On Nov. 15, former president Donald Trump made an announcement at his club in Mar-a-Lago, FL, stating he will be running for reelection in 2024. In his hour-long speech, Trump made outlandish statements including claiming his administration created the best economy in the world and that President Joe Biden said he was in Florida while visiting Idaho. I will be fact checking my favorite of the ridiculous claims made in this speech.

Number 1. “And yet I’ve gone decades, decades without a war. The first president to do it for that long a period.”
Sir, you were in office for four years, last I checked, a decade is 10 years.

Number 2. “We were $1.87 a gallon for gasoline and now it’s hitting five, six, seven and even eight dollars and it’s going to go really bad.”
Where was this $1.87 gas exactly? Please let me know, I want to be there. Alas this place only exists in my dreams. While I agree, gas is pretty expensive right now, it is currently leveling out (down to $3.74) and Trump’s statement is a gross over exaggeration. The national average for gas prices when he left office was around $2.39 and the national average this year during its most expensive period was around $5.00. Some states exceeded this but $8 is a stretch.

Number 3. “Together we built the greatest economy in the history of the world.”
In the “history of the world” is a lot of history to have. Unfortunately for Trump, this is incorrect.

Number 4. “And Ukraine, which would have never happened if I were your president.”
It probably would have happened either way, but we wouldn’t be in support of Ukraine. The US would officially be in support of Trump’s best friend President Vladimir Putin.

Number 5. “We’re going to unify people. And it was happening in the previous administration, previous to the previous.”
I didn’t know Trump was such an Obama administration fan, since that was the administration “previous to the previous.” Also, the country has never been more divided between Democrats and Republicans, and what increased this dramatically was Trump’s political career.

Number 6. “We built the wall. We completed the wall. And then we said, ‘Let’s do more,’ and we did a lot more.”
He did not complete the wall. The US southern border is 1,951 miles and when Trump left office, 458 miles had been completed. 280 identified for construction were left incomplete. Also, the wall is more of a large fence.

Number 7. “Obama took a lot of things with him.”
I guess Trump is not an Obama fan after all. Obama did not take documents from the White House; the National Archives and Records did. They took the documents to their facility in Chicago where Obama’s presidential library will be, as they do after every administration.

Number 8.
“They say the ocean will rise 1/8 of an inch over the next 200 to 300 years. But don’t worry about nuclear weapons that can take out entire countries with one shot.”

When did people say they aren’t concerned about nuclear weapons? Obviously they are an issue but climate change is also an issue. The ocean is not rising an eighth of an inch over the next 200 to 300 years. According to the EPA, the ocean could rise up to 10-12 inches above the current water level by 2030, which could be catastrophic.

The list of false claims from this speech alone goes on and on, along with wild and comical statements. If I reacted to all of them, it would take all day or perhaps the rest of my senior year.