Fact check: Trump repeats lies about inflation, immigration and elections in NBC interview

By Daniel Dale, CNN

(CNN) — When President Donald Trump claimed to NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Llamas in a Wednesday interview that “I’m getting – starting to get great polls on the economy,” Llamas quickly pushed back by noting that Trump’s polling on the economy is “not great.”

Trump immediately backed off his assertion, retreating to a claim that his economy-related polling “should  be great.”

That was a textbook moment in political interviewing – but it was one of the only times in the interview that Llamas challenged one of Trump’s false claims. Over and over, when the president repeated lies that were debunked months or years ago, Llamas responded simply “right” or “yeah” – or didn’t acknowledge them at all.

Trump’s rapid-fire dishonesty is difficult for any interviewer to handle, especially given the limited time they are given by the White House, and it’s not uncommon for them to largely ignore the serial inaccuracy in order to get to the topics they’ve planned to address. Llamas certainly asked the president various skeptical and important questions, including some sharp follow-ups. And NBC published a fact check of some of the false claims in a Wednesday article on its website.

But Llamas’ hands-off approach to the president’s falsehoods left people watching the interview on television and through social media clips without immediate corrective information on a variety of pressing subjects. An exchange about inflation, for example, was littered with a bunch of inaccurate Trump figures and assertions that Llamas let pass by with the word “right.” And in one case, when Trump claimed it’s only “very few” product prices that have stubbornly refused to fall during this presidency, Llamas initially responded with a comment that made it sound like he was endorsing the false claim: “Yeah, very few. I get it.”

Here is a CNN fact check of some of Trump’s remarks in the interview. An NBC spokesperson declined to comment.

Inflation and the economy

Prices during this presidency

Trump’s claim: Llamas told Trump, “Talking about the economy, you’ve brought a lot of prices down, as we said. Some are still stubborn.” Trump responded, “Very few.”

Fact check: It’s not “very few” prices that are stubbornly refusing to decline. Overall prices have increased during this presidency, Consumer Price Index data shows – in December 2025, average consumer prices were 2.7% higher than they were in December 2024 – and far more products have gotten more expensive since Trump’s January 2025 inauguration than have gotten cheaper.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: Llamas echoed Trump’s false claim, saying, “But – but when – yeah, very few. I get it.” He then proceeded to ask Trump, “When you talk to Americans, though, do you have to get them to understand that the prices are not gonna come back down to your first term because we had a pandemic and we had record inflation?”

The inflation Trump inherited

Trump’s claim: Trump claimed, “I inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country. It was through the roof. Now, you will say it wasn’t in history, it was 48 years. You know there’s a theory. There was – I say it was the worst. But whether it’s 48 years or what, I inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country.”

Fact check: Trump didn’t inherit the worst inflation in US history. The year-over-year inflation rate in Biden’s last full month in office, December 2024, was 2.9%, and the rate in the month in which Trump took over partway through, January 2025, was 3.0%; those figures are only slightly higher than the most recent rate, 2.7% in December 2025. The rate did hit a 40-year high, 9.1%, in June 2022, but that was not a 48-year high, and it was far from the all-time high of 23.7%, which was set in 1920. Regardless, the rate then fell sharply over Biden’s last two-and-a-half years in office.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: He said “right” twice during these Trump comments.

Inflation today

Trump’s claim: “And now we have almost no inflation. Think of it. You know what it was for the last three months? 1.2%.” He repeated moments later, “For the last three months it’s at 1.2%. You know that.”

Fact check: The most recent year-over-year inflation rate, 2.7% in December 2025, is not “almost no inflation” by any reasonable definition of that vague phrase. And inflation wasn’t “1.2%” for the last three months; the year-over-year rate was 2.7% in November 2025 and 3% in September 2025. (The government couldn’t calculate the October rate because of data-collection issues caused by a government shutdown.)

Trump claimed in a newspaper op-ed last week “annual core inflation for the past three months has dropped to just 1.4%,” but: Trump used “1.2%” in the NBC interview; the math behind even the 1.4% figure is not clear (CNN got a result of 1.6% when using a standard method of “annualizing” data); the White House ignored CNN’s requests this week for a detailed explanation of the 1.4% figure; and Trump did not say in the interview that he was referring to “core” inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, or using annualized data.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: Llamas said “right” when Trump claimed we now have almost no inflation. He did interject with the current inflation rate after Trump first made his “1.2%” claim; Llamas said, “Inflation is down – 2.7 right now.” But when Trump repeated the “1.2%” figure and insisted “you know that,” Llamas said, “Yeah. But the last – okay.” He then moved on to another subject.

