairs Correspondent Jerry Roberts writes regularly about politics on Substack at SBNewsmakers.com.