Trump littered his ’60 Minutes’ interview with false claims and straight-out lies.
The interview opened with Trump speaking confidently about his record, his election victory, and the state of the country. He portrayed an image of overwhelming success — a booming economy, a border under control, and fairness restored to American institutions. Yet, as his comments unfolded, multiple claims he offered turned out to be false or misleading.
He asserted that his electoral win was unquestioned, that “millions” of votes had been stolen from him, and that every official — Republican and Democrat — agreed the 2024 election had been fraudulently stolen. None of that is borne out by the evidence. Election officials across states, including those aligned with his party, repeatedly rejected the notion of widespread fraud.
In discussing the economy, Trump claimed that under his leadership the U.S. was now “the best ever” in terms of employment, inflation was at zero, and that manufacturing was exploding thanks to his tariffs. Yet inflation remains elevated relative to historic norms, manufacturing growth has been sluggish, and many economists say the tariffs created more economic drag than dynamism.
Turning to the border and immigration, Trump insisted the wall was finished and working, and that illegal crossings had dropped to levels unseen in decades. He also claimed that major cities across America were “no-go zones” controlled by gangs and that immigrants were bringing in mass crime at numbers higher than U.S. natives. None of these bold claims match available statistics: the wall remains incomplete in several sectors, illegal crossings have fluctuated rather than hitting historic lows, and while crime is a serious topic, available data do not support the sweeping generalizations he offered.
On foreign policy, Trump said that America “pays essentially the entire cost of NATO’s defense, that North Korea has dismantled all its missiles, and that China is no longer trying to undermine U.S. elections. In fact, the U.S. pays a defined budget share in NATO (which is far less than “essentially the entire cost”), North Korea continues missile production according to U.S. intelligence, and China’s efforts at influence persist and are under ongoing scrutiny.
When pressed on the media, Trump claimed that “60 Minutes” itself and other networks are “rigged” and told lies, that he had been treated unfairly by the press, and that the news media is the “enemy of the people”. While the press may rightly have critiques and biases, the sweeping accusation of systemic deceit by every major outlet is demonstrably overstated and disregards the process of fact-checking and verification many outlets employ.
He also claimed massive tax wins, that the U.S. was gaining trillions in foreign investment solely because of his policies, that climate change is a hoax that “benefits nobody”, and that America had the “cleanest environment” ever under his watch. These assertions distort or ignore key data: foreign investment trends are complex and global, climate science is broadly clear on warming trends and human contribution, and environmental metrics like air and water quality have improved gradually over decades — not solely or primarily under a single presidency.
Through the course of the conversation, Trump’s tone remained combative. He challenged the interviewer, downplayed contradictory evidence, and offered the same set of talking points he has used previously: that he alone restored greatness, corrected historic wrongs, and defeated deep-state forces. Yet each time a claim was offered that could be independently verified, many of them collapsed under scrutiny.
Because the list of false claims reached 18 in number, fact-checkers flagged this interview as another example of repeated misinformation from a major public figure. It was pure Trump.