President Donald Trump traveled to Rome, Georgia on February 19, 2026, to celebrate what he framed as a dramatic economic revival at Coosa Steel Corporation, a local manufacturer of steel tire racks that he said had been reduced to a single hour of work per week before his tariff policies reversed its fortunes. Speaking to a rally-style crowd, Trump touted a sweeping set of economic claims — from $18 trillion in new investment commitments to falling gas prices, record stock market highs, and drug price reductions secured through tariff threats against European nations — while promoting the “Great Big Beautiful Bill” tax cut package, newly created Trump Accounts for children, an executive order banning institutional investors from buying single-family homes, and endorsements for Georgia candidates including Burt Jones for governor and Clay Fuller for a congressional seat. The event also featured brief remarks from Herschel Walker, Gunner Stockton, local business owners, and several Georgia Republican officials, blending economic messaging with overt 2026 midterm campaign activity. Assistance from Claude AI.
Participants and Titles
Donald Trump — 47th President of the United States
Andrew Saville — President, Coosa Steel Corporation (Rome, Georgia)
Kirk Cowan — Owner, GMC Value Mart (family-owned pharmacy and grocery, Rome, Georgia, est. 1971)
Howard Lutnick — U.S. Secretary of Commerce
Kelly Loeffler — Administrator, U.S. Small Business Administration; referenced as first female White House Chief of Staff (Trump referred to her in both capacities at different points — her current role is SBA Administrator)
Brandon Beach — Treasurer of the United States
Barry Loudermilk — U.S. Representative, Georgia (retiring)
Brian Jack — U.S. Representative, Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District
Mike Collins — U.S. Representative, Georgia’s 10th Congressional District
Burt Jones — Lieutenant Governor of Georgia (Trump-endorsed candidate for Governor)
Clay Fuller — District Attorney, Northwest Georgia (Trump-endorsed candidate for Congress; primary on March 10)
Herschel Walker — Former NFL star, Georgia icon, and 2022 Senate candidate; referred to as “Ambassador” by Trump
Gunner Stockton — University of Georgia quarterback
Bree Thomas — Local women’s clothing boutique owner (attendee, featured for Trump Accounts)
Tyler Harper — Georgia Agriculture Commissioner
Steven McNeel — Georgia State Senator-elect
Katie Dempsey — Georgia State Representative
Detailed Topic-by-Topic Breakdown
Coosa Steel: The Centerpiece Story
Trump opened by standing inside the Coosa Steel plant amid what he described as newly installed equipment and yellow cranes — physical symbols he returned to repeatedly throughout the speech.
The backstory: Andrew Saville, president of Coosa Steel, joined his father’s company (purchased in 1985) after graduating from the University of Alabama. He described how the tire rack business — a specialized steel product used in warehouses to store tires — began declining around 2010 as Chinese manufacturers, backed by government subsidies, flooded the U.S. market with cheaper products. With no tariff protection, American producers couldn’t compete on price.
Trump said the company had dwindled from two full shifts per day to, at its lowest point, one hour of work per week — a detail he repeated several times for dramatic effect. He noted the owner had begun contemplating insolvency.
The turnaround: Saville told the crowd that in Trump’s second term, beginning around July 2025, quote requests and orders began arriving faster than his team could handle. In October 2025, Coosa Steel landed its first large tire rack order in ten years, which Saville said would keep the racks department running at two shifts per day, six days a week, with product shipping to Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. Trump added that the company now has a seven-month backlog of orders and is moving toward three shifts per day.
Saville credited Trump’s tariffs directly, saying: “What you’ve done for these guys…couldn’t be done without your favorite word, tariffs.”
Trump’s tariff policy at Coosa: Trump explained the specific policies he said drove the recovery. He said he imposed 50 percent tariffs on foreign steel, ended all Biden-era tariff exemptions, and on August 18 (year not specified in transcript, likely 2025) added new tariffs covering 400 derivative steel products, explicitly including steel racks. He said the tariffs had been challenged in court and that he was awaiting a U.S. Supreme Court decision on their legality — a point he returned to with visible frustration several times.
