Donald Trump flat-out lied to Congress and Americans last night in his talk to Congress and the country. Here are some of the lies, fact-checked immediately after the speech by political commentator Rachel Maddow.
Here is more vetting of Trump’s lies by the New York Times.
Here is more fact-checking of Trump’s lies by CBS News.
More checking of Trump’s lies by ABC News/Politifact.
The Guardian: “Trump’s talk was littered with false claims he’s been corrected on but continued to repeat.”
In a seismic shift against Trump’s favorable views of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump’s overt lie that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is “a dictator,” GOP Senators Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) and John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) publicly spoke out against Trump’s views.
Senator Wicker, the Ranking Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told a reporter that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a criminal who is not to be trusted in peace negotiations about Russia’s war on Ukraine.
When asked about the way the U.S. conducted peace negotiations with Russia in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and specifically how the U.S. excluded Ukraine and America’s NATO allies from the talks, Senator Wicker said Ukrainians should “definitely” be at the table in any peace negotiations, and European interests should be “considered and carefully weighed.”
When Sen. Wicker was asked if Putin can be trusted in peace negotiations, Wicker answered,
“No. Putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed.”
In an incredible statement the equivalent of blaming a rape victim for being raped, Trump blamed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Ukraine itself during talks with Russia in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, February 18, 2025.
Ukrainian authorities were upset over not being included in Tuesday’s talks in Riyadh, but Trump dismissed the country’s concerns, saying Ukraine had “had three years to end the war,” before blaming the start of the conflict on Kyiv.
“You should have never started it,” Trump said, echoing a Kremlin talking point. The Kremlin has previously accused Ukraine of starting the war against Russia.
It is an undisputed fact that Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked on February 24, 2022, after seizing the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014.
Trump sleeping during a religious service (Photo: YouTube)
Late on Friday, January 24, convicted felon and President Donald Trump fired 17 Inspectors General of federal agencies.
Inspectors General are independent government watchdogs who investigate allegations of waste, fraud and abuse inside government agencies.
Trump’s action was done in a way that violated 5 U.S. Code Chapter 4, §415 (e)(2) of the Inspector Generals Act of 1978, which says he must give both houses of Congress 30 days notice of the removal:
(2) Inspector general removed or transferred.— If an Inspector General is removed from office or is transferred to another position or location within a designated Federal entity, the head of the designated Federal entity shall communicate in writing the reasons for any such removal or transfer to both Houses of Congress, not later than 30 days before the removal or transfer.
In legal terms, the word “shall” indicates an absolute obligation. It clearly imposes a specific duty upon a person. Trump also violated another part of the same law that requires the President first supply “substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons for the change” to both houses of Congress:
(B) If the President places an Inspector General on non-duty status, the President shall communicate in writing the substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons, for the change in status to both Houses of Congress (including to the appropriate congressional committees) not later than 15 days before the date on which the change in status takes effect…”
Trump defended his move by lying to the public. He said that a mass removal of inspectors general was “a very standard thing to do.”
It is not.
Torch-bearing white supremacists in Charlottesville, Aug. 11, 2017, cited President Trump as the inspiration for their “Unite the Right” rally (Photo: Edu Bayer/The New York Times)
On November 25, Trump said that as soon as he’s inaugurated on January 20, 2025 he will institute a new 25% tariff on all goods coming into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada, plus an additional 10% tariff on goods from China.
So look out. Your cost of living is about to get a huge increase.
Trump is either willfully ignorant about how tariffs work, or is lying to Americans about it by repeatedly asserting that other countries will pay the tariffs, and not Americans.
Economists and tax experts all say that’s completely wrong.
Fox News helped spread the lie being promoted by former President Trump and MAGA extremists that Venezuelan gangs were “taking over Colorado”
You’ve probably been hearing nonstop from conservative media and MAGA Republicans, including Donald Trump, that Aurora has been “taken over” by Venezuelan gangs. You might be confused why this information continues to spread even though it has repeatedly¹ been² proven³ false. You might also be wondering what the truth is – the actual ground truth stripped of the politics.
