Trump Wastes No Time Pushing Falsehoods After Returning to the White House
In his first address from the Oval Office on Monday, President Donald Trump wasted no time returning to his signature style—mixing his rhetoric with a flurry of falsehoods.
Speaking to a crowd, he revisited many of the same misleading claims that defined his campaign, touching on topics ranging from immigration to the economy and even the 2020 election.
During his inaugural address, Trump alleged that the U.S. government “fails to protect our magnificent, law-abiding American citizens but provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions that have illegally entered our country from all over the world.”
However, this claim, like others before it, is unsupported. There is no evidence that other countries are deliberately sending criminals or mentally ill individuals across U.S. borders. This narrative, often repeated during Trump’s campaign, has long been discredited by immigration experts.
Trump also revisited his long-debunked assertion that the 2020 election was “totally rigged.” But once again, this assertion stands in stark contrast to reality after independent reviews and recounts, and even Trump’s own Attorney General has repeatedly confirmed the legitimacy of the election, which no-former President Joe Biden won by more than seven million votes.
At a later appearance in Emancipation Hall, Trump falsely accused Biden of pardoning “33 murderers, absolute murderers, the worst murderers.”
In truth, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 people on federal death row to life imprisonment—a move consistent with his administration’s moratorium on federal executions in cases other than terrorism or hate-driven mass murder. This action did not exonerate the individuals, as Trump suggested.
In these early moments of his new administration, Trump has shown that his approach remains unchanged. Facts continue to take a backseat to the narratives he finds most politically convenient.