Tariffs: Trump’s Central Economic Argument
Tariffs were the spine of the entire speech. Trump described them as his “fifth favorite word” in the dictionary — walking back his earlier claim that they were his favorite after the press made an issue of it — and used the Coosa Steel story as a live demonstration of his theory that tariffs protect and revive American industry.
He connected tariffs to several other economic developments:
Novartis: Trump said that the day before the event, he met at the White House with the CEO of Novartis (identified only as “Vas,” a reference to CEO Vasant Narasimhan). The CEO told Trump that Novartis was building 11 new plants in the United States, despite having none previously, and attributed the decision entirely to tariffs. Trump used this as evidence that tariffs were driving foreign companies to invest in U.S. manufacturing rather than pay duties on imports.
The auto industry: Trump claimed that 52 percent of the U.S. car industry had moved to Germany, Japan, Mexico, and Canada over the past 30 years and said it was now returning because of his tariff policies, with new plants being built across the country.
The Supreme Court challenge: Trump expressed genuine frustration — returning to this point at least four times — that his tariff authority was being challenged in federal court. He argued the law is clear that the president has the right to impose tariffs for national security purposes and characterized the lawsuits as coming from “China-oriented” interests and foreign countries including Canada. He said a ruling was still pending.
Tariff revenue: Trump claimed the U.S. was collecting “hundreds of billions” in tariff revenue and projected $900 billion in annual tariff income going forward, contingent on the Supreme Court upholding the policy.
The “Great Big Beautiful Bill” — Tax Cuts and Business Incentives
Trump spent considerable time explaining the major tax legislation his administration had passed, which he called the “Great Big Beautiful Bill.” He framed it as a comprehensive tax and business expansion package assembled into a single bill rather than the multiple pieces of legislation his critics said would be necessary.
Key provisions he highlighted:
100 percent expensing and bonus depreciation: Businesses can now deduct the full cost of new equipment and capital investments in a single year rather than spreading deductions over decades. Trump used the new crane visible inside Coosa Steel as his example — suggesting it was likely already deducted before the owner even took delivery. He said this provision is extended for ten years, making it a lasting incentive for investment.
No tax on tips: Workers in tip-based industries — restaurants, hospitality, etc. — would no longer owe federal income tax on their tip income.
No tax on overtime: Workers earning overtime pay would not owe federal income tax on those earnings, a benefit Trump explicitly directed at factory workers in the room.
No tax on Social Security: Trump said 1.8 million Georgia seniors would benefit from the elimination of federal taxes on Social Security income. He joked that critics might accuse him of a conflict of interest since he himself is a senior, then volunteered that he donates his $2.5 million presidential salary — claiming to be the only president in U.S. history to have done so.
Section 179 limits increased: Kirk Cowan of GMC Value Mart mentioned this provision, which allows small businesses to immediately expense the cost of certain types of property.
Trump attacked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries by name, calling him “low IQ” and saying Democrats were falsely claiming the bill’s provisions didn’t matter.
Trump Accounts: Children’s Investment Accounts
Trump introduced Trump Accounts, described as tax-free investment accounts for every American child. Key details:
Every newborn receives a $1,000 seed deposit from the federal government. Parents, relatives, and others can contribute additional funds. The accounts can be accessed at age 18 or 21. Trump said the program had generated far more voluntary contributions than anticipated.
He thanked Michael and Susan Dell (of Dell Technologies) personally, saying they had contributed $6.25 billion to seed the program and that the accounts would cover 25 million children. Trump said people can sign up at Trumpaccounts.gov.
He introduced Bree Thomas, a local boutique owner, and her husband Austin, who were present with their newborn son AJ to launch the child’s account. Trump criticized Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff and all congressional Democrats for voting against the legislation.
Economic Statistics and Claims
Trump offered a series of economic statistics throughout the speech. Readers should be aware that some of these figures are presented without sourcing and some represent administration projections or characterizations rather than independently verified data.
Investment: Trump claimed his administration had secured $18 trillion in investment commitments in 11 months, compared to less than $1 trillion under Biden’s full four years.
