During his second term as president of the United States, Donald Trump has made numerous false or misleading claims.
Events Major events during Trump's second presidency that were fact-checked for multiple falsehoods.
First week of Second Term On January 20, 2025, Trump made his inaugural address at the Capitol's rotunda, unscripted second and third speeches at the Capitol Visitor Center's Emancipation Hall and Washington's Capital One Arena, concluding the day with statements to reporters at the Oval Office. News media and fact-checkers declared Trump made multiple false and misleading statements, mostly repetitions of falsehoods from his campaign.Multiple sources
The Associated Press fact-checked several of Trump's statements from his first week in office, declaring them false and misleading.
Speech to a joint session of Congress On March 4, 2025, Trump addressed a joint session of the United States Congress. News media and fact-checkers declared Trump made multiple false and misleading statements.Multiple sources.
News conference about crime in Washington, D.C.
On August 11, Trump held a press conference to declare a "public safety emergency", announcing the deployment of the National Guard and other law enforcement agencies to crack down on crime and homelessness in Washington, D.C., following the deployment of hundreds of federal law enforcement officers over the weekend.
News media and fact-checkers declared that Trump made multiple false and misleading statements, noting that the rates of homicides and other violent crimes he declared were false, and there are legal issues regarding his use of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia and the National Guard.
The New York Times noted that a chart Trump held up comparing Washington’s homicide rate to that of eight other "capitals" (Lagos, Nigeria, is not a capital), first appearing on Fox News and shared by JD Vance, cites outdated data and omits other capitals with much higher murder rates. It also pointed out that Jeanine Pirro's statements about her inability to prosecute minors were misleading and inaccurate.
In the press conference, Trump talked about "a man" who quit "because he was asked to do phony numbers on crime (...) But he was asked by the city, I guess, that we don't want to show the real numbers."
In an August 13 post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that "a Precinct Commander was just suspended for allegedly manipulating the Violent Crime Statistics, and the D.C. Police Union, likewise, says the real numbers are much higher."
In July 2025, NBC 4 reported that after an exchange of accusations between Michael Pulliam, the former commander of the 3rd District, an assistant chief, the police union, and the department, the commander, who denies any wrongdoing, was placed on paid administrative leave in mid-May. In the related interview, DC Police Union Chairman Gregg Pemberton stated that high-ranking officers attend felony offense scenes and direct police officers "to take a report for a lesser offense", that it is "a directive from the command staff", and he called the official crime descent numbers "preposterous." As of the publication date, the investigation into the allegations was ongoing.
In an August interview with NBC 4, Chairman Pemberton reiterated his assertions regarding crime numbers' descent, based on the police's day-to-day experience. NBC 4 contextualized his statements, pointing out the notable 2023 crime spike, and that crime and homicides have descended in multiple cities to rates even lower than D.C.'s. Regarding the White House's claim that "Metro Police Department leadership are allegedly cooking the books to make crime statistics appear more favorable", NBC 4 noted that data reporting anomalies were found in just one police district.
September 2025 press conference on autism On September 22, 2025, Trump gave a press conference on the "autism crisis" and findings of the investigation led by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in which he claimed that they had found Tylenol (paracetamol, most commonly called acetaminophen in the United States, Canada, and Japan) taken during pregnancy was the cause of autism, and strongly recommended the public not to take Tylenol nor give it to infants. Scientific American has reported that fever itself in the second [2nd] trimester is a risk factor for autism, and therefore the claims made by the Trump administration are counter-productive. This press conference also announced that the FDA is approving prescription leucovorin (folinic acid) for the treatment of children on the autism spectrum.
Trump also made various claims about vaccines, like that the Amish do not vaccinate nor take "pills", and they have "essentially no autism;" also, he expressed opposition to the vaccination schedule, claiming among other things that "it looks like they are pumping into a horse. You have a little child, little fragile child, and you get a vat of 80 different vaccines, I guess, 80 different blends, and they pump it in." Trump reiterated these claims in a September 26 Truth Social post. These claims were determined as false by fact-checkers, and the media (which drew parallels with Trump's response to the COVID-19 pandemic), plus entities such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Psychiatric Association, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, the World Health Organization, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, the Autism Science Foundation, and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.
Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol, strongly disagreed with Trump's claims as shares of the company fell 7.5% in trading on September 22, reducing the company’s market value by about $2.6 billion.
