Beyond a doubt, President Donald Trump’s 2018 State of the Union speech was a massive success. With record viewership and extremely high approvals, it set out all of his positions and made a strong argument for his vision. It also highlighted a lot of positive ideas in a non-partisan manner, which caused the Democrats to panic and look silly. It also caused the media to look silly in its desperate attempt to tear down what was said.

We’ve fact checked many pieces here, and much of the false claims are based around an inability for modern journalists to do basic checks. This is not necessarily a new phenomena, but media institutions once hired in-house fact checkers to ensure bad information did not make it to print.

A combination of saving money and rank fringe-ideology dominating newsrooms has changed everything. Ironically, the lack of facts has coincided with the false use of “fact checker” at these institutions, and the term is merely a partisan tool to wage war on others. So it is our duty to correct the record regarding fake fact checks on President Trump’s 2018 State of the Union address.

1. False claim: President Trump was wrong to declare the Federal Tax Reform as the largest ever tax cut and reform. (Politico)

A normal journalist investigating how large the tax cut and reform would compare percentages of reduction with previous reductions. Politico did not attempt this. Instead, they used an estimate of possible Federal income loss compared with data from the past.

The problem with this is simple: a tax cut is not a direct loss of revenue for the government. Tax revenue is based on a curve, with higher rates resulting in lower government revenue. This is due to removing money from the economy, which limits the ability of people to buy goods. When people can’t buy goods, then the government can’t collect tax related to the purchase of goods. When considering also that corporations do not declare as much income in the United States due to high rates, the reduction actually brings in more funds, which offsets any direct loss. Thus, reductions in tax revenue cannot be compared with another.

The worst part of Politico’s claim is that they ignored the conjunction “and.” When the President mentions tax cuts and reform, this is one complete item. By focusing on the first part only, Politico already removed any honesty in their claims. The AP makes the same mistake as Politico.

2. False claim: The President’s use of “open borders” is an exaggeration. (AP)

The AP believes that this claim is false due to ICE arresting and deporting illegal immigrants. However, the term “open border” has nothing to do with deportations. Instead, it refers to the ability of people to travel between nations. A closed border would be something akin to the relationship between East and West Berlin. It is impossible to say that the southern border of the United States is closed.

3. False claim: “Studies over several years have found immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.” (AP)

No study has proven that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes, and data shows that they are twice as likely to be felons than any other group.

4. False claim: Chain migration does not take place due to long wait times. (AP)

Claiming someone must wait 10 years to commit an activity does not debunk that such an activity takes place. There is no justification for this response from the AP.

5. False claim: The Obamacare mandate was not repealed because the repeal doesn’t take effect until 2019. (AP)

This is patent nonsense. The passage of a law is the passage of the law, and it is not contingent on when the law takes effect.

6. False claim: Automakers aren’t building at record levels because some built new plants before. (AP)

It is obvious that this is a false claim because there are no numbers. For every auto plant they can cite being built, plants closing and leaving can be cited. The number now has been to the positive, not the negative.

7. False claim: “That’s not exactly the case, either. Chrysler announced it will move production of heavy-duty pickup trucks from Mexico to Michigan, but the plant is not closing in Mexico. It will start producing other vehicles for global sales and no change in its workforce is anticipated.” (AP)

Re-purposing a plant does not make it the original plant. If anything, they verified what the president said was correct.

8. False claim: The President was wrong to say he was defeating ISIS because there is a civil war in Syria. (AP)

The AP tries to conflate two different conflicts as one to make a claim that the President did not. This is called “goal post shifting” and is extremely dishonest. They even have to admit “Although it’s true that the Islamic State has lost nearly 100 percent of the territory it held in Syria and Iraq when the U.S. began airstrikes in both countries in 2014.”

That quote covers all of the President’s claim. There is no ability to say “although” and then rant about something off topic.

9. False claim: The President did not help the Middle Class in a “tremendous” way. (AP)

The AP tries to hide the truth when it says, “That depends on how you define ‘tremendous.’ The biggest beneficiaries from the tax law are wealthy Americans and corporations.”

This is patently false. In Maryland and in most states, the rich will actually pay more in taxes while over 90% of the Middle Class will pay less.

10. False claim: 3 million workers getting bonus is meaningless because it is a small percentage of the work force. (AP)

This isn’t even an attempt at checking facts because they admit the President was correct. Instead, it is a dismissal. 3 million people is not something you can just dismiss.

11. False claim: President Obama did not declare a war on coal. (AP)

The problem is that even President Obama admitted he did and admitted he tried to do whatever he could to end coal production.

12. False claim: President Trump did not remove VA staff because a law did not go into effect. (AP)

Here is what AP says in full: “But more than 500 of those firings occurred from Jan. 20, when Trump took office, to late June, when the new accountability law began to take effect. That means roughly one-third of the 1,500 firings cannot be attributed to the new law.”

Here is what the President said in full: “Since its passage, my administration has already removed more than 1,500 VA employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve.”

The President does not say that all of the firings were due to the law. He said all of the firings were due to his actions. The writers for the AP do not understand basic English.

13. False claim: 2.4 million new jobs were not created since the 2017 election because context matters. (NYT)

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2.055 million jobs were created in 2017. Since the election (the President’s term), an additional 319,000 jobs were created on top of the 2017 numbers. That brings the total to 2,374,000, which is properly rounded to 2.4 million.

The Times admits that the math is correct but tries to argue that the previous 7 year average is above the 2017 figure. Not only is the use of 7 year average improper because it ignores the the massive job loss of Obama’s first and second year, it also ignores the unemployment rate and other factors.

14. False claim: While black unemployment is low, it is due to a long term trend. (NYT)

Under President Obama’s term, black unemployment never decreased below the number it was at before he came into office.

15. False claim: Wages are rising slower than under Obama. (NYT)

The NYT focuses on the end of Obama’s term for this data because the numbers reveal that wages decreased by a lot under Obama’s president and were slow to recover. Also, wages under President Trump increased more than anytime since 2009.

16. False claim: The visa lottery program brings in skilled workers. (NYT)

The Times justifies this claim by saying, “An 18-page guide from the State Department says applicants must have a high school education or two years of work experience in the past five years that requires ‘two years of training or experience.'”

No honest person would assume two years of work experience is “skilled,” let alone “highly skilled.”