Jobs: He said the U.S. added 172,000 private-sector jobs in the most recent report, while cutting 300,000–400,000 public-sector positions through DOGE-style reductions. He claimed workers who lost government jobs had moved to better-paying private-sector positions. He also cited 5,000 new manufacturing jobs and 70,000 new construction jobs in Georgia specifically.
Stock market: Trump said the market had set 53 all-time record highs since his election, adding $9 trillion in total value, with the S&P 500 crossing 7,000 points and the Dow Jones surpassing 50,000 for the first time.
Inflation: He said core inflation is now at its lowest level in over seven years, and that the last three months had seen 1.4 percent inflation — the lowest in over a decade. He acknowledged inheriting what he called “the worst inflation in 48 years” under Biden, then jokingly said he believes it’s actually the worst in all of history.
Gas prices: Trump said prices had dropped to $2.37 per gallon nationally, with $1.85 per gallon seen recently in Iowa.
Wages: He claimed real wages now outpace inflation for the first time in decades, with typical workers gaining $1,400 above inflation, miners gaining $2,200, and factory workers gaining nearly $4,000.
Housing: He said rent prices had hit four-year lows, new mortgage applications were up 30 percent, and annual mortgage costs had been cut by $4,000. He credited border enforcement with reducing demand pressure on housing, claiming foreign-born workers had been driving over a third of Georgia housing demand.
Crime: Trump said the murder rate saw its single largest decline in recorded history in the past year, reaching its lowest level in 125 years.
Nobel laureates: Trump claimed an economist told him the day before that 22 Nobel Prize winners in economics had opposed his manufacturing and trade theories, and that all 22 had now admitted he was right. He did not name the economist or the laureates.
Drug Prices and Healthcare
Trump described a negotiation strategy he said had successfully reduced prescription drug prices dramatically. The mechanism he described: invoking Most Favored Nation pricing agreements, under which the U.S. pays no more than the lowest price charged to any other country in the world.
He said the key leverage was tariff threats. He described calling French President Emmanuel Macron and telling him that France would need to double or triple its domestic drug prices (bringing them closer to U.S. levels) as part of the agreement, and that when Macron refused, Trump threatened 100 percent tariffs on French wine and champagne. Macron, Trump said, immediately agreed. He claimed similar conversations occurred with Germany, Spain, and other countries.
Trump said drug prices were being cut by “70, 80, 90 percent” or alternatively by “500 to 900 percent” depending on the calculation method — reflecting the difference between percentage-point reductions and ratio comparisons (e.g., a drug that was 10x more expensive in the U.S. than Europe could be described as a “900 percent” reduction in relative terms).
He also floated a broader healthcare idea, saying he had recently suggested that instead of paying insurance companies, the government should give healthcare dollars directly to individuals to purchase their own coverage, citing insurance company stock gains of up to 1,700 percent. He said he was “looking at it” but that Democrats were blocking it due to ties to the insurance industry.
Housing and the Institutional Investor Ban
Trump announced that he had signed an executive order banning Wall Street firms and large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes. He described the problem as large investors buying tens of thousands of homes and converting them to rentals, pricing out individual buyers. He singled out Georgia as one of the states most affected by this practice.
He connected border enforcement to housing affordability, arguing that the reduction in illegal immigration had reduced housing demand, contributing to the four-year low in rent prices.
He also cited Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helping 22,000 first-time homebuyers in Georgia over the past year.
Agriculture
Trump mentioned issuing $12 billion to American farmers from tariff revenue, framing it as compensation for harm done by foreign nations that had taken advantage of U.S. agricultural markets. He said total tariff revenue would reach $900 billion annually.
Border Security
Trump claimed that illegal border crossings had reached effectively zero in the eight months since he took office, contrasting with what he described as millions of crossings per year under Biden. He linked this to improvements in housing costs, crime, and wages.
Election Integrity
In a notably sharp segment, Trump raised the Fulton County ballot situation, claiming the FBI had raided a Fulton County storage facility, discovered ballots, and that Democrats had hired a large team of lawyers to prevent those ballots from being examined. He said a judge was expected to rule the following day. He asserted without evidence that Democrats were fighting the review “because they cheated.”
He also advocated for voter ID, proof of citizenship to vote, and the elimination of mail-in ballots except for military personnel abroad, the ill or disabled, and those on vacation. He claimed 95 percent of Americans support voter ID.
