After an election campaign marred by lies, many expected Donald Trump's Presidency to feature a fair bit of dishonesty.
Trump successfully stooped low enough to meet people's expectations during his first address to Congress last year, after 51 of his 61 statements were found to be false.
Almost a year on, anyone hoping for a few more facts might be disappointed.
Non-partisan site PolitiFact, which is run by a reporting team at the Florida-based Tampa Bay Times, fact-checked the president's State of the Union Speech last night.
Before the speech, it had already labelled 69 per cent of the president's prior remarks as either 'mostly false', 'false' or 'pants on fire'.
.@realDonaldTrump has been fact-checked by PolitiFact 498 times (before tonight) 🧐 True → 4 percent 😛 Mostly True… https://t.co/SSDWjjPNXQ— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) 1517369800
Here are the seven false statements Trump said during his speech from a total of 23, according to The Independent.
"We enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history."
Trump claims, "We enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history." That's False. #SOTU… https://t.co/423MLTg0rg— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) 1517365331
Trump's tax overhaul actually ranks behind Ronald Raegan's in the early 1980s, tax cuts after the Second World War, and a few others, according to PolitiFact.
His tax cuts are actually the eighth largest over the last century, according to analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
"We are now, very proudly, an exporter of energy to the world."
https://t.co/KvUrUU5P0C https://t.co/mLO1TIHMcz— Share the Facts (@Share the Facts) 1517377838
The US has been exporting energy for a "very long time," Paul Sullivan, a professor at National Defense University, told PolitiFact.
For comparison; it's like British Prime Minister Theresa May boasting in a speech that the UK is "now" really into tea.
"After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages."
NEW TONIGHT: Is the U.S. 'finally seeing rising wages,' as Donald Trump said? We say: Mostly False… https://t.co/DFLb9uqxo4— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) 1517372171
PolitiFact calculated that after Trump entered office, wages initially rose - but then fell. It's this latter part of the story that Trump is skimming over.
In the last quarter of 2017, the figure was $345, slightly below the $349 in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Plus, the "years of wage stagnation" that Trump referenced actually ended under Barack Obama.
This was thanks to high - or as Trump might say, 'very big' - traffic numbers.
Welp ... our website just crashed. Thanks for reading ?!!? We'll keep things up here on Twitter while we see what happened.— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) 1517366945
People made the obvious joke.
Trump literally lies SO much that he broke https://t.co/k1kFWJMp8q ---> https://t.co/6k46HFlXA4— Jesse Ferguson (@Jesse Ferguson) 1517367346
BREAKING: PolitiFact reports that the F, A, L, S, and E keys on all of their computers have worn out #SOTU— Rex Huppke (@Rex Huppke) 1517366168
Thoughts and prayers for @PolitiFact tonight #SOTU— Sarah Kendzior (@Sarah Kendzior) 1517365470
HT Politifact