President Biden strayed from his usual gaffes and misstatements into outright fabrications in a State of the Union most American voters chose to tune out.
This year’s address to Congress and the nation garnered just over 27 million viewers, the second least-watched in recent history. The least-watched was Biden’s “First Hundred Days” speech in 2021.
Biden made claims about jobs, the economy and even gun control which were so outlandish and untrue that even the left-leaning Washington Post felt the need to extensively contradict and correct them.
Biden’s smaller gaffes included referring to Senator Chuck Schumer as the "minority leader" (Democrats hold Senate by just one vote), offhandedly claiming that the U.S. won't need petroleum in 10 years, and attempting to introduce the Ukrainian ambassador while forgetting her name.
"Ambassador…(long pause)...our ambassador is here…(pause)…we are united in our support for your country," Biden said. "Will you stand so we can all take a look at you? We’re going to stand with you as long as it takes.”
But the verbal mistakes Americans have come to expect from Biden were eclipsed by a litany of fabrications and untruths.
Biden made claims about jobs, the economy and even gun control which were so outlandish and untrue that even the left-leaning Washington Post felt the need to extensively contradict and correct them.
"Two years ago, our economy was reeling," Biden said. “As I stand here tonight, we have created a record 12 million new jobs, more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years.”
This is patently false, as even the Washington Post pointed out:
Biden is comparing his jobs record for the first two years of his term to the full four-year terms of the previous presidents. That’s misleading. He has no idea what might happen in the last two years of this term that could affect the final number.
…it’s often misleading to measure job creation by presidential term — an artificial metric beloved by presidents and the public alike. Biden, with this statement, is also limiting the comparison to four-year terms. Over the course of both Bill Clinton’s and Ronald Reagan’s two-term presidencies, more than 12 million jobs were created.
Former Trump advisor Stephen Miller was much more direct, pointing out that the federal overreaction to COVID has left us with millions of jobs still missing, even after the jobs Biden is claiming to have added:
Democrats artificially shutting down the country, and then very belatedly lifting those devastating lockdowns, is not job creation. We are still 2.6 MILLION jobs short of pre-pandemic employment when you take into account population growth.
Biden also made false claims about bringing jobs back to the US.
"We’ve already created 800,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs, the fastest growth in 40 years," Biden continued. “Where is it written that America can’t lead the world in manufacturing again?”
Again, the Washington Post, not known for questioning the Democrat narrative, says this is false:
Biden is being a bit slippery here because he’s only telling half of the story. Exports are up, which means more U.S. products are being shipped overseas. But that does not necessarily mean jobs are no longer being shipped overseas. Imports are also up — and the trade deficit is at a record high.
Fox makes it much more clear:
…According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the economy under Biden has actually added 2.7 million overall jobs. The other roughly 9 million jobs had been lost during the COVID-19 pandemic when the economy was forced to shut down. And rather than 800,000 manufacturing jobs, the economy has really created just 214,000 manufacturing jobs since Biden took office, BLS data showed.
“Biden is being a bit slippery here because he’s only telling half of the story. Exports are up, which means more U.S. products are being shipped overseas. But that does not necessarily mean jobs are no longer being shipped overseas. Imports are also up — and the trade deficit is at a record high.”
– Washington Post, January 7, 2023
Unfortunately, Biden did not stop with demonstrably false claims about jobs. He also claimed that inflation is coming down.
“Here at home, gas prices are down $1.50 a gallon since their peak,” Biden said. “Food inflation is coming down. Inflation has fallen every month for the last six months while take home pay has gone up.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) tweeted: “Joe Biden thinks the economy is bouncing back. Clearly he hasn’t been to a grocery store lately.”
“In 2022, food prices increased by 9.9 percent,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported. “Food-at-home prices increased by 11.4 percent, while food-away-from-home prices increased by 7.7 percent.”
And as many Americans have seen, the price of eggs has increased by 59.9% since December 2021.
According to USDA:
Egg prices are predicted to increase 27.3 percent in 2023.
…In 2023, prices are predicted to increase for … meats (12.8 percent), dairy products (8.0 percent), fats and oils (16.5 percent), processed fruits and vegetables (9.6 percent), sugar and sweets (10.6 percent), cereals and bakery products (12.0 percent), non-alcoholic beverages (8.7 percent), and other foods (6.8 percent).
Gas prices have a current national average of $3.43, according to AAA, up 46% from when Biden took office. Biden’s $1.50 decrease claim is in comparison to the height of prices after the national average peaked at $4.93 in June. That’s still a vast increase compared to the $2.38 national average when Biden assumed the presidency.
