President Donald Trump used a White House gathering of small business owners from across the country on May 4, 2026, to tout the economic record of his second term — delivering wide-ranging remarks that touched on sweeping tax cuts, a military campaign against Iran, record-breaking manufacturing investment, a Supreme Court setback on tariffs, the revival of Venezuela’s oil sector, and a personal story about renovating the National Mall’s reflecting pool for $1.9 million instead of a government-estimated $350 million. The event, held in honor of National Small Business Week, featured remarks from SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, TV personality and pawn shop owner Rick Harrison, steel company president Andrew Saville, and the presentation of the 2026 National Small Business Person of the Year award to Ohio manufacturer Mark Lamoncha.
The following fact-check evaluates key factual claims made during President Trump’s remarks. Claims are drawn from the full event transcript. Where multiple speakers made claims, the speaker is identified. Verdicts follow a four-tier system: Accurate, Misleading, False, and Unverifiable. Assistance from Claude AI.
Summary Verdict Table
Claim 1 — “36 million small businesses… create 40 percent of all economic activity” → MISLEADING (number of businesses is accurate; economic contribution is understated)
Claim 2 — Biden inflation was the worst in 48 years → MISLEADING (official BLS data places the benchmark at ~41 years, not 48)
Claim 3 — Iran had 159 ships; all were destroyed in the first two weeks → FALSE (pre-war fleet estimates ranged from 67 to ~145 vessels depending on methodology; confirmed losses were a small fraction of any credible count)
Claim 4 — “$18 trillion” in investment during 11 months of his second term → FALSE (the White House’s own tracker listed approximately $9.6 trillion as of late 2025, itself an inflated figure that includes aspirational pledges and non-capital commitments)
Claim 5 — “Jobless claims just hit the lowest level since 1969” → ACCURATE (confirmed by Labor Department data for the week ending April 25, 2026)
Claim 6 — “More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country” → MISLEADING (the raw employment count is a record, but this is primarily a function of population growth; the employment-population ratio tells a more complex story)
Claim 7 — Manufacturing was “38 percent of our economy” and is now 9 percent (speaker: Mark Lamoncha) → MISLEADING (the current ~10% figure is roughly accurate; the historical “38%” claim is not supported by BEA data)
Claim 1: “36 Million Small Businesses… 40 Percent of All Economic Activity”
What Trump said: “The people in this room represent the 36 million small businesses who create 40 percent of all economic activity in the United States.”
Verdict: MISLEADING
The 36 million figure is accurate. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Advocacy released updated data in February 2026 confirming there are 36,207,130 small businesses in the United States (SBA Office of Advocacy, 2026). That figure has been consistent across multiple independent sources.
The “40 percent of all economic activity” figure, however, understates what the SBA’s own data shows. The same February 2026 SBA FAQ report states that small businesses generate 43.5 percent of GDP — not 40 percent (SBA Office of Advocacy, 2026). Earlier research cited by the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed a figure of 43.5 percent of U.S. economic activity as of 2014, and that figure has remained relatively stable (USAFacts, 2025).
In this case, Trump is actually undercounting the contribution of small businesses by about 3.5 percentage points compared to his own administration’s official data. The error favors accuracy in spirit — the claim is directionally correct — but the specific number is off in a way that weakens rather than inflates the case he was making.
Sources:
- SBA Office of Advocacy. (2026, February 3). Frequently asked questions about small business 2026. https://advocacy.sba.gov/2026/02/03/frequently-asked-questions-about-small-business-2026/
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USAFacts. (2025, December 18). What role do small businesses play in the US economy? https://usafacts.org/articles/what-role-do-small-businesses-play-in-the-economy/
Claim 2: Biden Inflation Was the Worst in 48 Years (or Worse)
What Trump said: “The official number is 48 years. I say the worst in — because I don’t believe the 48 years. I say it was worse than that.”
Verdict: MISLEADING
The underlying fact is accurate: inflation reached a multi-decade high under Biden. The distortion is in the timeframe Trump applies to it.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the worst 12-month inflation spike occurred in the year ending June 2022, when the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 9.1% — the largest annual increase in over 40 years, specifically since the 12 months ending November 1981 (FactCheck.org, 2025). November 1981 is approximately 41 years before June 2022, not 48.
Trump’s claim of “48 years” would place the prior comparable inflation around 1974. While the 1970s were also marked by severe inflation, the BLS’s direct comparison benchmark is 1981 — a decade later (FactCheck.org, 2025). Trump inflates the historical comparison by about seven years, making the record sound more dramatic than the official data supports. His assertion that it was “worse than” 48 years lacks any cited support.
