Fraught with Falsehood: Trump's first address to Congress

On February 28, 2017, President Trump made his first address to Congress. After a brow-raising litany of cringeworthy public statements made by the president and several members of his staff throughout the month since his inauguration, this first address to Congress was heralded by some as his most composed and aspirational speech to date (Bradner).

However, as The New York Times, The Washington Post and others were quick to point out, the 61-minute speech was jam-packed with 51 misleading statements or outright lies (61 Statements). Hardly presidential by some standards, but perhaps still an accomplishment relative to former faux pas.

Here are 3 of the top most misleading comments made by President Trump during his address:

“Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force.”

That statistic is representative of all American people over the age of 15 who do not have jobs. This includes high school and college-age students attending school, the disabled, stay-at-home parents and millions of retired citizens. President Trump was attempting to create a picture of America where nearly 100 million people are clambering for jobs left and right, unable to find suitable work, but full and ready to. In actuality, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that about 7.6 million people were unemployed and seeking work as of January 2017, a far cry from his purported 94 million (Fact Check).

"Families of people killed by undocumented immigrants have been 'ignored by our media.'"

Trump's aim in making this statement was to imply that the media is covering up for the frequent and atrocious crimes performed by undocumented aliens in our country, suggesting that if citizens were fully aware of what was going on, they would want to buckle down on illegal immigration as he does.

However, as this article from The New York Times states (Pérez-Peña), immigrants are statistically far less likely to commit crimes than are United States citizens born and raised here. It also notes that there is insufficient evidence to support that undocumented immigrants commit a disproportionate share of crime compared to legal immigrants.

Here, also, is an article written by the Los Angeles Times back in 2008 about the murder of Jamiel Shaw Jr., a 17-year-old black youth shot to death by two undocumented Latino men (Jamiel). The story was widely covered by many news agencies, despite Trump's claims that families victimized have received no media coverage.

“Obamacare premiums nationwide have increased by double and triple digits.”

As the above excerpt shows, the President cherry-picked Arizona as an example of a triple-digit increase in premiums, citing a 116% spike. This statistic is accurate but its mention is misleading as Arizona was the only state to experience a triple-digit increase, though double-digit increases were common. Premiums for popular plans sold on Healthcare.gov rose by an average of 25 percent, according to The New York Times (Fact Check).

Over the past two months since his address to Congress, the President appears to have learned that the matter of providing affordable healthcare for all is not as simple a revamp as he promised it to be while out on the campaign trail. As Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, mentions in this press conference after he decided to pull the bill to repeal Obamacare, the situation is more nuanced than just pulling the plug, there is much to still work out in the pursuit of providing a better plan than we previously had.