Gas prices

Trump’s claim: Trump said, “You saw gasoline this last week at $1.99 a gallon. It used to be, it was $4-and-a-half, $5 a gallon – (now) $1.99 a gallon of gasoline.”

Fact check: The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline on Wednesday was about $2.89, per data published by AAA – down from about $3.12 on his inauguration day in January 2025 – and the average was $2.86 or higher every day since the start of last week; a tiny number of stations were selling gas for $1.99 or less during that period. Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, told CNN that each day from January 26 through February 2, GasBuddy found just 18 to 34 gas stations around the country, out of about 150,000 stations GasBuddy tracks, offering gas for under $2 aside from special discounts.

“An average over those dates would be 28 stations over the course of the week, or 0.018% of all U.S. stations. I think I’d rather find the needle in the haystack at that point,” De Haan said in a Thursday email.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: None; he said “yeah” moments later.

Investment in the US

Trump’s claim: Trump claimed, “I have $18 trillion being invested into the country.”

Fact check: The $18 trillion number is fiction. The White House’s own website said at the time of the interview that the figure for “major investment announcements” during this Trump term is $9.6 trillion, and even that is a major exaggeration; a detailed CNN review last fall found the White House was counting trillions of dollars in vague investment pledges, pledges that were about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” rather than investment in the US, and vague statements that didn’t even rise to the level of pledges.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: Llamas asked a follow-up question that accepted Trump’s false premise: “But when can Americans expect to feel that?”

China and tariffs

Trump’s claim: Trump said of China: “Well, they’re paying a lot of tariffs, as you know. China’s paying a lot of tariffs.”

Fact check: Tariff payments are made by importers in the US, not China and other foreign countries, and those importers often pass on some of their costs to consumers. While foreign exporters may sometimes drop their prices to try to keep their products competitive, various analyses have found that the overwhelming majority of the costs of the tariffs Trump imposed in 2025 are being covered by a combination of US businesses and US consumers.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: None; he said “yeah” moments later.

Elections

The 2020 election

Trump’s claim: Trump lied twice about the 2020 election in rapid succession, saying, “I won three times.”

Fact check: He won twice, in 2016 and 2024, and lost fair and square in 2020.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: None; he continued to ask questions about the subject he was trying to get Trump to talk about, the possibility that Trump will have the federal government pay him billions in taxpayer money to settle a lawsuit he filed in his personal capacity, not in his official capacity as president, over an unauthorized leak of his tax returns during his first presidency.

What Trump said about elections in another interview this week

Trump’s claim: Llamas asked, “You’ve recently suggested nationalizing elections. What do you mean by that?” Trump responded, “When – and I didn’t say national(ize) – I said there are some areas in our country that are extremely corrupt.”

Fact check: As Llamas initially told him, Trump did say he wanted to nationalize elections; it’s not true that Trump merely said some parts of the country are corrupt. Specifically, in an interview that aired Monday, Trump said: “The Republicans should say, we want to take over, we should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: None; Trump quickly proceeded to make another false claim about elections.

Elections in Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta

Trump’s claim: Trump, talking about the interview that aired Monday, said this: “I said there are some areas in our country that are extremely corrupt. They have very corrupt elections. Take a look at Detroit. Take a look at Philadelphia. Take a look at Atlanta.”

Fact check: There is no evidence that elections in any of these cities are “extremely corrupt.” Trump has claimed for years that Democratic-dominated urban areas are rife with corruption in presidential elections, but he has presented no proof.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: Llamas said, “Yeah.”

The 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia

Trump’s claim: Llamas asked Trump what he is doing in the Georgia county in which most of Atlanta is located, Fulton – where FBI agents in late January searched an elections office and seized hundreds of boxes of materials. Trump responded, “I’m not doing anything, but the FBI went in because it’s been under – under – I guess review for years, the cheating that took place in Fulton County.”

Fact check: There is no evidence of elections cheating in Fulton County in 2020. Trump has for years made false claims about the county’s handling of the 2020 election, which have been repeatedly debunked – including in comments made directly to Trump, more than five years ago, by Georgia’s Republican elections chief and by a top Trump administration appointee in his first-term Justice Department.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: None. Instead, he asked Trump what the FBI agents are looking for.