That said, the core claim — that Biden-era inflation was the worst in decades and a genuine burden on small businesses — is well-founded. Cumulative CPI growth across Biden’s full term was approximately 21.5%, with an average annual rate near 5% (FactCheck.org, 2025).
Sources:
- FactCheck.org. (2025, October). Biden’s final numbers. https://www.factcheck.org/2025/10/bidens-final-numbers/
Claim 3: Iran Had 159 Ships; All Were Destroyed in the First Two Weeks
What Trump said: “They had 159 ships. How many do they have left, Kelly, out of 159? Zero. 159 ships — in the first two weeks, 159 ships.”
Verdict: FALSE
This claim has two distinct problems: the pre-war fleet count is not supported by credible open-source assessments, and the claim that all vessels were destroyed is not corroborated by official U.S. military statements.
On fleet size: Multiple independent military tracking sources placed Iran’s pre-war naval inventory well below 159. GlobalMilitary.net, updated in April 2026, lists 97 active naval vessels for the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN) (GlobalMilitary.net, 2026). The World Directory of Modern Military Warships estimated 67 frontline commissioned vessels as of early 2025. A broader count that includes both the IRIN and the separate Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy — which operates hundreds of fast-attack craft and smaller watercraft — can reach 145+ vessels according to SlashGear (2026), but these are operationally distinct forces with very different capabilities. No credible open-source military assessment supports a figure of 159 for the IRIN alone.
On total destruction: The Wikipedia article on the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, citing U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) press releases, reports that on March 1, 2026 — the first day of the conflict — Trump himself announced that nine IRIN vessels had been sunk, and that CENTCOM on March 3 confirmed 11 vessels eliminated in the Gulf of Oman (Wikipedia, 2026). Neither CENTCOM releases nor independent reporting corroborates a claim of total fleet destruction. Trump’s characterization that Kelly Loeffler confirmed “zero” ships remain is a rhetorical exchange at the event, not a sourced military assessment.
The broader claim — that the U.S. military campaign inflicted severe damage on Iran’s navy — is consistent with available reporting. The specific figure of 159 ships entirely destroyed in two weeks is not.
Sources:
- GlobalMilitary.net. (2026, April 18). Islamic Republic of Iran Navy: Fleet inventory (2026). https://www.globalmilitary.net/navies/irn/
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Wikipedia. (2026, April). Islamic Republic of Iran Navy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Republic_of_Iran_Navy
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SlashGear. (2026, March 2). How many warships does Iran’s navy have? https://www.slashgear.com/2113938/how-many-warships-does-iran-navy-have/
Claim 4: “$18 Trillion” in Investment During 11 Months of the Second Term
What Trump said: “We have $18 trillion being invested in our country… in 11 months, $18 trillion of investments.”
Verdict: FALSE
This is one of Trump’s most persistently fact-checked claims, and it has been rated false or misleading by multiple independent organizations using the White House’s own published figures as a baseline.
The White House maintains a webpage tracking investment commitments. As of late 2025, that tracker listed approximately $9.6 trillion — roughly half of what Trump routinely claims (PolitiFact, 2025; FactCheck.org, 2025; Al Jazeera, 2025). Even that $9.6 trillion figure has been heavily qualified by economists and analysts. A Bloomberg Economics analysis found that of the $9.6 trillion listed, only approximately $7 trillion could be considered genuine investment pledges; the remaining $2.6 trillion consisted of countries’ agreements to purchase natural gas or expand trade — which don’t constitute capital investment (PolitiFact, 2025).
Several line items on the White House tracker are themselves questionable. Pledges from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are described as multiple times larger than those countries’ entire annual gross domestic product, which raises serious questions about their feasibility (Al Jazeera, 2025). The NBC News State of the Union fact-check in February 2026 found that more than $250 billion of the White House pledges were announced or planned before Trump retook office (NBC News, 2026).
The “less than $1 trillion” comparison to Biden is also contested. The Biden administration documented more than $1 trillion in private-sector investment announcements, largely driven by the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act (FactCheck.org, 2025).
PolitiFact rated the $18 trillion claim False in December 2025. FactCheck.org came to a similar conclusion. This is a claim Trump has been making in steadily escalating form since his first day in office — starting at $3 trillion and rising to $21-22 trillion in some versions — with no independent verification at any stage.
