FACT FOCUS: A look at false and misleading claims made during Trump’s first cabinet meeting of 2026
Jan 29, 2026, 2:47 PM
President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump held his first cabinet meeting of 2026 on Friday, focusing on the economy, housing, energy, health initiatives and drug prices. But while he painted a rosy picture of his administration’s accomplishments, some of his boasts —- and that of other officials —- were off the mark.
Here’s a look at the facts.
TRUMP: “$18 trillion is being invested now.”
THE FACTS: Trump has presented no evidence that he’s secured this much domestic or foreign investment in the U.S. Based on statements from various companies, foreign countries and the White House’s own website, that figure appears to be exaggerated, highly speculative and far higher than the actual sum.
The White House website offers a far lower number, $9.6 trillion, and that figure appears to include some investment commitments made during the Biden administration.
A study published Tuesday raises doubts about whether more than $5 trillion in investment commitments made last year by many of America’s biggest trading partners will actually materialize and questions how it would be spent if it did.
SCOTT TURNER, secretary of housing and urban development: “Because of your policy sir, home sales in December, they rose sharply to their strongest pace in three years.”
THE FACTS: That overstates what’s happening in the housing market, a persistent source of frustration for U.S. consumers.
The National Association of Realtors did report that the seasonally adjusted annual rate of home sales in December rose to 4.35 million units, “nearly” the highest in three years, as the trade association noted. But the sum was just a 1.4% year-over-year increase.
More importantly, it could have been a monthly blip as the association separately said that pending home sales in December had fallen 3% from a year ago.
Trump has said he wants to keep home prices high to increase people’s net worth, but doing so will likely keep construction levels low and price out possible first-time buyers.
TRUMP, discussing state and local permitting for rebuilding homes destroyed in the 2025 wildfires around Los Angeles: “They have been unable to give permits. There are like three houses being built out of thousands and thousands. They have no permits.”
THE FACTS: On Friday, Trump signed an executive order directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration to find a way to issue regulations that would preempt state and local rules for obtaining permits and allow builders to “self-certify” that they have complied with “substantive health, safety, and building standards.”
According to Los Angeles county and city data, about 3,100 permits have been issued within the Palisades and Eaton fire zones as of Thursday. Fewer than a dozen residences have been rebuilt, but about 900 homes are under construction.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom responded to Trump on social media, saying local officials are moving at a fast pace. Newsom called on the Trump administration to approve the state’s $33.9 billion disaster aid request.
Survivor advocates also told The Associated Press that permits are not necessarily the primary obstacle for impacted households right now, as many still struggle to secure full insurance payouts, or face gaps of hundreds of thousands of dollars between what they’ve received and actual rebuilding costs.
Typically it takes about 18 months after a major wildfire for the permitting process to gain steam, according to Andrew Rumbach, co-lead of the Climate and Communities Program at the Urban Institute.
He pointed to the recovery pattern of a December 2021 blaze that erupted south of Boulder, Colorado, destroying more than 1,000 homes. After a year, the cleanup was mostly done and most permit applications were in. Then it took about six more months for the permits to be issued, he told the AP this month.
The two California fires killed 31 people and destroyed about 13,000 residential properties.
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TRUMP, discussing the effects of the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires: “They should have allowed the water to come down from the Pacific Northwest, which was very plentiful. But they didn’t do that.”
THE FACTS: Contrary to Trump’s claim, no water supply from the Pacific Northwest connects to California’s system.
Most of California’s water comes from the northern part of the state, 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 farther 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.
Some Los Angeles fire hydrants ran dry during last year’s wildfires, but local officials said the outages occurred because the municipal system was not designed to deal with such a massive disaster.
Kelly Loeffler, administrator of the Small Business Administration, also brought up Trump’s claim about releasing water to fight the fires, claiming an executive order got “water to the scene in your earliest days of your presidency.”
But the Jan. 24, 2025, executive order resulted in water going to a dry lake basin more than 100 miles from Los Angeles.
TRUMP: “There’s never been a first year like this, including the fact that we put out — extinguished — eight wars.”
THE FACTS: This statistic is highly exaggerated. Although Trump has helped mediate relations among many nations, his impact isn’t as clear-cut as he makes it seem.
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TRUMP: “You’re not allowed to say the word coal without preceding by saying clean, beautiful coal. 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.
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TRUMP, on China: “They make the windmills, but they don’t have a lot of wind farms. That’s — somebody’s oughta look at that. How many wind farms do they have? Very, very few. They make them. They sell them. They make a fortune, but they don’t use them.”
THE FACTS: China is the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, producing more than half of the supply. It is also installing them at a record pace.
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Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin in New York, Josh Boak in Washington, Christopher Weber in Los Angeles and Gabriela Aoun in San Diego contributed to this report.
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Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.