Political Endorsements and 2026 Midterm Campaigning
The event functioned simultaneously as an economic speech and a campaign rally, with Trump offering explicit endorsements:
Burt Jones (Georgia Lieutenant Governor, running for Governor): Trump called his endorsement “complete and total” and praised Jones as a consistent supporter since 2016.
Clay Fuller (District Attorney, running for Congress, March 10 primary): Trump endorsed Fuller “totally and completely” and noted Fuller’s daughter Tallulah had gotten school detention to attend the event, prompting Trump to issue a mock “pardon” for her.
Mike Collins (Congressman, 10th District): Collins announced he would be “kicking Ossoff out” of the U.S. Senate and urged voters to grow the Republican House majority.
Brian Jack (Congressman, 3rd District): Noted Trump had previously endorsed him for Congress at an event in Rome two years earlier.
Trump also named-dropped his endorsement of Barry Loudermilk, who is retiring, defending him against what Trump called a fabricated controversy over a Capitol tour given to constituents before January 6. Trump praised Loudermilk for fighting back aggressively rather than staying quiet.
Herschel Walker and Gunner Stockton
Trump brought to the stage Herschel Walker, the legendary University of Georgia running back and 2022 Senate candidate, and Gunner Stockton, the current UGA quarterback. Both were brief. Walker called Trump “the greatest president the United States has ever had,” emphasized the importance of voting, and said men should not compete in women’s sports. Stockton said simply that meeting a president was “an awesome experience.” Trump joked with both about their physical stature, and Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones — himself a former college quarterback — humbly acknowledged he was no Herschel Walker.
Other Remarks and Rhetorical Moments
“Tired of winning”: Trump revived his signature line about Americans getting so tired of winning they’d beg him to stop, crediting a Georgia official in the audience with reminding him of the line.
State of the Union preview: Trump mentioned he was giving a State of the Union address on Tuesday and promised to discuss economic progress.
Afghanistan and military leadership: In a digression, Trump criticized the Afghanistan withdrawal under Biden, specifically mocking former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley by name for suggesting it was cost-efficient to leave behind $150 million aircraft rather than fly them out. He contrasted this with current military leadership, mentioning “General Raizin Caine” approvingly.
Congressional Medal of Honor joke: Trump joked about giving himself the Congressional Medal of Honor after visiting troops in Iraq during his first term, then walked it back while acknowledging the press would report it straight.
Salary waiver: Trump mentioned for what he said was a rare time that he waives his presidential salary — approximately $2.5 million over four years — calling himself “the only schmuck” never to receive credit for it.
Autopen: Trump continued his criticism of Biden-era governance, suggesting that Biden’s autopen signatures on official documents were improper and demeaning to military officers receiving promotions.
Citation
“Speech: Donald Trump Discusses the Economy in Rome, Georgia – February 19, 2026.” Factbase, powered by FiscalNote StressLens / CQ and Roll Call, 19 Feb. 2026, factba.se. Transcript.
Fact-Check: Trump’s Economic Speech at Coosa Steel, Rome, Georgia — February 19, 2026
CLAIM 1: “Last week it was announced that the United States added 172,000 jobs in the private sector.”
Rating: ACCURATE (with important context)
The January 2026 BLS jobs report confirmed that private payrolls grew by 172,000 jobs in January, well above expectations. That part checks out. However, the broader picture is more complicated than Trump’s framing suggests. Total nonfarm employment for 2025 was revised from a gain of 584,000 to just 181,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis — an average of just over 15,000 jobs per month — after the BLS’s annual benchmark revision downgraded the prior year’s figures by nearly 900,000 jobs. In other words, the headline January number is real, but the annual benchmark revision simultaneously revealed that 2025 job growth was far weaker than previously reported. Trump mentioned cutting 300,000–400,000 public-sector jobs; the report confirmed government payrolls declined by 42,000 in January, with the federal workforce down 327,000 jobs since its October 2024 peak.
CLAIM 2: “In 11 months, we have secured commitments for over $18 trillion” in investment.