Sources:
- PolitiFact. (2025, December 9). Trump says the US secured at least $18 trillion worth of investments this year. That’s wrong. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/dec/09/donald-trump/foreign-corporate-investment-18-22-trillion/
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FactCheck.org. (2025, December 12). Factchecking Trump’s economic speech. https://www.factcheck.org/2025/12/factchecking-trumps-economic-speech/
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Al Jazeera. (2025, December 19). Fact check: Trump says the US secured $20 trillion in investments this year. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/12/19/fact-check-trump-says-the-us-secured-20-trillion-in-investments-this-year/
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NBC News. (2026, February 25). Fact-checking Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/state-of-union-fact-check-trump-speech-2026-rcna259900
Claim 5: “Jobless Claims Just Hit the Lowest Level Since 1969”
What Trump said: “Jobless claims just hit the lowest level since 1969.”
Verdict: ACCURATE
This claim is supported by Labor Department data. For the week ending April 25, 2026 — days before the summit — initial jobless claims fell to 189,000, a drop of 26,000 from the prior week (U.S. Department of Labor, 2026). According to High Frequency Economics, that figure was the fewest initial claims since September 1969 (PBS NewsHour, 2026; ABC News, 2026; Bloomberg, 2026).
Context is worth noting, however. The low claims figure reflects what economists describe as a “low-hire, low-fire” labor market — companies are not laying off workers, but they are also hiring at a historically slow pace. PBS NewsHour reported that employers added fewer than 200,000 jobs in all of 2025, compared with about 1.5 million in 2024, and that the February 2026 jobs report showed a net loss of 92,000 positions (PBS NewsHour, 2026). Jobless claims measure how many people are newly filing for unemployment, not how many are being hired — a distinction Trump did not provide.
Sources:
- PBS NewsHour. (2026, April 30). Weekly U.S. jobless claims fall to 189,000, lowest in more than five decades. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/weekly-u-s-jobless-claims-fall-to-189000-lowest-in-more-than-five-decades
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U.S. Department of Labor. (2026, April). Unemployment insurance weekly claims report. https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
Claim 6: “More Americans Are Working Today Than at Any Time in the History of Our Country”
What Trump said: “More people are working in the United States right now than ever before.”
Verdict: MISLEADING
The raw total employment figure — an absolute count of employed Americans — is at or near a record. However, this claim lacks essential context: the U.S. population has never been larger than it is today. A country that adds tens of millions of residents every decade will naturally see rising raw employment counts over time regardless of economic policy.
The more analytically meaningful measure is the employment-population ratio, which tracks the share of working-age Americans who are employed. FactCheck.org noted in its December 2025 economic fact-check that the record employment claim is “largely due to population growth” and that the employment-population ratio had “fallen slightly since January” of Trump’s second term (FactCheck.org, 2025).
Additionally, NBC News’s State of the Union fact-check noted that 2025 was the worst year for job creation since 2020 — and the worst year excluding recessions since 2003 — with only 584,000 total jobs added (NBC News, 2026). The headline number is technically defensible; the implied conclusion — that the labor market is at historic strength because of Trump’s policies — is not well-supported by the broader evidence.
Sources:
- FactCheck.org. (2025, December 12). Factchecking Trump’s economic speech. [See Source 8]
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NBC News. (2026, February 25). Fact-checking Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address. [See Source 10]
Claim 7: Manufacturing Was “38 Percent of Our Economy” and Is Now 9 Percent (Speaker: Mark Lamoncha)
What Lamoncha said: “Manufacturing used to be 38 percent of our economy, and it’s down to nine percent.”
Verdict: MISLEADING
Lamoncha’s concern about manufacturing’s decline is directionally accurate, and the current figure is in the right neighborhood. The historical benchmark, however, is significantly exaggerated.
According to Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data tracked by TheGlobalEconomy.com and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, manufacturing’s share of nominal U.S. GDP was approximately 27 percent in 1950 and approximately 28 percent in 1953 — never approaching 38 percent under any standard measurement methodology (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 2010; TheGlobalEconomy.com). The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s historical data shows the manufacturing share of nominal GDP stood at 27% in 1950 and 12.1% by 2007, with the current level near 10% (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 2010).
As for the current figure, Lamoncha’s “nine percent” is close. TheGlobalEconomy.com shows manufacturing’s value added reached a low of 9.98 percent of GDP in 2024 (TheGlobalEconomy.com). The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s FRED database shows the sector at approximately 10-11 percent in recent quarters (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, VAPGDPMA series).
It’s also worth noting that manufacturing’s decline in nominal GDP share is partly a measurement artifact: manufactured goods have become dramatically cheaper relative to services due to productivity gains and automation. In real (inflation-adjusted) terms, manufacturing’s share of GDP has been more stable. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that manufacturing’s share of real GDP ranged from 11.3% to 13.6% since the 1940s — a much smaller decline than nominal comparisons imply, and with no starting point near 38% (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 2017).
Sources:
- Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. (2010). Is U.S. manufacturing disappearing? https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/blogs/midwest-economy/2010/isusmanufacturing
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TheGlobalEconomy.com. (2024). USA share of manufacturing. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/USA/Share_of_manufacturing/
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Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. (2017, April). Is U.S. manufacturing really declining? FRED Economic Data. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/april/us-manufacturing-really-declining
Claims Not Independently Verifiable From Available Sources
Several additional claims in the transcript could not be fully verified or refuted based on available search results and are flagged here for transparency.
“129 regulations eliminated for every new one approved” — The administration has publicly stated this ratio. Independent tracking of the Federal Register by regulatory scholars would be needed to verify it. This figure has not yet been rated by major fact-checking organizations.
“Biden added $6 trillion worth of new regulations and created an estimated 356 hours of paperwork every year for small businesses” — The paperwork burden claim appears related to an SBA Office of Advocacy study on regulatory compliance costs. The $6 trillion regulatory cost figure reflects the administration’s own estimates and has not been independently audited.
SBA Administrator Loeffler’s claim of “$45 billion in lending to 85,000 small businesses in 2025 — an all-time SBA record — with 53 percent fewer staff” — These are official agency performance figures. Independent verification from SBA annual performance reports was not completed within the scope of this fact-check.
“Under the last administration, 1 in 4 new jobs was a government job” — This claim references the ratio of public to private sector job creation under Biden. It is plausible given that government employment expanded during the Biden years, but the specific “1 in 4” ratio requires BLS Current Employment Statistics verification.
Manufacturing wages: “$2,500 increase under Trump vs. $840 fall under Biden” — These figures reference real wage changes for manufacturing workers. BLS data on manufacturing wages would be the appropriate primary source for verification, which was not completed here.
Overgeneralization
Trump repeatedly presented individual favorable metrics — particularly the April 25 jobless claims figure — as evidence of an across-the-board strong labor market, while omitting countervailing data: the slowest pace of job creation since 2020 in 2025 (584,000 total new jobs), a February 2026 report showing a net loss of 92,000 positions, and an employment-population ratio that has not improved since he took office (NBC News, 2026; PBS NewsHour, 2026). Cherry-picking favorable single-week snapshots while ignoring the trend is a consistent pattern in these remarks.
This fact-check was produced for editorial purposes. All claims are evaluated against primary government sources and established news organizations with editorial standards. Verdicts reflect the state of publicly available evidence at the time of publication.
All Sources
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SBA Office of Advocacy. (2026, February 3). Frequently asked questions about small business 2026. https://advocacy.sba.gov/2026/02/03/frequently-asked-questions-about-small-business-2026/
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USAFacts. (2025, December 18). What role do small businesses play in the US economy? https://usafacts.org/articles/what-role-do-small-businesses-play-in-the-economy/
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FactCheck.org. (2025, October). Biden’s final numbers. https://www.factcheck.org/2025/10/bidens-final-numbers/
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GlobalMilitary.net. (2026, April 18). Islamic Republic of Iran Navy: Fleet inventory (2026). https://www.globalmilitary.net/navies/irn/
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Wikipedia. (2026, April). Islamic Republic of Iran Navy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Republic_of_Iran_Navy
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SlashGear. (2026, March 2). How many warships does Iran’s navy have? https://www.slashgear.com/2113938/how-many-warships-does-iran-navy-have/
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PolitiFact. (2025, December 9). Trump says the US secured at least $18 trillion worth of investments this year. That’s wrong. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/dec/09/donald-trump/foreign-corporate-investment-18-22-trillion/
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FactCheck.org. (2025, December 12). Factchecking Trump’s economic speech. https://www.factcheck.org/2025/12/factchecking-trumps-economic-speech/
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Al Jazeera. (2025, December 19). Fact check: Trump says the US secured $20 trillion in investments this year. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/12/19/fact-check-trump-says-the-us-secured-20-trillion-in-investments-this-year/
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NBC News. (2026, February 25). Fact-checking Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/state-of-union-fact-check-trump-speech-2026-rcna259900
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PBS NewsHour. (2026, April 30). Weekly U.S. jobless claims fall to 189,000, lowest in more than five decades. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/weekly-u-s-jobless-claims-fall-to-189000-lowest-in-more-than-five-decades
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U.S. Department of Labor. (2026, April). Unemployment insurance weekly claims report. https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
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Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. (2010). Is U.S. manufacturing disappearing? https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/blogs/midwest-economy/2010/isusmanufacturing
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TheGlobalEconomy.com. (2024). USA share of manufacturing. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/USA/Share_of_manufacturing/
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Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. (2017, April). Is U.S. manufacturing really declining? FRED Economic Data. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/april/us-manufacturing-really-declining