And, inflation is the worst it has been in four decades, despite what Biden claimed in his address.
Inflation recently hit a 40 year high. Despite being in the midst of a pandemic and economic crisis, inflation was 1.2% overall in 2020. In 2022, the average inflation rate was 8%. While inflation has fallen in the last six months, it is in comparison to when inflation was at the highest rate in 40 years, 9.1% inflation in June 2022.
“Economists say Biden’s pandemic relief policies including the American Rescue Plan exacerbated matters, by giving Americans too much money to spend when goods and services supplies were too low, which drove prices higher,” said Politifact.
Biden also claimed to have reduced the national deficit.
“In the last two years, my administration cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion – the largest deficit reduction in American history,” Biden said.
Even according to the Congressional Budget Office numbers, minus their creative accounting, and as pointed out once again by the Washington Post, the deficit has grown by $850 billion. It has NOT shrunk by $1.7 trillion.
Turning Point USA’s president Charlie Kirk tweeted:
Joe Biden claiming he is responsible for a “record decrease in the national debt” is like someone who gained 50 lbs last year, but only gains 30 lbs this year, and then looks you straight in the eye and tells you they decreased their weight gain by a “record best.”
But Biden’s claim is much worse. Far from reducing the deficit after growing it, Biden’s policies have resulted in net growth.
Even according to the Congressional Budget Office numbers, minus their creative accounting, and as pointed out once again by the Washington Post, the deficit has grown by $850 billion. It has NOT shrunk by $1.7 trillion:
Biden misleadingly claims to have lowered the deficit by a huge amount even though his policies have added significantly to the national debt. How is this possible? Welcome to federal budget magic…
All told, Biden has increased the national debt about $850 billion more than originally projected.
Biden also expanded his false claims to demand more spending on infrastructure. He stated that American infrastructure is a distant 13th in the world behind Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and countries in Europe
But Biden is comparing the US to tiny port nations (Singapore, etc) or to small inherently interconnected European countries. Infrastructure there means something very different than it does in any nation which spans a continent.
Among the ten largest countries in the world, geographically, including Canada, Australia, China and Russia, the US is ranked first for infrastructure.
Perhaps the most outrageous claim of the night was that the 1994 "Assault Weapons" Ban reduced violent crime.
Biden said:
Ban assault weapons once and for all. We did it before. I led the fight to ban them in 1994. In the 10 years the ban was law, mass shootings went down. After Republicans let it expire, mass shootings tripled. Let’s finish the job and ban assault weapons again.
Yet, a three-part nonpartisan study from the Department of Justice showed that there was no significant impact from the ban:
…The ban’s impact on gun violence is likely to be small at best, and perhaps too small for reliable measurement. AWs [assault weapons] were used in no more than 8% of gun crimes even before the ban.
The ban was sold as a way to reduce the number of so-called “assault weapons” in the US. But it had the opposite effect. As Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) pointed out during the speech:
Biden said about the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban: “In the 10 years the ban was law, mass shootings went down.”
But the truth is that the number of AR-15s more than doubles from 94 to 04.
In fact, I got MY first AR-qt during the ban.
Manufacturers made cosmetic changes to avoid the ban.
While all of these claims are outrageous and led to widespread criticism even from his own supporters, what the President chose not to mention in his address may have been as embarrassing as what he did say.
Biden failed to mention the Chinese spy balloon that carried intelligence equipment to steal sensitive information and was shot down after it spent multiple days over the country.
He also did not mention the student loan debt forgiveness that he promised Americans, but which was so unconstitutional and fraught with inequity that it's now tied up in the courts where it will likely die.
Biden failed to mention the Chinese spy balloon that carried intelligence equipment to steal sensitive information and was shot down after it spent multiple days over the country.
Biden also chose not to discuss the investigations that Republican leadership is conducting into his family business overseas, or his son Hunter.
“It wasn't a state of the Union, it was a state of confusion,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). “The President was confusing his fantasy world with the reality of what the American people are facing every day in terms of the high cost of food, groceries, and health care.”
The address was mostly ignored by Americans and is one of two least-watched presidential speeches in recent history, both of which Biden has delivered.
Ironically, most viewers watched the presidential address on Fox News, with the channel receiving over 4.5 million viewers during the speech.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tweeted:
Tonight, you heard a speech. @POTUS called it the State of the Union, but let’s be honest. If you want the truth about the #SOTU after two years of a Biden presidency, just ask the average American family.
Amy Jo Underwood contributed to this article.