Rating: SIGNIFICANTLY EXAGGERATED / FALSE
This is one of Trump’s most persistently inflated claims. The White House’s own website lists $9.6 trillion in investments — roughly half of what Trump claims — and experts say even that figure should be viewed with caution because it includes aspirational, multi-year goals and future purchases of products, rather than only capital investments. A Bloomberg Economics analysis found that of the $9.6 trillion the White House listed, only $7 trillion could be considered “real investment pledges.” The remaining $2.6 trillion included countries’ agreements to purchase items such as natural gas or to expand future trade. Of the roughly $3.5 trillion in foreign pledges, only $128 billion was committed to specific projects at the time of analysis; the rest was split between “not yet specified” commitments and vague promises of future “investment funds.” PolitiFact rated the $18 trillion claim False.
CLAIM 3: “More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country.”
Rating: MISLEADING
Raw employment numbers do reach records over time largely because the population grows. The employment-population ratio — a more meaningful measure of how broadly Americans are actually participating in the workforce — is down slightly since January 2025. The BLS January 2026 report confirmed the labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5 percent and the employment-population ratio at 59.8 percent — neither a record. Saying “more Americans are working” in raw numbers without noting population growth is a standard rhetorical technique that presents a technically defensible but highly misleading picture.
CLAIM 4: “The stock market has set 53 all-time record highs since the election.”
Rating: UNVERIFIABLE AS STATED / CONTEXT NEEDED
This claim cannot be independently confirmed or denied from available sources. It’s worth noting that stock market records set after an election can reflect many factors beyond presidential policy — corporate earnings, Federal Reserve decisions, and global conditions all play major roles. Also note that the market had already been on a long bull run before Trump’s election. The claim also appears frozen at a point in time; markets have been volatile in early 2026 amid tariff uncertainty.
CLAIM 5: “Core inflation is now the lowest of any time in more than seven years” / “The last three months, we’ve had the lowest inflation… it’s 1.4 percent.”
Rating: MIXED — PARTIALLY ACCURATE BUT THE “1.4%” FIGURE IS MISLEADING
The broader inflation trend is real but Trump’s specific 1.4% figure is misleading. The annual core consumer price inflation rate in the United States edged down to 2.5 percent in January 2026, the lowest since March 2021. That’s about four to five years — not seven — and annual core inflation remains at 2.5 percent, not 1.4 percent. The 1.4 percent figure may refer to a very short-term monthly annualized reading, which is not how inflation is typically measured or reported. The annual headline inflation rate was 2.4 percent in January 2026. Inflation has clearly fallen from its 2022 peak, but Trump’s framing significantly overstates how low it currently is.
CLAIM 6: “Gas is now at $2.37 a gallon.”
Rating: FALSE
The AAA national average as of the time of the speech was approximately $2.929 per gallon. No state average was at $2.37. This appears to be a recurring pattern — FactCheck.org documented that during an earlier December 2025 speech, Trump cited low gas prices, but the national average was $2.94 per gallon, and the lowest state average was Oklahoma at $2.37 per gallon — which is almost certainly where today’s figure came from. Trump appears to be citing Oklahoma’s state average as though it were the national average, or conflating a single-state low with the nationwide price. The $2.37 figure is not false as a data point — it just doesn’t describe what Trump says it describes.
CLAIM 7: “The murder rate saw its single largest decline in recorded history to the lowest level in 125 years.”
Rating: HALF TRUE — DIRECTION IS CORRECT, “125 YEARS” IS DISPUTED
The general claim about the murder rate is grounded in real data, though Trump inflates the precision. Experts told PolitiFact the 2025 FBI murder rate will likely end up at a 65-year low. Whether it is the lowest in 125 years is disputed, however, because data prior to 1960 is not comparable to later data. The Council on Criminal Justice — a nonpartisan research group — wrote that if a 20 percent decline from 2024 to 2025 is reflected in national data, the U.S. homicide rate would be the lowest observed since at least 1900, but that projection is based on a sample of 35 large cities and has not yet been confirmed by FBI data. Critically, researchers point to the federal American Rescue Plan Act — passed under Biden — as a primary driver of the sustained crime decline, through $362 billion allocated to state and local governments. Trump takes full credit for a trend that began years before he returned to office and that experts attribute largely to pandemic-era federal spending.