Regarding leucovorin, Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, said that it can help treat some autism cases, but it is not a universal remedy: "You can have a perfectly normal folate level in your blood, but it may not be getting into the brain, and so there's a defect in the transport of folate into the brain. Leucovorin works around that", Gounder said. "Not all children with autism have this defect, so there's a test you can do to assess whether that's what's at play. For those kids, leucovorin has been shown to help, particularly with speech, getting kids to be more verbal than they were before."
Trump’s comments on Tylenol seemed to be based on several studies, including a 2025 American study that summarized 46 studies that identified a slightly increased risk of autism associated with prenatal paracetamol use, but did not demonstrate causation. During the press conference, the study was cited by Marty Makary, along with two others, as justification for officially advising pregnant women against taking Tylenol. The study itself came under strong scrutiny in the scientific community, with members of the scientific community pointing to its inconsistent methodology, deviation from the cited systematic review and evidence grading protocols, and multiple choices that swayed the interpretation of results, with one professor stating “I’ve never seen any kind of review of any kind or any kind of meta analysis, at any time, in which somebody said, I don’t like the adjusted results, so I’m going to include the unadjusted results". Large, well-controlled studies, including sibling-controlled analyses, find no causal link after adjusting for maternal conditions, while untreated pain and fever is known to harm both mother and fetus.
Ann Bauer, who co-authored the 2025 American study, declared herself concerned about the effects Trump's use of it could have: "Bauer worries such statements will cut both ways: People may put themselves at risk to avoid vaccines and Tylenol, the only safe painkiller for use during pregnancy. And she frets that scientists might outright reject her team's measured concerns about Tylenol in a backlash against misleading remarks from Trump and other members of his "Make America Healthy Again" movement." In 2023, Andrea Baccarelli, also a co-author of the analysis and current dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, was paid at least $150,000 to provide testimony (together with other experts) for a group of parents and guardians of children diagnosed with autism and ADHD, in a class action lawsuit against Tylenol’s manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson/Kenvue (in that year Kenvue spun off from Johnson & Johnson). The plaintiffs paid Baccarelli $700 an hour for his expert testimony, according to a 2023 deposition. Denise Cote, the federal judge overseeing the case in the Southern District of New York, dismissed the lawsuit, describing the experts' testimonies as "unreliable" and not in adherence with the Daubert standard. Regarding Baccarelli's, Cote summarized that he "cherry-picked and misrepresented study results and refused to acknowledge the role of genetics in the etiology" of autism and ADHD. "The discussion in his reports is incomplete, unbalanced, and at times misleading. In general, Baccarelli downplays those studies that undercut his causation thesis and emphasises those that align with his thesis." In a statement, Baccarelli confirmed he consulted with the Trump administration ahead of its autism announcement, and that "further research is needed to confirm the association and determine causality." This stands in contrast to his expert report provided in the Johnson & Johnson lawsuit, Baccarelli wrote, "Substantial evidence supports a strong, positive, causal association between acetaminophen and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDDs)." Baccarelli's work demonstrated only a correlation and not a causal link, as the Trump administration has asserted.
On October 9, 2025, Trump and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr. alleged a link between autism and circumcisions. Kennedy cited a 2015 Danish study to justify this claim. The validity of Kennedy's assertion about circumcisions being linked to autism has also been challenged by scientists and medical experts. Kennedy Jr appeared to walk back his comments in an October 29, when he spoke with reporters and stated that the causative association between Tylenol use in pregnancy and autism was not definitely proven but instead showed it was very suggestive.
Resulting lawsuits On October 28, 2025 it was announced that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had sued the makers of Tylenol, Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue, alleging that they had deceptively marketed the drug to pregnant women despite the drug's supposed links to autism and other disorders. In a statement Kenvue stated that they were deeply concerned about the "perpetuation of misinformation" being pushed by Paxton.
September 2025 speech at the United Nations
On September 23, 2025, Trump delivered a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. He spoke for nearly 57 minutes (despite having been asked to confine his remarks to 15 minutes, like all other speakers), addressing a variety of subjects such as inflation in the US, his standing in national opinion polls, immigration and climate policies both in the US and abroad, and his personal role in settling international conflicts.
Many of his claims were determined as false by fact-checkers and the media. Trump's claims about climate change were specifically addressed, and some of his political claims elicited backlash and concern abroad.