State of the Truth Address

FactCheck, a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics, has monitored the factual accuracy of what was said by President Donald Trump in the State of the Union Address on February 24 2026. Their goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.

Fact Finding the State of the Union Address

Trump SOTU Fact Check Full story here: https://www.factcheck.org/2026/02/factchecking-trumps-state-of-the-union-address/
	Trump’s State of the Union Address	Fact Checking the SOTU Address
1	Trump falsely claimed that he inherited “a stagnant economy” with “inflation at record levels.”	Annual growth in real GDP was 2.5% or higher each year under former President Joe Biden, and the annual inflation rate was down to 3% from its peak of 9.1% peak when Trump took office.
2	The president went on to claim that the economy “is roaring like never before,”	Real GDP growth in 2025 was down to 2.2%, according to a federal estimate. Also, the unemployment rate has increased slightly under Trump.
3	He misleadingly claimed that prices are “plummeting downward” because of his policies.	The annual rate of inflation has declined, but prices overall are still increasing.
4	Trump’s claim that “more Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country,”	while accurate, doesn’t account for population growth. Job growth slowed a bit last year.
5	The president misleadingly claimed that Americans “will now pay the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs.”	The administration’s negotiations with drug companies may have lowered prices for some specific drugs in certain situations, but there is no evidence of a widespread decline in prices.
6	The president continued to exaggerate the decline in gasoline prices, saying they are “now below $2.36 a gallon in most states.”	In no state was the average that low. And the nationwide average is $2.94.
7	He claimed to have presided over a “tremendous renewal” of religion in America,	Recent polling has found the opposite.
8	Trump claimed that $1,776 “warrior dividend” bonus checks paid to military personnel came from tariff revenue.	It was actually a reallocation of funds initially earmarked for an increased housing allowance.
9	The president repeated his unsupported claim that many immigrants came from “prisons” and “mental institutions,”	He wrongly claimed that the Biden administration allowed in “11,888 murderers.”
10	Trump boasted about stock market gains since his election	The gains were less than each of the last two years under Biden.
11	He exaggerated when he said his signature legislation eliminated tax on tips, overtime and Social Security benefits for seniors.	The tax breaks are substantial but do not apply to all individuals.
12	As he has for years, Trump insisted, without evidence, that “cheating is rampant in our elections.”	He claimed legislation was needed “to stop illegal aliens” from voting, though evidence suggests that’s rare.
13	Trump claimed that the federal budget could be balanced “if we’re able to find enough of that fraud.”	The most recent budget deficit was $1.8 trillion, more than three times higher than the highest federal estimate of government money lost annually to fraud.
14	Trump claimed that he inherited “rampant crime at home” and later boasted that “last year, the murder rate saw its single largest decline in recorded history.”	Crime and murder was down last year, continuing a trend that began in 2022.
15	Trump made the dubious claim that his increased tariffs would one day replace income taxes,	Something many economists say doesn’t add up.
16	Trump claimed that the U.S. “obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program” last year.	Experts have said the program was damaged but not destroyed, and Trump is now considering military action over Iran’s nuclear program.
17	Trump said “American oil production is up by more than 600,000 barrels a day,”	Crude oil production increased by 334,600 barrels per day in his first full 10 months in office.
18	He also claimed that U.S. natural gas production increased to “an all-time high” because he “kept” his “promise to drill, baby, drill.”	Production of natural gas was already at record levels before he took office.

Fact Finding the State of the Truth Address February 24, 2026

Trump’s Feb. 24 address was longer than any prior SOTU, clocking in at over 1 hour and 47 minutes, as measured by the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

References

By Robert Farley, D'Angelo Gore, Lori Robertson, Jessica McDonald, Kate Yandell, Saranac Hale Spencer, Sanjana Juvvadi, Andrew Noh and Ashley Wang. (n.d.). FactChecking Trump’s State of the Union Address. FactCheck.org - A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center. Retrieved February 25, 2026, from https://www.factcheck.org/2026/02/factchecking-trumps-state-of-the-union-address/ 

Jobs, Labour Unions, and Climate Action

 

Action to address replacing the jobs to be lost in fossil fuel production and transportation as a result of plans to build back better with a carbon reduced economy is urgently needed to maintain public support for the changes.

Job loss in fossil fuels

 

  A report on powering Alberta's future with renewable energy by the Pembina Institute, working to solve today’s greatest energy challenges — reducing the harmful impacts of fossil fuels while supporting the transition to an energy system that is clean, safe and sustains a high quality of life, finds that two thirds of Albertans support reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. Respondents to the phone survey were asked about their perceptions of energy and climate policy, the role of the oil and gas industry in the province, and their expectations for future climate action.

