State of the Union Address 2018

As a DACA recipient, President Trump’s State of the Union Address, more specifically his spiel about immigration policy and incidents, was not my cup of tea. Not only that, but in that speech, the president averaged one false claim every 4.5 minutes according to NowThis. So now, writing as a journalist, here is a breakdown of some of those claims:

1. “After years and years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.”

2. By saying this, Trump is taking credit for something before his presidency started. Wages have been in an upward trend since 2014, when President Obama was in charge of the country, and in fact, wages slowed their rising trend during the 2017 year. The year Donald Trump took office.

3. “We have ended the war on American Energy, and we have ended the wat or beautiful ‘clean coal’. We are now very proudly, an exporter of energy to the world.”

4. This is false because there wasn’t a “war” in the first place and clean coal doesn’t exist. Power plants can make the effects of burning coal less severe by capturing and burying carbon-dioxide emissions, but that doesn’t cleanse the coal itself. Also, the U.S. was already an exporter of energy to the world even since before bot of Barack Obama’s terms as president.

5. “Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs.”

6. This is false because according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about 1.8 million jobs created since January 2017. That’s the slowest gain in jobs since 2010, which just shows how well job growth was going before Trump took office and took credit for job growth.

7. “We enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American History. Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small business”

8. 75+% of the cuts went to the wealthy, so Trump is twisting the truth about the effects of his tax plan. More than three-quarters of the $1.1 trillion in individual tax cuts will go to about 5percent of all tax payers, also known as the people who earn more than $200,000 a year in taxable income.

9. “The visa lottery randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of American people”

10. This is false because these immigrants must be vetted and pass education/work criteria. As the term “lottery” implies, applicants are selected at random through a computerized drawing. Then, the selected applicants must undergo a background check, interview and various medical tests before entering the country. Some applicants that are selected must undergo an additional in-depth review if they are considered a security risk. This all happens before these people even step on U.S. soil, so there is no chance of immigrants who are deemed ineligible to get a visa or cause “terrorist attacks […] possible by the visa lottery and chain migration” as he recalled of the past two incidents in New York in recent weeks.

11. “In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds and hundreds of dangerous terrorists only to meet them again on the battlefield--- including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi.

12. The U.S. didn’t release al-Baghdadi. According to the Defense Department, al-Baghdadi was held at a U.S. detention system known as Camp Bucca from early February 2004 until early December 2004. Moreover, he was not set free. Baghdadi was handed over to the Iraqis in 2004, who then released him some time later.

All-in-all, the president seemed to have a calmer demeanor compared to other speeches he’s presented to the American people, which can be appreciated.