Foreign affairs and immigration

Trump’s strikes on alleged drug boats

Trump’s claim: Touting his military strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, Trump said, “Each boat that we knock out we save 25,000 American lives.”

Fact check: This “25,000” number obviously does not make sense – even aside from the fact that the Trump administration has not presented public proof for his repeated claims that the boats carried fentanyl, the drug involved in the most overdose deaths. The total number of US overdose deaths from all drugs in 2024 was about 82,000, according to provisional federal data. The president’s figure is “absurd,” Carl Latkin, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University school of public health with a joint appointment at its medical school, said in October. You can read a longer fact check here.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: None; Trump quickly pivoted to an anecdote about the president of China.

Foreign governments, jails and migration

Trump’s claim: Trump claimed, “You know, jails have been emptied into our country from all over the world.” He then added, “But from Venezuela, from the Congo in Africa, from all over the world, jails, the jail population, was emptied into our country.”

Fact check: Trump has never proven these claims about Venezuela, “the Congo,” or countries “all over the world.” Experts on Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighboring Republic of Congo said during the Biden administration that they had seen no basis for Trump’s stories, the governments of both of the Congo countries told CNN the stories are false, and an expert on the global prison population has told CNN that she has seen “absolutely no evidence” of any country emptying jails to somehow release prisoners into the US during either the Biden administration or this Trump administration. (Trump was slightly vaguer than usual here, but he has generally claimed that foreign governments have deliberately emptied prisons and mental health facilities to somehow send undesirable citizens to the US as migrants.)

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: Llamas said “mmhmm,” “right” and “yeah” during these Trump remarks.

Migration under Biden

Trump’s claim: Trump claimed that, under Biden, “We allowed in our country, I say, 25 million people.”

Fact check: The “25 million” figure is false; even Trump’s previous “21 million” figure was a wild exaggeration. Through December 2024, the last full month under the Biden administration, the federal government had recorded under 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants during that administration, including millions who were rapidly expelled from the country. Even adding in the so-called gotaways who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no way the total was even close to what Trump has said.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: None; he said “yeah” moments later after some more Trump comments about immigration.

Biden, migration and murderers

Trump’s claim: “We have 11,888 murderers that Biden and his group let into our country. We’ve captured a lot of them. We’ve brought some of ’em back. A lot of ’em we don’t wanna bring back, because we don’t trust the country that they’re not sent back again.” He repeated the “11,888 murderers” claim moments later.

Fact check: Trump was inaccurately describing federal data. The Department of Homeland Security and independent experts have noted that the figure it appears Trump is referring to when he uses the “11,888” number is about non-citizens who entered the US not just under Biden but over the course of multiple decades, including during Trump’s own first administration. They were convicted of homicide at some point, usually in the US after their arrival, and are still in the US while being listed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “non-detained docket” – which includes people who are currently serving their prison sentences, not roaming free as Trump has also claimed.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: Llamas said “yeah” after both Trump’s first quote and second quote.

Russia and elections

Trump’s claim: Talking about foreign interference in US elections, Trump said, “And everybody knows that Russia – they talked about Russia, turned out to be a hoax. It was – Hunter Biden. It wasn’t Russia.”

Fact check: Russian interference in the 2016 election did not turn out to be a hoax. It happened. An investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller concluded that “the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion” and that it did so with the intention of helping Trump beat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

“First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents,” the Mueller report said.

Trump has often seized on the fact that the Mueller report said the investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities” to declare that claims about him or his campaign having colluded with Russia were a “hoax.” But Mueller found evidence the Trump campaign felt it would benefit from those interference activities and that there were “numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign,” though “the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges.”

Regardless, the Russian interference itself was clearly real.

Trump’s confusing comment about Hunter Biden, son of former president Joe Biden, may have been a reference to how some social media companies briefly suppressed a damaging news story about the younger Biden late in the 2020 election campaign, in which Trump ran against the elder Biden. That has nothing to do with the fact of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, in which Trump ran against Clinton.

Llamas’ response to Trump’s claim: He said “yeah” moments after Trump’s remark.

CNN’s Alicia Wallace and Marshall Cohen contributed to this article

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.