FACT FOCUS: Trump highlights familiar false claims as he reviews his first year back in office
Jan 20, 2026, 3:07 PM | Updated: Jan 21, 2026, 11:40 am
President Donald Trump marked his first year back in office by presiding over a meandering, nearly two-hour-long press briefing to recount his accomplishments, repeating many false claims he made throughout 2025.
Among the topics about which he continued to spread falsehoods were the 2020 election, foreign policy, the economy and energy.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
TRUMP, referencing former President Joe Biden: “… a man that didn’t win the election, by the way, it’s a rigged election. Everybody knows that now.
THE FACTS: This is a blatant falsehood that has been disproven many times over — the 2020 election was not stolen. Biden earned 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. He also won over 7 million more popular votes than Trump.
But Trump has been persistent in claiming that he won the 2020 race since its completion, even after he earned a second term in 2024, and has continued to claim the lead-up to the 2026 midterms.
Biden’s Electoral College victory was nearly the same margin that Trump had in 2016 when he beat Hillary Clinton 227 to 306 (304 after two electors defected). Biden triumphed by prevailing in key states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
Allegations from Trump of massive voting fraud have been refuted by a variety of judges, state election officials and an arm of his own administration’s Homeland Security Department. In 2020, then-Attorney General William Barr, a Trump appointee, told the AP that no proof of widespread voter fraud had been uncovered. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” he said at the time.
TRUMP: “You have to understand, I settled eight wars.”
THE FACTS: This statistic, which Trump frequently cites as one of his accomplishments, is highly exaggerated. Although he has helped mediate relations among many nations, his impact isn’t as clear-cut as he makes it seem.
The conflicts Trump counts among those that he has solved are between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, India and Pakistan, Serbia and Kosovo, Rwanda and Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Cambodia and Thailand.
There is far more work that remains before any declaration of an end to the war in Gaza and although Trump is credited with ending the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, this can be seen as a temporary respite from an ongoing cold war. Fresh fighting broke out last month between Cambodia and Thailand, and between Congolese forces and Rwanda-backed rebels.
The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a deal aimed at ending a decades-long conflict at the White House in August. But the leaders have yet to sign a peace treaty and parliaments have yet to ratify it. After the April killing of tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir pushed India and Pakistan closer to war than they had been in years, a ceasefire was reached. Trump claimed that the U.S. brokered the ceasefire and Pakistan thanked him, while India denied his claims.
Friction between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is best described as heightened tensions, not war. There has been no threat of war between Serbia and Kosovo during Trump’s second term, nor has he made any significant contribution to improving relations in his first year back in the White House.
TRUMP: “We inherited, remember this — inflation was at a historic high. We had never had inflation like that. They say 48 years. But whether it’s 48 years or ever, we had the highest inflation, in my opinion, that we’ve ever had.”
THE FACTS: This is false. Biden-era inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022, a consequence of supply chain interruptions, potentially excessive amounts of government aid and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine driving up food and energy costs.
But Americans have known even worse and more sustained inflation than that. For example, higher than 13% in 1980 during an extended period of price pain. And by some estimates, inflation approached 20% during World War I.
Inflation had been falling during the first few months of Trump’s presidency, but it picked back up after the president announced his tariffs in April. It was at 2.7% as of December 2025.
TRUMP: “I say clean, beautiful coal. I never say the word coal, it has to be preceded by the words clean, beautiful coal.”
THE FACTS: The production of coal is cleaner now than it has been historically, but that doesn’t mean it’s clean.
Trump, however, continually omits this crucial context.
Planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from the coal industry have decreased over the past 30 years, has found that coal production worldwide still needs to be reduced sharply to address climate change.
Along with carbon dioxide, burning coal emits sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that contribute to acid rain, smog and respiratory illnesses, according to the EIA.
Coal once provided more than half of U.S. energy production, but its share dropped to about 10% in 2024 — the lowest output since 1964.
TRUMP, discussing approvals for reconstruction after the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires: “…the 20,000 houses or more that burned down in Los Angeles because they didn’t have the water, they didn’t allow the water to come down from the Pacific Northwest. They routed the water into the Pacific Ocean… They didn’t want to do it. They want to protect the tiny little fish.”
THE FACTS: Trump again tried to blame the fact that some Los Angeles fire hydrants ran dry during last year’s wildfires on the state’s water policies that aim to protect endangered species, including a tiny fish known as the Delta smelt. Local officials say the hydrant outages occurred because the municipal system was not designed to deal with such a massive disaster.
Trump later ordered water released from two dams in California’s Central Valley agricultural hub, but the water never went to Los Angeles, instead going to a dry lake basin more than 100 miles away.
Most of California’s water comes from the north, where it melts from mountain snow and runs into rivers that connect to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. From there, much of it is sent further south to farmers and cities like Los Angeles through two large pumping and canal systems. One is run by the federal government and the other by the state. Contrary to Trump’s claim, no water supply from the Pacific Northwest connects to California’s system. ___
Associated Press writer Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this report.
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Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.
