By: Tristan Justice and Jordan Boyd. Media: The Federalist.
The speech was remarkably similar to last year’s address, riddled with falsehood after falsehood and lie after lie.
President Joe Biden mumbled through his second State of the Union address to a divided Congress on Tuesday night.
His aim wasn’t just to beg House Republicans to pass Democrats’ legislative wish lists. The president sought to convince Americans that the state of our union — crippled by inflation, overrun by drugs and migrants trafficked across the southern border, and in the midst of a debilitating culture war incited by left-wing aggression — isn’t in dire straits.
The speech was remarkably similar to last year’s address, riddled with lie after lie.
Here are 15 lies the president told during his 2023 State of the Union speech:
1. Chuck Schumer Is Minority Leader
Before his speech even began, Biden greeted Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as “Senate Minority Leader.” Schumer has been the majority leader since Biden took office in 2021.
Biden: "Congratulations to Chuck Schumer, another term as Senate minority leader. You know, only this time you have a slightly bigger majority. You are the majority leader. Not that much bigger?" pic.twitter.com/VlTFx9t9rH
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 8, 2023
2. More Jobs Created in Two Years Than Any Other President
“I actually created, with the help of many people in this room, 12 million new jobs,” Biden said. “More jobs created in two years than any president has created in four years. Because of you.”
Biden didn’t create new jobs, as he often likes to claim. The only reason the job rate is growing is that millions of people are returning to work after tyrannical bureaucrats shut down the economy for months in the name of stopping the spread of Covid-19.
3. Fastest Growth in 40 Years
Biden also repeated his infamous lie that he initiated the “fastest job growth in 40 years.”
Records, however, show that employment from May 2020 to January 2021 under Trump grew by 12.5 million. During approximately that same time period, the unemployment rate also declined by 8.3 percent.
In January alone, American payroll jobs under Biden fell by more than 2.5 million.
4. Inflation Is ‘Coming Down’
Another lie Biden repeated from previous speeches is that inflation in the U.S. “is coming down.”
Yet, two years after the president greenlit the beginning of Democrats’ expensive spending spree, Americans are suffering from gas prices still well above $3 per gallon, weathering a recession, and paying 60 percent more for eggs than they did in 2021. Biden may not be responsible for the fastest job growth in the last four decades, but inflation under his watch rose at its fastest rate in 40 years.
Biden tried to blame the nation’s economic misfortune on the pandemic and the “unfair and brutal war in Ukraine” but the truth is, inflation in the U.S. directly coincides with the time he took office.
5. Democracy Faced ‘Greatest Threat Since Civil War’ On Jan. 6
President Biden forgot about the attacks on Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and the repeat episodes of violence at the Capitol when he claimed the riot on Jan. 6 was the “greatest threat since the Civil War.”
Look at McCarthy’s reaction as Biden repeats the lie that the Jan 6 riot was the greatest threat since the Civil War.
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 8, 2023
Biden made the same hyperbolic claim at his first State of the Union address before Congress in April.
6. I’m Responsible for the Largest Deficit in U.S. History
Biden wants to take credit for cutting the national deficit “by more than $1.7 trillion – the largest deficit reduction in American history” in his first two years in office.
“Under the previous administration, America’s deficit went up four years in a row. Because of those record deficits, no president added more to the national debt in any four years than my predecessor,” Biden said.
The truth is, federal spending under Biden increased more than $10 trillion since his first month in office. That’s more than any other president spent in his first two years in U.S. history.
7. Republicans Are Trying to Cut Social Security
Biden pledged to halt desperately needed cuts to bloated entitlement programs as Congress debates raising the debt ceiling.
“If anyone tries to cut Social Security,” the president said, “I will stop them. And if anyone tries to cut Medicare, I will stop them.”
The Democrats’ reconciliation bill passed last summer, however, raided nearly $300 billion from Medicare to boost insurance companies by removing leverage from negotiations on drug prices.
"If anyone tries to cut Social Security, I will stop them. And if anyone tries to cut Medicare, I will stop them."
This guy raided almost $300 billion from Medicare prescription drug spending to hand over to health insurance companies and green energy interests last year!!!
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) February 8, 2023
8. Fires Have Burned an Area the Size of Missouri
President Biden tried to claim more wood had been burned by forest fires than the area of the entire state of Missouri.
“More timber has been burned than I’ve observed from helicopters than the entire state of Missouri,” Biden said.
