President Donald Trump, unlike his predecessor in office Joe Biden, talks with reporters quite frequently. In those press conferences and other interactions, Trump makes some misstatements of fact. To an extent it makes sense to cut him some slack regarding misstatements in extemporaneous and impromptu communication. But, Trump making clear misstatements of fact in his annual State of the Union speech is another matter. That is just what we saw when Trump presented the annual speech Tuesday evening.
State of the Union speeches presented by presidents each year before the full Congress, Cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, and other assorted United Stares government related muckymucks, are researched, written, fact checked, and rewritten meticulously by a team. They are, along with presidents’ inaugural and farewell addresses, among the most carefully prepared speeches presidents deliver. State of the Union speeches are about as far from “on the fly” as presidential speeches get. If mistakes of fact are included, it seems just about for sure that they were included despite knowledge that they are wrong. Mistakes of fact strongly suggest the president has intentionally lied or has obliviously recited a lie that was included deliberately in the speech preparation process.
There were plenty of misleading statements in the speech that relied on crafty language to suggest something more than actually stated. There was also a fair bit of puffery, where Trump made grandiose claims not rooted in reality. Both of these types of comments came on strong in the part of the speech in which Trump was supporting his assertion that the American economy had risen from an historically abysmal state at the end of Biden’s presidency to the greatest of all time after a year of Trump’s presidency.
This shady salesman talk is troubling, but what really stood out were the outright lies, whether attributable to Trump insisting on their inclusion or to Trump deciding to go along with them when his speech preparation team included them in the speech. One of those outright lies related to the price of gas and was part of the speech’s depiction of Trump having brought the US economy from dismal to marvelous.
Consider Trump’s claim that the gas price in America “is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states.” Of course, few people across America watching the speech live near a gas station offering such prices. Gas that cheap may be available at some outliers, but it is definitely not the average price in the majority of states. Looking at AAA’s daily reporting on gas prices, the average gas price in America listed for the day after Trump’s speech is $2.97 — about 70 cents above what Trump claimed is the price in most states. Further, looking through AAA’s listing of the average price in each state, the lowest average price is $2.40 in Oklahoma — over ten cents above the price Trump presented. The next lowest average gas price in a state is another 12 cents higher at $2.52 in Mississippi. It keeps going up from there. In a dozen states and Washington, DC the price is above three dollars a gallon. To be clear, this is the price for regular grade gas — the cheapest alternative. Mid and premium grades of gas, as well as diesel, cost more.
Another notable thing concerning Trump’s gas price claim in his State of the Union speech is that many Republicans present at the speech, including Vice President J.D. Vance and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) who were behind Trump, rose to their feet clapping after Trump made his claim about how much gas costs. Many people at home must have been thinking that claim sounds fishy or even preposterous. A greater share of Republicans present at the State of the Union, expected to be familiar with matters like this as part of their jobs, should have been skeptical or in outright disagreement. And that may have been the situation. Nonetheless, the lie was their guy’s lie, so they applauded it enthusiastically.