Trump’s Speech to the Nation: Fact Checks and Background

Here’s what the president said, and how it stacks up against the facts.

“The federal government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only: because Democrats will not fund border security.”

False.

Democrats have offered $1.3 billion in funding for border security measures like enhanced surveillance and fortified fencing. They do not support Mr. Trump’s border wall.

At a meeting with Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer in December, Mr. Trump took responsibility for the partial government shutdown.

“I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it,” he said.

— Linda Qiu

“Every day, Customs and Border Patrol agents encounter thousands of illegal immigrants trying to enter our country.”

This is misleading.

In November, the agency, which is actually named Customs and Border Protection (and which oversees the Border Patrol), apprehended 51,856 people trying to cross the border illegally. That’s about 1,700 per day.

The agency also deemed another 10,600 “inadmissible,” which refers to people who seek lawful entry into the United States but are barred from doing so. Together, that would be over 2,000, but “inadmissible” is not the same thing as illegal entry.

— Linda Qiu

“Senator Chuck Schumer, who you will be hearing from later tonight, has repeatedly supported a physical barrier in the past, along with other Democrats.”

This needs context.

Twenty-six Senate Democrats — including Mr. Schumer — voted for a 2006 law that authorized about 700 miles of fencing along the southwest border. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump characterized the 2006 legislation as inadequate, dismissing it as “such a little wall, it was such a nothing wall.”

As part of his campaign, Mr. Trump promised to build a 1,000-mile concrete border wall. He sometimes calls the wall a fence, though he has also rejected suggestions that it is a fence.

— Linda Qiu

“America proudly welcomes millions of lawful immigrants who enrich our society and contribute to our nation, but all Americans are hurt by uncontrolled illegal migration. It strains public resources and drives down jobs and wages.”

This needs context.

Some economists argue that immigrants drive down available jobs and wages for Americans only if they are competing for the same jobs as the domestic work force. In many cases, immigrants — legal or illegal — are seeking jobs that American citizens do not want to do.

Kevin Hassett, the White House’s top economist, argued before joining the Trump administration that immigration spurs economic growth and that the United States should double its intake of immigrants.

— Alan Rappeport

“Every week 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across our southern border.”

This needs context.

Most heroin smuggled into the United States does come through the southwest border, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s latest National Drug Threat Assessment report. But most of it is smuggled into the United States through legal ports of entry at the southern border, not through the desert, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s 2018 annual drug threat assessment.

A border wall would not address what experts see as the next, more deadly phase of the opioid epidemic: fentanyl.

Fentanyl is a narcotic that is used to treat severe pain and is a key contributor the opioid crisis. It is also sometimes mixed with heroin.

Most fentanyl enters the United States from packages mailed directly from China through traditional ports of entry, according to the report, and through Canada from China. A lower-potency, lower-cost grade of fentanyl is also smuggled across the southwest border from Mexico. The fentanyl directly from China is far more lucrative for sellers because of its higher purity. The fentanyl sent through conventional mail packages has proved difficult for law enforcement to detect. Fentanyl coming from Mexico is often hidden in automobile compartments, much like conventional drug smuggling.

The president’s opioids commission reported last November that “we are losing this fight predominately through China.”

— Michael Tackett

“In the last two years, ICE officers made 266,000 arrests of aliens with criminal records.”

This needs context.

In the 2017 and 2018 fiscal years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested over 210,876 people with previous criminal convictions, and another 55,233 people with pending criminal charges.

But it should be noted that these criminal convictions covered a range of offenses, including many that were nonviolent. The most common charges were for traffic violations, possessing or selling drugs and immigration offenses like illegal entry.

— Linda Qiu

“The wall will also be paid for, indirectly by the great new trade deal we have made with Mexico.”

False.

First, the revised North American Free Trade Agreement, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, has yet to pass in Congress. Any economic benefits from the agreement, if it passes, will most likely come in the form of lower tariffs for American companies or higher wages for American workers.

This is different from Mr. Trump’s campaign promise that Mexico would finance the wall.

— Alan Rappeport

“The border wall would very quickly pay for itself.”

This needs context.

The president has claimed that the annual cost of illegal drugs in the United States is $500 billion. But a 2015 report by the surgeon general estimated that the annual economic impact of illicit drug use is $193 billion.

Stopping the flow of drugs across the southwest border would not entirely stem the flow of drugs across the United States. Moreover, it is not clear how reducing the cost of drug addiction would finance the wall.