CLAIM 8: “I imposed powerful 50 percent tariffs on foreign steel… and on August 18th, I added new tariffs to cover 400 derivative products, including steel racks.”
Rating: ACCURATE
These specific policy actions are confirmed. Trump did raise steel tariffs to 50 percent and did expand tariff coverage to include derivative steel products. The Coosa Steel revival story is consistent with industry reporting of a sector rebound following expanded tariff protections.
CLAIM 9: Trump’s executive order “banning Wall Street and large institutional investors from buying single-family homes.”
Rating: PARTIALLY ACCURATE — OVERSTATES WHAT THE ORDER ACTUALLY DOES
The executive order is real and was signed, but Trump significantly overstates its immediate force. The executive order, signed January 20, 2026, directs federal agencies to take steps to limit the purchase of single-family homes by large institutional investors, but does not outright ban such investors from purchasing homes, nor does it require the sale of existing portfolios. The executive order requires the Treasury secretary to define the terms “large institutional investor” and “single-family home” — those definitions were due February 19, 2026, the same day as Trump’s speech. In other words, the scope of who is even covered hadn’t been finalized yet when Trump declared he had “ended it.” The order directs agencies to issue guidance and calls for Congress to pass legislation — it is a policy direction, not a completed ban.
CLAIM 10: “Drug prices are being slashed by 400, 500, even 600 percent.”
Rating: UNVERIFIABLE / MISLEADING FRAMING
Trump describes negotiating Most Favored Nation drug pricing with European leaders including Macron, threatening tariffs on wine and champagne if France didn’t comply. The underlying policy direction is real — Trump has pursued MFN pricing — but the claimed reduction percentages are mathematically misleading. A price cannot drop by more than 100 percent. What Trump likely means is that a drug sold for $130 in the U.S. but $10 in Europe represents a ratio of 13:1 — which could be expressed as roughly a 1,200% price disparity. Actual consumer-level drug price reductions on this scale have not been independently confirmed by the time of this speech, and no sourced data supports reductions anywhere near the figures claimed.
CLAIM 11: “We’ve created more than 5,000 manufacturing jobs in Georgia alone.”
Rating: PLAUSIBLE BUT UNVERIFIED
This is a state-level claim that cannot be independently verified from available data. Notably, when Trump made a similar claim for Pennsylvania — crediting his policies for 4,000 new manufacturing jobs — Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that nationally, manufacturing jobs were actually down 49,000 since January 2025. The ADP report for January 2026 confirmed that manufacturing has lost jobs every month since March 2024. The Georgia-specific figure may reflect a localized pattern or may share the same selective framing seen in other state-level claims.
CLAIM 12: “22 Nobel Prize laureates in economics opposed” Trump’s trade policies, and “every one of them admitted” he was right.
Rating: UNVERIFIABLE
No economist or laureate is named, no source is cited, and no reporting has confirmed this specific claim. In 2024, a letter signed by 16 Nobel economics laureates warned that Trump’s tariff and trade proposals would increase inflation — but there is no documentation of those economists publicly recanting.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT
Trump’s speech at Coosa Steel contained a genuine success story at its core — the plant’s documented revival is real — but the economic statistics surrounding it ranged from roughly accurate (private-sector job gains, inflation trending down, crime declining) to significantly exaggerated (the $18 trillion investment figure, the $2.37 gas price, the 1.4% inflation claim) to outright misleading (the 125-year crime record without noting the attribution problem, the executive order described as a complete ban when the key definitions hadn’t even been written yet). The most reliable claims in the speech were the specific, narrow ones. The broadest and most dramatic claims consistently required the most significant qualification.
Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary (January 2026); BLS Consumer Price Index (January 2026); PolitiFact; FactCheck.org; Council on Criminal Justice 2025 Crime Trends Report; FBI Reported Crimes in the Nation 2024; AAA Fuel Prices; White House Executive Order “Stopping Wall Street from Competing with Main Street Homebuyers” (January 20, 2026); Bloomberg Economics; Peterson Institute for International Economics.