I wouldn’t blame you. This whole thing has been a confusing mess with plenty of misinformation. So let’s look at the facts without the games.
Ad that ran in June 12, 2024 edition of the classified ad paper the High Country Shopper
Delta County residents are up in arms about a display ad that appeared on Page 20 of the June 12 edition of the High Country Shopper, a weekly newspaper published in Paonia that runs classified ads and promotes local businesses.
The ad, which is a departure from the norm for the Shopper, shows a photo of President Biden among an array photos of fascist dictators who have “had their opponents arrested,” including Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Stalin and others. The ad was paid for by Cedaredge resident Wes Fisher.
Where could someone get such a misleading idea as this?
Scene from a new Jeff Hurd ad titled “Fight for American Energy” that’s running on local TV
We had hoped that maybe Jeff Hurd, a home-grown Grand Junction Republican running to represent Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District in Washington, D.C., might be a slightly more honest politician than we’ve had in the CD-3 office for several years now, but Hurd just disappointed us all.
He put out a new TV ad two days ago in which he straight-up lies to viewers.
Hurd casts himself as a strong proponent of fossil fuels in the ad, showing piles of coal and people filling up their cars at gas pumps. But he lies to viewers right out of the gate by making a false claim that “Biden is waging war on American energy.”
Whether we like it or not, that’s hardly the case.
Tina Peters and her financial benefactor Mike Lindell, the My Pillow CEO
In a February 28, 2024 article in the Daily Sentinel about a lawsuit against Tina Peters in which she is accused of stealing her ex-husband’s house (pdf) by converting the deed to her own name while she was county clerk, Sentinel reporter Charles Ashby interviewed Tina’s former brother in law, Jack Peters, whose brother, Thomas, died December 31, 2023. Tina and Thomas Peters were married for 36 years.
Jack Peters describes himself as “extremely conservative” and says he believes there might be election fraud going on, but says Tina “is unfairly using her former husband and her deceased son, Remington, to gain sympathy in her criminal case in order to gather legal defense money. Remington, the couple’s only son, died in a 2017 parachute accident as a Navy seal performing at an air show in New York City,” the Sentinel writes.
‘I’ve always been a bit at odds with Tina, she’s always been somewhat abrasive,’ Jack Peters said. ‘My brother-in-law John and my sister Kathy are being unjustly persecuted by this vile woman.’ —The Daily Sentinel
House Rep. Lauren Boebert’s campaign manager, Drew Sexton, told the Washington Post in a September 13 article that Boebert wasn’t vaping inside the Buell Theater at a performance of the musical Beetlejuice, as theatergoers around her had told security, but that the appearance of smoke came from “heavy fog machines and electronic cigarettes” used during the show, “so there might have been ‘a misunderstanding from someone sitting near her’.”
But video shows there was no “misunderstanding.”
Sexton lied to the Post.
Vape “smoke” coming out of Boebert’s mouth at the Buell Theater in Denver last Sunday
The video also shows Rep. Boebert giving ushers the middle finger as she was escorted out of the theater:
Boebert flips the bird to theater employees on her way out.
Even the disgraced and indicted former Trump attorney from Colorado, Jenna Ellis, wrote on Twitter that Boebert’s behavior at the theater was “embarrassing and disrespectful behavior from a sitting Congresswoman,” adding, “Good grief, Republicans. Do better.”
Despite railing against the debt limit deal for weeks, tweeting against it 23 times and calling the bill “D.C. self-created garbage,” on May 31, 2023 Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert missed her chance to vote on the bill.
A CNN reporter caught video of Boebert running up the Capitol steps too late to vote on the bill. As Boebert is dashing up the steps the reporter tells Boebert “It’s closed.” Boebert stops, turns around and says, “It’s closed?” then turns keeps running up the steps.
Tina Peters’ trial on felony charges for election tampering has been delayed again, this time until October 17, according to the Daily Sentinel.
The reason given was that the federal government still hasn’t turned over the electronics they seized in the case.