— Alan Rappeport

Fact check: the Democratic response

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader:

“No president should pound the table and demand he gets his way or else the government shuts down, hurting millions of Americans who are treated as leverage.”

This needs context.

An estimated 800,000 federal workers are furloughed or working without pay because of the shutdown. While millions of Americans are not being directly harmed, there is a multiplier effect when considering family members of those whose jobs are affected. This also spills into the broader economy, harming business owners whose customers must cut back, tourism and travel.

— Alan Rappeport

Reaction to President Trump’s Speech

Republicans

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that he had never seen Mr. Trump behave in such a presidential manner. And he issued a dire warning to Mr. Trump’s base.

“If we undercut the president, that’s the end of his presidency and the end of our party,” Mr. Graham said.

“As the president clearly laid out tonight, we have a growing humanitarian and security crisis on our southern border,” Representative Kay Granger of Texas, the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.

“I stand ready and willing to work with the White House and my friends on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate to find a legislative solution to border security and reopen the government.”

Democrats

Even before the speech began, Democrats were preparing their rebuttals.

“President Trump is going to use the public airwaves to spread fear and misinformation tonight,” tweeted Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, the head of the Democrats’ messaging arm. “I’m going to correct the record.”

In a more lighthearted jab, Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, joked that he unsuccessfully tried to get Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, to “livestream a Trump’s Not Telling The Truth drinking game tonight.”

“Me and him, shot of beer every time Trump says something made up,” Mr. Murphy wrote on Twitter. “He didn’t bite.” (Mr. Schatz, live-tweeting the speech, noted instead: “This is dark.”)

And during the speech, Democrats flooded the internet with their own commentary, frequently reflecting Mr. Trump’s rhetoric back at his administration.

“Donald Trump’s presidency is a national emergency!” wrote Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota.

But it was perhaps Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the No. 5 House Democrat, who most succinctly summed up his party’s response: “We are not paying a $5 billion ransom note for your medieval border wall,” he tweeted, with a castle emoji. “And nothing you just said will change that cold, hard reality.”

— Emily Cochrane and Catie Edmondson

Important background and updates

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer delivered the Democratic response.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, spoke from the Capitol after Mr. Trump finished his remarks from the Oval Office. The dueling speeches from opposite sides of Pennsylvania Avenue unfolded at the close of Day 18 of a government shutdown over Mr. Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion for a border wall that Democrats have steadfastly opposed.

The Democratic leaders’ decision to select themselves as the message-bearers to counter the president underscores how a partisan power struggle in a new era of divided government is undergirding the discussions over resolving the shutdown, even as the paychecks of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and benefits for millions of Americans hang in the balance.

Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, also made a public response to Mr. Trump, which was streamed live on social media platforms after Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer concluded their remarks.

The move was reminiscent of how a fractious Republican Party responded to State of the Union addresses when Barack Obama was president: Republican leaders designated a formal response and Tea Party-aligned conservatives chose their own messengers to deliver a different rebuttal.

— Julie Hirschfeld Davis

[Read more about the Democratic response.]

Senate Democrats took the floor in protest.

A dozen Senate Democrats took the floor this evening for a talkathon-style protest calling on Mr. Trump and Senate Republicans to end the government shutdown. Led by Senators Tim Kaine of Virginia and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, it was yet another effort to raise the pressure on Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, to allow a vote on legislation that would reopen the government.

Earlier Tuesday, Senate Democrats voted against advancing a package of bipartisan Middle East policy bills slated for consideration this week to further press Republicans. Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor on Tuesday that he would “not waste time on show votes.” But he is also being pushed by vulnerable members of his own party up for re-election in 2020 to intervene and end the shutdown.

— Catie Edmondson

The decision by major broadcast networks to carry Mr. Trump’s address live in prime time set off a fierce debate.

What is normally an easy decision for network executives — granting airtime to a sitting president to address the nation — led to hours of hand-wringing by journalists and producers wary of giving a platform to a president whose public remarks, particularly on immigration, have been marked by untruths and misleading claims. Liberals wondered why news outlets would defer to a president who, hours earlier, had used Twitter to label journalists “the Enemy of the People,” “the real Opposition Party” and “crazed lunatics.”

Eventually, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox agreed to a request by Mr. Trump for the airtime, forgoing their 9 p.m. entertainment shows — and millions of dollars in associated ad revenue — for his Oval Office appearance, in which he plans to address the government shutdown. The networks said on Tuesday that they would also broadcast the Democratic response.

— Michael M. Grynbaum

[Read more about the media decision.]