President Trump on Wednesday morning used the last speech of his presidency to repeat many of the lies and exaggerations he has told over the past four years.
He has, as before almost 300 times, falsely claimed to have succeeded in “by far the largest tax cut and reform in the history of our country by far” despite the tax cut in 2017 which is among a number of others.
Mr. Trump also once again boasted of presiding over the “largest economy” with “numbers” that were “at a level no one has ever seen.” The annual average growth, even before the coronavirus pandemic slowed the economy, was lower under Mr. Trump as under recent former presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.
And he announced his legacy by transforming the judiciary, exaggerating the number of appointments to “almost 300” and claiming it was ‘record-breaking’. In fact, Mr. Trump appointed 229 judges, a large sum for a one-term president, but far below the total number for presidents Barack Obama (320), George W. Bush (322) and Bill Clinton (322).
Mr. Trump also used his final speech as president to once again acknowledge the mistake of creating the Veterans Choice health care program signed in 2014 by his predecessor. As president, Mr. Trump signed a measure that would change the program.
He also falsely claimed that the Department of Veterans Affairs could not fire employees until he took office. In fact, Mr. Trump signed a law to encourage whistles and made it easier to fire bad employees at the department.