 "These results reveal that Albertans expect a much stronger focus on climate action than is being offered. It’s clear that Albertans take climate action seriously and recognize it’s important for Alberta’s future prosperity. They want their government to take the steps needed to decarbonize heavy industry, which would unlock major capital investment. This means creating stable, forward-looking climate policy that aligns with Canada’s federal government targets and the targets of more than 100 other countries, now representing more than 70 per cent of global emissions. These results also show that Albertans would prefer more collaboration and dialogue between government, industry and diverse stakeholders the public to advance economic diversification and technological innovation that can also accelerate necessary improvements in environmental performance." — Chris Severson-Baker, Alberta director, Pembina Institute1

Al Jazeera discusses the situation where  US unions and environmentalists disagree about oil and gas pipelines. Biden’s moves to wean US off fossil fuels may lead to discord between the two sides. While climate activists celebrated KXL’s demise, labour unions, reeling from the downturn in global oil prices, have mobilised to keep ongoing projects from being derailed.

 

Mike Knisley, the secretary and treasurer of the Ohio State Building and Construction Trades Council, which endorsed Biden, said he has been leaning on state officials to talk to the president about how his rapid-fire climate announcements are affecting his union membership’s support. “I tell them they need to get back with Biden and ask if this all really has to happen on Day Two of the new administration,” Knisley said. “I just get so frustrated that there’s almost no common ground [on pipelines] with the environmental community.” But Biden was endorsed by a number of key labour unions that work on pipelines, refineries and other energy installations, including the International Teamsters and North America’s Building Trades. Those unions celebrated the victory of a pro-labour president, but opposed the Keystone move and are lining up against threats to the other pipelines.2

A news release from the Government of Nova Scotia reports that the Green Fund is supporting energy efficiency, renewable energy and youth jobs.

 

The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC, reports how clean energy jobs can power an equitable COVID-19 recovery. As previous Brookings Metro research on advancing inclusion through clean energy jobs has shown, policymakers need to recognize and invest in careers that offer equitable wages, promote transferable skills, and pose lower formal educational barriers to entry. Clean energy jobs offer all three benefits, making them crucial for the post-pandemic recovery.

What’s easy for policymakers to overlook is just how many clean energy occupations pay higher wages while posing lower formal educational barriers to entry compared to all jobs nationally. Nearly two-thirds of solar installers (62.3%) have a high school diploma or less, as do nearly three-quarters of construction workers (73.2%)—both significantly higher than the national share for all occupations (32.2%). These occupations also tend to pay higher wages, especially for workers just starting out their careers or at lower ends of the income spectrum; for example, despite having lower educational requirements, solar installers have a mean hourly wage of $22.50, close to the national mean of $25.72. The opportunity for well-paying clean energy jobs is clear, and it is time to seize it.3 

Sectors of the economy, like fossil fuel production and transportation, currently support many workers in well paid jobs. Gaining and maintaining the support of these workers requires action now to begin transition to better and more sustainable work in the new energy economy.

 

References

 

1	(2008, August 19). Powering Alberta's Future with Renewable Energy - Pembina .... Retrieved January 15, 2021, from https://www.pembina.org/reports/greeningthegrid-report.pdf
2	(2021, February 1). US unions, environmentalists disagree about oil and gas pipelines .... Retrieved February 2, 2021, from https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/2/1/us-unions-environmentalists-disagree-over-oil-and-gas-pipelines
3	(2020, September 10). How clean energy jobs can power an equitable COVID-19 recovery. Retrieved February 2, 2021, from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/09/10/how-clean-energy-jobs-can-power-an-equitable-covid-19-recovery/

Western Canadian jobs more secure than eastern jobs in climate emergency

The tension between those who support aggressive GHG emission reductions and those who favour gradual phase out while Canada continues to emit GHG in the oil and gas industry may point to an underlying concern for jobs.

Keeping jobs in the fishery

CBC interviewed Boris Worm, a professor of marine biology at Halifax's Dalhousie University, contributed science that was assessed in the new report of the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate that emphasized the ocean is warmer, more acidic and less productive.

When Stuart Beaton started fishing for lobster in 1971, the ocean waters off the northern coast of Nova Scotia and the marine creatures that lived beneath the waves behaved differently than today.
There is now less ice coverage in the spring, new species have arrived and lobsters are flocking to more northern waters amid rising ocean temperatures. His family, with three generations of lobster fishermen, have watched the changes in real time over half a century.
"In our business, we're very exposed to what happens. If two degrees kills the oceans..." said his son, Gordon Beaton, during an interview on a wharf in Ballantynes Cove, N.S., before his father added: "We're going to be the first to know."1

The Guardian offers a report on the climate crisis explained in 10 charts. The level of CO2 has been rising since the industrial revolution and is now at its highest for about 4 million years. The rate of the rise is even more striking – the fastest for 66m years – with scientists saying we are in “uncharted territory”.

Increasing GHG

Greenland has lost almost 4 trillion tonnes of ice since 2002. Mountain ranges from the Himalayas to the Andes to the Alps are also losing ice rapidly as glaciers shrink. A third of the Himalayan and Hindu Kush ice is already doomed.