Biden on forest fires: "More timber has been burned — that I’ve observed from helicopters — than the entire state of Missouri" 🤔 pic.twitter.com/yXlPS3KHXY
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 8, 2023
In 2022, however, 7.5 million acres burned, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Missouri’s forests span 14 million acres, and the state itself is 44.6 million acres large.
The remark appears to have been made off-script from what the White House released as the president’s prepared speech.
9. Biden Repeats Claim Fast Food Workers Sign Noncompete Agreements
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy could be seen laughing in the background when Biden complained fast food workers were signing noncompete agreements with employers.
“A cashier at a burger place can’t walk across town and take the same job at another burger place and make a few bucks more,” Biden said.
Biden claims that McDonald’s cashiers sign noncompete agreements which prevent them from working for other burger chains. 😂 pic.twitter.com/cXyPHE7lvk
— John Curtis (@Johnmcurtis) February 8, 2023
Biden made the same claim at a business roundtable in July 2020, earning the then-candidate a “false” rating from PolitiFact.
10. Biden Blames Crime Wave on Covid After Democrats Defunded Police
Biden blamed the coronavirus lockdowns for the nation’s recent crime wave.
Covid left scars, the president said, “like the spike in violent crime in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.”
It was the Democrats’ rush to “defund police,” however, that left cities and neighborhoods vulnerable to criminals who remained free to roam the streets. Democrats in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and New York cut police funding by hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of the social justice fever that took over the country. More than a dozen cities saw the highest homicide rates ever reported as a result.
According to a poll from Politico last year, 3 in 4 Americans blamed the crime spree on the efforts to defund police.
11. I Re-Upped Funding for Cancer Research
One of Biden’s top priorities going into tonight’s speech was his “Cancer Moonshot” initiative, which allocates funding to cancer research and care.
“Jill and I reignited the Cancer Moonshot that President Obama asked me to lead,” Biden said.
Biden may have restarted the program to “provide more support for patients and families” but it was his pet legislation, the ill-named Inflation Reduction Act, that cut cancer research spending by nine times as much as his program is supposed to put toward it.
12. Immigration ‘Reform’ Will Secure the Border
Biden pointed to his “new border plan” as evidence that he’s finally doing something about the millions of illegal border crossers flooding the U.S.
But his plan to grant “legal” status to illegal border crossers from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela only emboldens corrupt cartels and does nothing to stop the pipeline of fentanyl responsible for taking American lives, something several hecklers pointed out during his speech.
Biden said his “comprehensive immigration reform” would “fix” the national security threat that American border woes have become. In reality, that legislation would only encourage the millions of migrants overwhelming Border Patrol agents to keep paying the criminal organizations that control northern Mexico to escort them to the U.S.
13. Mass Shootings Went Down After Assault Weapon Ban
Biden claimed the federal assault weapons ban, which barred the manufacturing of semi-automatic rifles for civilian use from 1994 to 2004, caused mass shootings to drop.
“In the 10 years the ban was law, mass shootings went down. After Republicans let it expire, mass shootings tripled,” Biden said.
That’s a lie based on a flawed study that claimed the ban reduced mass shooting deaths.
Accurate data recorded during the ban shows that more so-called mass shootings occurred during the firearm prohibition. Even after the ban expired, mass shootings did not increase, as Democrats suggested they would.
14. Life-Saving Pro-Life Laws Are Extreme
Biden wrongfully characterized pro-life legislation in several red states as “extreme” for limiting women’s ability to kill their unborn babies.
“Already, more than a dozen states are enforcing extreme abortion bans,” he said.
In reality, it’s Biden’s abortion-on-demand throughout all nine of months of pregnancy agenda that is extreme. New polling suggests 7 in 10 Americans support limiting abortion to the first three months of pregnancy.
Biden also criticized Republicans for trying to pass what he said is a “national abortion ban.”
As pro-life organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America noted, the GOP has not proposed a total ban on abortions. They’ve just worked to bring U.S. abortion law up to speed with other civilized countries, which recognize abortion beyond 15 weeks gestation as a barbaric practice.
15. ‘I’m Here to Be President for All Americans’
In addition to promising unity via bipartisan cooperation, Biden falsely claimed he is “here to be president for all Americans.”
Yet, the few times Biden gave formal addresses in 2022, he demonized the half of the country that didn’t vote for him. His smears against “MAGA Republicans” shows he has no tolerance for conservative voters or their values.
A president for all wouldn’t sic his Department of Justice on parents concerned that their children’s education stays indoctrination free or a pro-life father who rightfully defended his son from a deranged abortion activist.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour.