Assistance from Claude AI.
This fact-check examines the veracity of major claims made by President Donald Trump during his November 25, 2025 press gaggle aboard Air Force One. Claims were verified using authoritative sources including government data, established fact-checking organizations, academic institutions, and investigative journalism. For a summary of the event, click here.
CLAIM 1: “We settled eight wars”
TRUMP’S STATEMENT: “We settled eight wars, and I thought this would be one of the easier ones because of my relationship with President Putin.”
FACT-CHECK VERDICT: EXAGGERATED / MISLEADING
Evidence:
What Trump Claims as “Wars Ended”:
According to multiple fact-checking organizations, Trump’s list of eight conflicts includes:
1. Israel-Hamas (Gaza)
2. Israel-Iran
3. India-Pakistan
4. Armenia-Azerbaijan
5. Cambodia-Thailand
6. Serbia-Kosovo
7. Rwanda-Democratic Republic of Congo
8. Egypt-Ethiopia
Reality Check:
Trump had a hand in ceasefires that eased conflicts between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and Armenia and Azerbaijan, but these were mostly incremental accords without a strong likelihood of long-term peace.
Much work remains before an end to the war between Israel and Hamas can be declared, with major elements remaining to be worked out after the first steps of the ceasefire agreement.
Analysis from independent fact-checkers and international experts finds exaggerations and inaccuracies in the president’s claims, noting that some conflicts on the list were not actually wars, and some clashes have not ended.
Specific Problems with the Count:
- Egypt-Ethiopia: Egypt and Ethiopia have long argued over access to Nile River waterways but have not engaged in armed conflict, making Trump’s claim of ending a war between the countries a real stretch.
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Serbia-Kosovo: The White House lists the conflict between Serbia and Kosovo as one Trump resolved, though the two sides have not been at war during his second term and tensions persist.
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Rwanda-DRC: Although Trump played a key role in progressing the two countries towards peace, violence continues in eastern Congo with ceasefires breaking down and armed rebel groups such as M23 remaining active.
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India-Pakistan: India has denied Trump’s claims about his role in the ceasefire, saying there was no conversation between the U.S. and India on trade in regards to the ceasefire.
Historical Context:
US presidents have played a major role in ending various wars, with President Theodore Roosevelt winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for his role in a peace agreement ending a war between Russian and Japanese empires, President Jimmy Carter playing a major role in brokering a 1979 peace agreement to end a long-running state of war between Egypt and Israel, and President Bill Clinton playing a major role in the 1995 peace agreement that ended the Bosnian War.
Conclusion:
Trump’s claim to have “settled eight wars” is a significant exaggeration. While his administration has been involved in some conflict de-escalation efforts, several items on his list were not wars, some conflicts continue, and the extent of U.S. involvement versus other actors is disputed. The claim that no previous president has ever ended a war is demonstrably false.
CLAIM 2: “DC is now safe. The restaurants are booming, the place is booming. We have no crime.”
TRUMP’S STATEMENT: “DC is now a safe community… We have no crime. And we did that all in a period of three or four weeks.”
FACT-CHECK VERDICT: FALSE
Evidence:
Trump’s Specific Claims:
– Washington D.C. now has “no crime”
– This transformation happened “in a period of three or four weeks”
– Crime is “down 100%”
– D.C. is now “as safe as there is anywhere in the country”
Reality Check:
Publicly available police statistics make clear that crime continues to exist in the city of about 700,000 residents, with more than 790 reported overall offenses during a recent two-week span including more than 85 reported violent offenses.
In the last two weeks ending Sunday August 31, reported overall crime in Washington was about 28% lower than in the two weeks ending the Sunday before the federal takeover, and reported violent crime was down about 7%.
D.C. crime hit a 30-year low in 2024 according to a Justice Department statement in January, down 35% from the city’s 2023 crime wave, and for the first half of 2025 violent crime has dropped in all categories in Washington.
Context on Crime Trends:
According to DOJ data, the district had 274 homicides in 2023 and 187 in 2024, and data from the Metropolitan Police Department shows a drop in homicides for 2025 year-to-date with 99 homicides compared with 112 homicides at the same time in 2024.
The Metropolitan Police Department’s 2025 Year-to-Date Crime Comparison on Aug. 11 showed a 50% reduction in sex abuse cases, a 20% reduction in assaults with a dangerous weapon, a 28% reduction in robberies and a 26% reduction in overall violent crime.
Important Clarification:
Crime was already declining before Trump’s federal intervention. Local police data was already showing that reported crimes were trending downward in Washington prior to the president’s action, with violent crime in the two weeks prior to Aug. 7 down about 20% already from the same period in prior years.
Restaurant Claims:
Despite the data and news reports about the negative impact on dining out, Trump has claimed DC restaurants are “busier than they’ve been in a long time” and said the industry is “like a boom town” because of his actions, though tourism numbers have declined and some restaurants in the District are hurting for customers.
Conclusion:
Trump’s claim that D.C. has “no crime” is objectively false. While crime has declined significantly (which began before his intervention), hundreds of crimes still occur weekly. The assertion of achieving this “in a period of three or four weeks” ignores the longer-term trend of crime reduction that preceded federal involvement.
CLAIM 3: “That’s where you had the young lady burned” (referring to Chicago)
TRUMP’S STATEMENT: “That’s where you had the young lady burned. That’s where you had a lot of killings over the last very short period of time.”
FACT-CHECK VERDICT: TRUE (Incident occurred; context accurate)
Evidence:
The Incident:
On November 17, 2025, Lawrence Reed, 50, poured liquid over a 26-year-old woman’s head on a CTA blue line train and tried to ignite it, then chased her and set her on fire, leaving her with severe burns to her face and body.
The victim has been identified as 26-year-old Bethany MaGee, who was doused in gasoline and set on fire while riding the Chicago Blue Line.
Suspect’s Criminal History:
Reed has been arrested by Chicago police at least 72 times over the past 30 years with at least 15 of the arrests since 2016, and he has approximately 15 convictions including for criminal damage to government property, drug possession and an arson incident in 2020.
Court documents reveal Reed had violated his curfew several times in the days leading up to the attack, and on Nov. 17 an alert went out just after noon that Reed was in violation of his curfew, hours before he allegedly attacked MaGee.
Federal Charges:
Reed was charged with one count of committing a terrorist attack or other violence against a mass transportation system in the Northern District of Illinois.
Conclusion:
This claim is factually accurate. The incident Trump referenced did occur in Chicago on November 17, 2025, and represents a legitimate example of violent crime in the city. The suspect’s extensive criminal history and the fact he was on electronic monitoring at the time of the attack have sparked legitimate debate about criminal justice policies.
CLAIM 4: Venezuela “opened their jails and prisons and dumped them into the United States”
TRUMP’S STATEMENT: “They opened their jails and prisons and dumped them into the United States… they were probably the biggest abuser with Tren de Aragua and all the others that they sent in, the drug dealers, the drug lords.”
FACT-CHECK VERDICT: UNSUBSTANTIATED / FALSE
Evidence:
Expert Analysis:
Carlos Nieto of the Venezuelan nongovernmental organization A Window to Freedom, whose group has been monitoring the prison situation in Venezuela for more than 25 years, told fact-checkers he has observed no evidence that supports Trump’s claim and there definitely is no official state policy to that effect.
According to Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, “While the actions of institutions in Venezuela is not our specialty, we are unaware of any action by Venezuelan authorities or those of any other country to empty its jails and prisons or its mental-health institutions to send criminals or people with mental-health issues to the U.S.”.
Venezuelan Crime Data Context:
From 2022 to 2023 there was a 25% drop in violent deaths in Venezuela according to the independent Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, with criminologists saying the decline is because of the country’s poor economy, mass migration and the government’s extrajudicial killings, not the government emptying prisons.
The Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones, an independent nonprofit that tracks Venezuela’s prison population, has not reported that prisons are emptying out, and in its 2022 report the group said there were more than 33,000 people imprisoned in Venezuela despite a capacity for around 20,000 people.
Official Response:
The Department of Homeland Security did not confirm the existence of an intelligence report about Venezuela sending criminals to the southern U.S. border, as the claim originated with a Breitbart News article that cited an unnamed Customs and Border Protection source.
Venezuelan Journalist Investigation:
Venezuelan investigative journalist Rísquez, author of “The Aragua Train: The gang that revolutionized organized crime in Latin America,” said “There is no element, no evidence, nothing that indicates that in Venezuela prisoners are being released to leave or to be sent to the United States to commit crimes. There is no plan from the Venezuelan government that points toward that.”
Conclusion:
There is no credible evidence supporting Trump’s claim that Venezuela systematically emptied prisons and sent inmates to the United States. While some criminals have emigrated from Venezuela (as with any large migrant population), experts monitoring Venezuelan prisons, independent fact-checkers, and U.S. immigration officials have found no evidence of an organized government program to export criminals. The claim has been repeatedly fact-checked and rated false by multiple organizations.
CLAIM 5: The Affordable Care Act – “the premiums are going up and it’s the Democrat’s fault”
TRUMP’S STATEMENT: “The unaffordable care act has been a disaster… the premiums are going up and it’s the Democrat’s fault.”
FACT-CHECK VERDICT: PARTIALLY TRUE (Premiums are rising, but attribution is more complex)
Evidence:
Premium Increases Are Real:
Premiums for the most popular types of plans sold on the federal health insurance marketplace Healthcare.gov will spike on average by 30 percent next year according to final rates approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
If Congress allows the enhanced premium tax credits to expire at the end of this year, ACA Marketplace enrollees on average would see their premium payments more than double next year, growing by 114% from an average of $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026.
Key Context on Why Premiums Are Rising:
The enhanced tax credits were enacted by a Democratic-led Congress during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 and renewed the following year, and are scheduled to lapse at year’s end.
The expiring beefed-up subsidies along with rising health care costs contributed to insurers hiking rates by 26% on average for next year, with what enrollees will actually pay far higher because they won’t have the additional aid.
Who Is Affected:
More than 90% of enrollees are receiving premium assistance, which for roughly half of policyholders reduces their monthly cost to $0 or near $0, and if the enhanced subsidies lapse about 4 million more people are expected to be uninsured.
On average a 60-year-old couple making $85,000 would see yearly premium payments rise by over $22,600 in 2026 after accounting for an annual premium increase of 18%, bringing the cost of a benchmark plan to about a quarter of this couple’s annual income up from 8.5%.
Political Context:
The enhanced subsidies that are expiring were passed by Democrats. However, the debate over whether to extend them is ongoing in Congress, with Republicans and Democrats disagreeing on the path forward.
Conclusion:
Trump is correct that ACA premiums are rising significantly for 2026. However, the attribution is more nuanced than his statement suggests. The dramatic increases are primarily due to the scheduled expiration of enhanced subsidies that were temporary pandemic-era provisions passed by Democrats. The underlying ACA structure includes subsidies that would still provide assistance, but at lower levels than during the enhanced period. Whether extending or not extending these enhanced subsidies constitutes good or bad policy is a matter of political debate rather than a clear-cut assignment of “fault.”
Summary of Fact-Check Ratings
| Claim | Rating | Key Finding |
|---|---|---|
| Settled eight wars | EXAGGERATED | Some conflicts weren’t wars; some continue; U.S. role disputed in several cases |
| D.C. has “no crime” | FALSE | Crime continues, though significantly reduced; decline began before Trump’s intervention |
| Chicago woman burned | TRUE | Incident occurred as described on November 17, 2025 |
| Venezuela emptying prisons | FALSE | No credible evidence; claim debunked by prison monitors and immigration experts |
| ACA premiums rising | PARTIALLY TRUE | Premiums are rising sharply, but attribution is more complex than stated |
Methodology
This fact-check utilized:
- Official government statistics (DOJ, DHS, Metropolitan Police Department, CBP)
- Established fact-checking organizations (PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, CNN Fact Check)
- Independent research organizations (KFF, Migration Policy Institute, Congressional Budget Office)
- On-the-ground monitoring groups (Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, A Window to Freedom)
- Academic experts in international relations, criminology, and immigration policy
- Court documents and law enforcement records
- Investigative journalism from major news outlets
Works Cited
“Addressing Trump’s Claims About Ending Multiple Wars.” FactCheck.org, 29 Aug. 2025.
“FACT FOCUS: With a Truce in Israel, Trump Now Says He’s Ended Eight Wars. His Numbers Are Off.” U.S. News & World Report, 13 Oct. 2025.
“Fact check: Trump falsely claims no other president has ever ended a war.” CNN Politics, 17 Oct. 2025.
“Fact check: Trump falsely claims Washington, DC, now has no crime at all.” CNN Politics, 3 Sept. 2025.
“Fact-checking Trump’s claims about homicides in DC.” PBS News, 12 Aug. 2025.
“Trump’s DC crime claims don’t match the data.” Axios Washington D.C., 11 Aug. 2025.
“Man accused of setting woman on fire on Chicago train faces federal terrorism charge.” NBC News, 19 Nov. 2025.
“White House Speaks Out After Woman Set on Fire on Chicago Subway.” Newsweek, 25 Nov. 2025.
“Crime Drop in Venezuela Does Not Prove Trump’s Claim the Country Is Sending Criminals to U.S.” FactCheck.org, 21 June 2024.
“Fact-checking claim about Venezuela sending prisoners to the US southern border.” PolitiFact, 29 Sept. 2022.
“ACA Marketplace Premium Payments Would More than Double on Average Next Year if Enhanced Premium Tax Credits Expire.” KFF, 14 Oct. 2025.
“Who will get hit hardest by ACA premium increases in four charts.” CNN Politics, 7 Nov. 2025.
“Average Obamacare premiums are set to rise 30 percent, documents show.” The Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2025.