Greenland ice disappearing

Sea levels are inexorably rising as ice on land melts and hotter oceans expand. Sea levels are slow to respond to global heating, so even if the temperature rise is restricted to 2C, one in five people in the world will eventually see their cities submerged, from New York to London to Shanghai. As heating melts the sea ice, the darker water revealed absorbs more of the sun’s heat, causing more heating – one example of the vicious circles in the climate system.

Mariners see sea level rise

Scientists think the changes in the Arctic may be responsible for worsened heatwaves and floods in Eurasia and North America.2

Arctic Sea Ice shrinking

The CBC reports on the attitude of some oil industry executives to the climate strikers. Gary Mar, CEO of the Petroleum Services Association of Canada and a former Alberta Progressive Conservative environment minister, said some of his three grown children have taken part in environmental protests before and he supports their right to do so.

He said if one of his children wanted to skip school to attend the strike Friday he would "be OK with that."
However, he said it's unrealistic for the climate change strikers to demand the immediate end of oil and gas production.
"We're not opposed to the environment," Mar said of the energy industry.3

The concern on the Atlantic and in the West about jobs may be connected to the problem of which workers are well trained to transition to energy jobs and which are going to have a more difficult training for the jobs of the future. The National Post reports that new research says job growth from clean energy will dramatically outpace that from fossil fuels over the next decade — as long as future Canadian governments maintain or increase attempts to fight climate change. "The clean-energy sector is a good-news story that no one's talking about," said Merran Smith of Clean Energy Canada, a think tank based at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. "There is nothing to fear about moving forward on climate action."

Smith said the data shows clean energy employment could reach nearly 560,000 by the end of the next decade. That's 160,000 new jobs, more than enough to make up for the 50,000 jobs which fossil fuels are expected to shed.
The study also forecasts money flowing into clean energy will grow 2.9 per cent a year. Fossil fuel investment is expected to shrink.4

Perhaps the strategy has changed since April when the United Conservative Party notes Jason Kenney said that many other changes proposed by the UCP would also help kickstart the industry, especially the Job Creation Tax Cut, carbon tax elimination, the Red Tape Reduction Action Plan, and the Open for Business Act.

“However,” he concluded, “to get Alberta back to work, and to create jobs in our energy sector, it is necessary for Alberta to move from a defensive, passive, and apologetic approach to a strong, assertive, and strategic defence of our economy, our workers, and our way of life. And with a United Conservative Party government in office, that is what we will do – get pipelines built, fight back against foreign-funded special interests and stand up for a fair deal in Canada.”5 

Choices and important questions

The campaign to Vote Energy highlights the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) promotion of an Energy Platform for Canada to define a strategic, long-term vision for oil and natural gas growth. That policy includes:

• Support completion of currently proposed major pipeline projects and actively support development of additional projects.• Supply Canada’s domestic oil and natural gas needs with domestic production, in particular by facilitating transportationof oil and natural gas from Western Canada to markets in Central and Atlantic Canada.• Increase the participation of Indigenous communities and businesses in Canada’s oil and natural gas sector.• Double current investment in the sector within four years, to return to or surpass 2014 investment levels.• Grow Canada’s contribution to global oil and natural gas supply.+ Canada becomes the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, surpassing Iraq and China.+ Canada becomes the world’s third-largest natural gas producer, surpassing Iran and Qatar6

The continuation of the emission of GHG, in Canada, and worldwide, will cause the oceans to become warmer and more acidic.

Sea level rise in Nova Scotia

Decline of the fishery in Canada will impact the livelihood of many people who are less prepared to retrain for energy jobs than those men and women who already have energy work experience in the western petroleum industry.

References

1	(2019, September 25). Fishermen feel effects of climate change as world ... - CBC.ca. Retrieved October 6, 2019, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/un-climate-change-report-nova-scotia-lobster-fishery-1.5296635
2	(2019, September 19). The climate crisis explained in 10 charts | Environment | The .... Retrieved October 3, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/20/the-climate-crisis-explained-in-10-charts
3	(2019, September 27). Climate strikers naive but have right to protest, say ... - CBC.ca. Retrieved October 6, 2019, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/climate-strike-protest-energy-petroleum-oil-global-1.5301009
4	(2019, October 3). 'Job intensive:' Study says clean energy fast track to .... Retrieved October 6, 2019, from https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/job-intensive-study-says-clean-energy-fast-track-to-employment-growth
5	(2019, April 2). UCP Launches Plan to Bring Oil and Gas Jobs Back to Alberta .... Retrieved October 6, 2019, from https://www.albertastrongandfree.ca/ucp-launches-plan-to-bring-oil-and-gas-jobs-back-to-alberta/
6	(n.d.). Vote Energy. Retrieved October 7, 2019, from https://www.voteenergy.ca/