• 2 hours ago
Transcript
00:00President Trump's big speech to Congress boasted of his many achievements since
00:05he took power just six weeks ago but how many of them are actually true? This is
00:11what he had to say about trade tariffs. Tariffs are about making America rich
00:17again and making America great again and it's happening and it will happen rather
00:21quickly. There'll be a little disturbance but we're okay with that. It won't be
00:27much. Trump is hoping that taxing imports will help rebuild American
00:35industry. Many economists, indeed most economists, believe it'll simply hike
00:40prices. Now when Yale University looked at the impact of Trump's tariffs on
00:45Mexico, on China and on Canada it found that inflation will rise by a percent,
00:52growth will fall by half a percent and the typical American household will be
00:58$1,600 worse off. So what did Trump have to say about the economy he inherited?
01:05Was it indeed the catastrophe that he claims it is? Among my very highest
01:12priorities is to rescue our economy and get dramatic and immediate relief to
01:18working families. As you know we inherited from the last administration
01:22an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare. Well let's have a look at the
01:28official figures. What they tell us is that inflation under President Biden
01:34peaked at 9.1 percent but that was back in 2022 and the unemployment rate fell
01:41to a low of 4 percent in January this year and that the economy expanded by a
01:47healthy 2.8 percent last year. Americans were a little wealthier. So at best
01:54Trump's claims are, well, contestable. Now on immigration Trump claims to have
02:01brought in the most sweeping and effective immigration controls in
02:06American history. This is what he said last night. The media and our friends in
02:12the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation, we must have
02:16legislation to secure the border, but it turned out that all we really needed was
02:22a new president. Well it is true on the official measure that the number of
02:30people apprehended at the border in the last 10 days of January this year was 85
02:37percent down on the figure for the corresponding period last year. But
02:42overall Trump inflated the number of people he claimed had entered the
02:49country illegally during the presidency of Joe Biden. Over the past four years
02:5421 million people poured into the United States. Many of them were murderers, human
03:00traffickers, gang members and other criminals from the streets of dangerous
03:04cities. Well in fact US Customs and Border Protection says the true figure
03:09is a little under 11 million and there is absolutely no evidence that
03:13neighboring countries are sending their criminals or people with mental illnesses
03:19across the border. But outside America probably the most important section of
03:25the speech was that bit devoted to Ukraine and a potential peace deal with
03:32Russia. Meanwhile Europe has sadly spent more money buying Russian oil and gas
03:36than they have spent on defending Ukraine by far. Think of that they've
03:42spent more buying Russian oil and gas than they have defending and we've spent
03:48perhaps 350 billion dollars like taking candy from a baby that's what happened
03:55and they've spent a hundred billion dollars what a difference that is and we
04:00have an ocean separating us and they don't. Well that is simply not the case
04:08according to the Kiel Institute which keeps accounts of these figures America
04:14has devoted a little over a hundred and fourteen billion dollars to Ukraine. Well
04:23from Europe the figure is more than a hundred and thirty two billion dollars.
04:28Question is whether any of this really impacts Trump's popularity according to
04:34one poll taken after the speech of those watching. Well on balance most people had
04:41a favorable view of what their president had to say.

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