Kyle Clark of 9News in Denver interviewed Tina on March 30, and at the 1:15 mark into an 11 minute interview, Tina said,
“Today they just moved my trial out again, until October 17, so this could be moved out for decades…
Clark asked Tina about her take on Donald Trump’s indictment. Towards the end of the interview he asks Tina if a year and a half from now, she and Trump might both be in prison.
She answered,
“Just like Donald Trump’s indictment, my indictment has nothing to do with the facts.”
Tina now has her own show on Rumble.com once a week in which she hawks deeply discounted “My Pillow” merchandise:
There is also now a page about her on Wikipedia.
Mesa County’s many, many supporters of Donald Trump (pdf) must be super-bummed this week to find out Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch has acknowledged that Fox News anchors Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo and others knowingly lied to them by repeating Donald Trump’s fraudulent statements that the 2020 general election was “rigged” and he actually won.
Murdoch acknowledged under oath in a deposition in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox Network, that Fox News hosts knowingly lied to viewers by endorsing false election fraud claims while at the same time they were privately ridiculing such claims. Murdoch further admitted he should have ordered Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who were lying to the public about the election, off the air, but didn’t.
“Citizens District 51 Defund Vote” sent hate mail postmarked Oct. 11, 2022 to a 92 year old School District 51 retiree in Grand Junction
My 92 year old neighbor, who worked for School District 51 over forty years ago, received this hate mail yesterday, with the following computer-printed in screaming all-caps, racist, anti-transgender hate letter glued to the back of the picture with the child at the chalkboard:
My neighbor is pretty tough, but the line that said “OL’ BITCH” really saddened her.
In addition to showing that racism and homophobia in Grand Junction are alive and thriving, this rude correspondence raises several questions:
— How did the sender get the address of this person?
Tina Peters (L), and Belinda Knisely (R)
In a major development in the case against indicted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, former Deputy County Clerk Belinda Knisley reached a plea deal in which she flipped on Peters, plead guilty to reduced charges and agreed to testify against Peters in court, according to reports today in the Daily Sentinel, the Colorado Sun, Colorado Public Radio, Denver 9News and other news outlets.
Knisely had faced three counts of attempting to influence a public servant (class 4 felonies), one count of conspiracy to attempt to influence a public servant (a class 5 felony), and two misdemeanor charges of violation of duty and failing to comply with the Secretary of State. Before the deal, Knisley faced up to 21 years in prison and $2 million in fines.
Tina Peters repeatedly tells a sad story in interviews and at conferences that she would have been married to her husband for 36 years by now if only Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein and the FBI hadn’t gone into a Grand Junction nursing home and forced her husband Tom, who she says has “advanced dementia,” to sign divorce papers dissolving their marriage. She tells this story sometimes angrily, and sometimes tearfully, dabbing at her eyes, sniffling and sounding like she’s about to cry. She says the story is evidence of a coordinated plot being carried out against her by a cabal of high-level Democrats who are intentionally harassing her and trying to silence her because of what she’s supposedly revealed about election fraud here in Mesa County. Tina’s “cabal” consists of D.A. Rubinstein, his “criminal” investigators, the FBI, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, wealthy financier George Soros and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Tina Peters press release finding fault with the El Paso County recount
Get ready. The next Tina Peters drama is already happening.
Tina is trying hard to set the scene for a hand recount by claiming there is tremendous fault in the El Paso County recount effort, which has barely just begun.
Tina issued a press release yesterday saying the El Paso County Logic and Accuracy test (a precursor to the recount) was an “absolute disaster.”
In the video she made in Pitkin County the night she bonded out of jail in Aspen on 7/22, Republican Tina Peters called Mesa County Court Judge Matthew Barrett, the judge overseeing her criminal case, “partisan” and “malicious,” and claimed “his goal is to incarcerate an innocent woman.” She further accused Judge Barrett of “legislating from the bench,” and urged her followers to “file a lot of ethics complaints” against him.
Just two days later, on 7/25, while appearing on Steve Bannon’s internet talk show “War Room,” in a segment titled “Deep Dive of a Few Bad Men,” Peters continued assailing Judge Barrett:
