President Donald Trump delivered one of his first major speeches of his second administration Tuesday night, addressing a joint session of Congress. The president spoke for 100 minutes, touting his early action on immigration, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, increasing energy production, and other moves. He also made false or misleading claims on several topics.
Claim: More Americans Say U.S. Is Heading in the Right Direction Than the Wrong Direction
Trump said early in his address that “for the first time in modern history, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction. In fact,” he added, “it’s an astonishing record: 27-point swing, the most ever.”
According to Real Clear Politics, which averages right direction/wrong track polls, more Americans say the country is on the wrong track than going in the right direction, with a current gap of 9 percentage points. The polls have not shown right-direction sentiments exceeding the number of wrong-track responses since at least January 2009, when RCP started its polling average on the topic. In the entire month of February, only one pollster—Rasmussen Reports—published results showing more Americans saying the U.S. was heading in the right direction than on the wrong track, 48 percent to 47 percent. And Rasmussen’s most recent survey, from February 23-27, shows some regression, with only 45 percent saying the country is heading in the right direction compared with 50 percent saying it’s on the wrong track. The only 2025 poll included in RCP’s average to show at least 50 percent of respondents selecting “right direction” was from Emerson College—in a January 27-28 survey—which showed 52 percent saying the U.S. is headed in the right direction.
Trump’s claim about a “27-point swing” is correct to the extent that the gap on November 8, 2024—right after the election—was 36.5 percent according to RCP and stands at 9 percent today, though he did not provide a timeframe in his speech. It is a substantial swing, but far from a record. Biden saw a 33.9 percent swing in the RCP average from the time Trump’s first presidential term expired to the beginning of March 2021. Even before that, former President Barack Obama saw a bigger swing in his first few months as president. From January 26, 2009—six days after Obama’s inauguration and the first day RCP began tracking its right direction/wrong track polling averages—to March 2009, survey respondents swung 26.9 percent toward “right direction.”
Claim: Paris Climate Accords Were Costing U.S. Taxpayers ‘Trillions of Dollars’
Trump touted his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement by claiming it was costing U.S. taxpayers “trillions of dollars.” “I withdrew from the unfair Paris climate accord,” he said, “which was costing us trillions of dollars that other countries were not paying.”
But the climate agreement has not “cost” us trillions of dollars—or anywhere near that amount. Per the text of the Paris Agreement, which the U.S. first signed in April 2016, developed countries “should continue to take the lead in mobilizing climate finance from a wide variety of sources, instruments and channels, noting the significant role of public funds.” According to a White House fact sheet put out by the Biden administration, the U.S. spent more than $11 billion in “international climate financing” in 2024, up from $1.5 billion annually in 2021.
Former President Barack Obama in November 2014 pledged to contribute $3 billion annually to the Green Climate Fund, which the Paris Agreement also funds. But by the time Obama left the White House, only $1 billion had made its way to the Green Climate Fund through two separate $500 million payments in 2016 and 2017. The second payment was issued only days before Trump’s first inauguration. Similarly, Biden—who had the U.S. rejoin the Paris Agreement in January 2021—contributed an additional $1 billion to the Green Climate Fund between April and December 2023. These transactions are publicly listed on USAspending.gov, the federal government’s online resource for federal spending.
When asked for the source of Trump’s “trillions” figure, a White House spokesman shared with The Dispatch Fact Check an April 2016 report from the conservative Heritage Foundation examining the economic impact the Paris Agreement would have on the U.S. “Economists have estimated that, by 2035, the Paris Accords would have cost ‘nearly 400,000 jobs, a total income loss of more than $20,000 for a family of four, and an aggregate GDP loss of over $2.5 trillion,” the White House spokesman said, quoting the Heritage report. However, GDP is a measurement of all final goods and services produced in a region. Decreases in GDP are not expenses paid by federal taxpayers, and Heritage’s time frame for GDP losses is 10 years into the future.
Trump also claimed that he “terminated” the Green New Deal, which he referred to as the “green new scam,” and that he “ended the last administration’s insane electric vehicle mandate.” Trump previously pledged to end both programs in his inaugural address. However, as The Dispatch Fact Check noted at the time, neither of those programs currently exist.
The only problem is that two policies he promised to repeal—the Green New Deal and an electric vehicle mandate—were never implemented in the first place. While Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York introduced a Green New Deal bill in 2019—prior to the Biden presidency—it never even made it out of committee.
Nor has the federal government imposed an electric vehicle mandate, per se. However, the Biden-led Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March announced new rules regulating emissions from new cars made between 2027 and 2032. While not requiring consumers and car manufacturers to produce or buy electric vehicles, the Biden administration “establishe[d] new, more stringent vehicle emissions standards for criteria pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions” for new cars made after 2027, with the hope that those emission regulations would increase the market share of electric and hybrid vehicles in the automobile industry.
On his first day back in the White House, Trump issued an executive order “to eliminate the ‘electric vehicle (EV) mandate’ and promote true consumer choice.”
While Biden’s regulations on gas-powered vehicle emissions—and any other “government-imposed market distortions” that encourage American consumers to pursue electric alternatives—might be scrapped under Trump’s executive order, there was no “electric vehicle mandate” under the Biden administration.
Claim: Trump Ended DEI Programs in the ‘Private Sector’
Trump also took a victory lap for ending diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. “We’ve ended the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government,” he said. “And indeed the private sector and our military.”
A White House spokesman clarified to The Dispatch Fact Check that Trump was referring to private companies that, on their own initiative, changed their DEI policies after Trump targeted DEI practices in the federal government. “After President Trump announced his end of DEI in the federal government,” he said, “private companies followed suit.” The spokesman listed Disney, Institutional Shareholder Services, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Victoria’s Secret, State Street, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Bank of America, BlackRock, Citigroup, Pepsi, Morgan Stanley, Deloitte, Google, Accenture, Amazon, and Target as companies that have scaled back or eliminated their DEI policies since Trump took office. Other companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Ben & Jerry’s, Costco, and Delta Air Lines, have stated that they are committed to continuing their diversity efforts.
Trump issued executive orders during his first week in office to end DEI programs in the federal government and the U.S. military. In a separate executive order issued that same week, he claimed that DEI practices violated the nondiscrimination clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That executive order did not order a shutdown of DEI practices in the private sector. The president has no more authority to eliminate DEI programs in the private sector than he has to decree an end to “casual Friday” for private companies. But Trump did push private companies to end DEI programs on their own accord and directed federal officials to investigate companies’ DEI programs that may violate federal civil rights law.
The order requires that the attorney general and other federal officials draw up a report of “recommendations for enforcing Federal civil-rights laws and taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.” And the order stipulates that “each agency shall identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, State and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars.” Trump’s executive order also expects the report to include further suggestions “to encourage” private businesses to end DEI practices, litigation that it could bring to court against companies continuing so-called illegal DEI practices, and “potential regulatory action.”
On February 5, Attorney General Pam Bondi followed up on Trump’s executive order in a memo to the Justice Department. “To fulfill the Nation’s promise of equality for all Americans,” she wrote, “the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division will investigate, eliminate, and penalize illegal DEI and DEIA [diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility] preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities in the private sector and in educational institutions that receive federal funds.” Bondi, in a footnote, listed some exceptions to this protocol. She added, “It does not prohibit educational, cultural, or historical observances-such as Black History Month, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or similar events-that celebrate diversity, recognize historical contributions, and promote awareness without engaging in exclusion or discrimination.”
Claim: U.S. Suffered ‘Worst Inflation in 48 Years’ Under the Biden Administration
Trump claimed inflation under the Biden administration wasn’t just bad—it was record-breaking. “We suffered the worst inflation in 48 years,” Trump said. “But perhaps even in the history of our country—they’re not sure.”
The U.S. did experience high inflation during Biden’s stint as president, but it was not as historically significant as Trump claims. Month-to-month inflation—as calculated by percentage change in the consumer price index (CPI), which measures price changes for a basket of goods and services—hit a high of 9.1 percent in June 2021. Inflation remained at or above 6 percent for 17 consecutive months between October 2021 and February 2023.
That’s not a 48-year record. Inflation sat above 9.1 percent from January 1979 to November 1981, with a high of 14.8 percent in March 1980. But that wasn’t an all-time record either. Since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking CPI data in 1913, the highest single-month inflation came during the Great Depression in June 1920 at 23.7 percent.
Claim: Tariffs Will Bring in ‘Trillions of Dollars’ in Federal Revenue
Trump championed his tariff agenda by claiming that it would usher in “trillions of dollars” in federal revenue. “We will take in trillions and trillions of dollars and create jobs like we have never seen before,” Trump said.
This is highly unlikely. According to Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) records for custom duties tax receipts, the U.S. government collected $86.4 billion from tariffs in the final quarter of 2024. The highest amount of tariff revenue recorded was in the second quarter of 2022, at nearly $109 billion. Prior to the first Trump administration, tariff revenue had not exceeded $45 billion.
Federal revenue estimates from Trump’s recently imposed tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico still leave Trump short of his lofty goal. Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, estimated this week that Trump’s tariffs on those three nations will reap only $142 billion this year. Plus, Trump announced Thursday he was pausing some of the recently announced tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
How does the Trump administration intend to increase tariff revenue into the trillions? “A new ‘External Revenue Service’ will collect tariff income, which the Tax Foundation estimates could generate between $2.7 and $4.5 trillion in customs duty revenues,” a White House spokesman told The Dispatch Fact Check, sharing a different November 2024 report from the Tax Foundation’s York. While she did publish those estimates, York noted them with two critical qualifiers: Those figures neither factor in “how the taxes would shrink the US economy” nor account for “income and payroll tax offsets.”
However, it’s possible that tariff hikes could cause revenues to decrease. When the price of a good increases, fewer consumers will purchase the product, bringing in less revenue. “Tax revenue generally rises with the rate until its costs get so onerous that the taxed activity declines and revenue begins to fall,” Dispatch contributor Scott Lincicome wrote this summer. “Economists disagree about the exact ‘revenue-maximizing’ tax rate and about the taxes’ growth effects, but they all agree that the Laffer Curve exists—including for tariffs.”
In fact, the same Tax Foundation report shared by the White House spokesman defending Trump’s claim actually rejects the premise that Trump’s tariffs will boost federal revenue. “Those same tariffs would cause enough economic damage, especially if met with any foreign retaliation, to offset the entire economic benefit of making the individual provisions permanent,” York wrote. “In other words, attempting to ‘pay for’ making the individual provisions permanent by imposing universal baseline tariffs would cause a net reduction in tax revenues and economic output, while simultaneously increasing the tax burden on lower- and middle-income taxpayers.”
Claim: Agricultural Goods Imported from Foreign Countries Are Not Inspected
Trump, in defending his tariffs placed on agriculture goods imported to the U.S., claimed that those imported goods undergo no safety inspections. “They are uninspected, they may be very dirty and disgusting when they come in, and they pour in and they hurt our American farmers.”
Imported food items “are subject to” health and safety inspections by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials when they first enter the country. “FDA may detain shipments of products offered for import if the shipments are found not to be in compliance with U.S. requirements.” Nor are those imported goods subject to a less-rigid inspection. The FDA adds, “Both imported and domestically-produced foods must meet the same legal requirements in the United States.” Moreover, importers bringing food goods into the U.S. must first send “prior notice” of the items to the FDA, unless all the food is for personal consumption.
But there are credible concerns that some imported food might be slipping through the cracks of federal inspectors. According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published in January, the FDA fails to meet its target number of inspections for imported food items. The FDA Food Modernization Act of 2011 set a target of 19,200 foreign food safety inspections annually, but the GAO report shows that the FDA averaged a mere 917 inspections annually between 2019 and 2023. FDA officials interviewed by GAO investigators said they failed to even come close to its target because the agency is understaffed.
Claim: Panama Canal Construction Killed 38,000 Workers
In his speech, Trump again pushed to reacquire the Panama Canal. “It was built at tremendous cost of American blood and treasure,” he said. “38,000 workers died building the Panama Canal. They died of malaria, they died of snakebites and mosquitoes.”
As the Dispatch Fact Check previously reported, Trump’s 38,000 figure is an exaggeration of estimated worker fatalities during the canal’s construction.
38,000 workers did not die while America constructed the Panama Canal. According to the Panama Canal Authority’s website, “5,609 lives were lost from disease and accidents during the American construction era,” per archived hospital records. When including estimates of worker deaths during the failed French construction of the canal, the combined death toll reaches about 25,000. “However, the true number will never be known, since the French only recorded the deaths that occurred in hospital,” the Panama Canal Authority added.
A White House spokesman referred The Dispatch Fact Check to an August 2021 article in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases, from its senior managing editor Byron Breedlove “During the effort to build the canal in the 1880s, more than 22,000 workers from France died, many from malaria and yellow fever, before the etiologies of those tropical diseases were understood,” Breedlove wrote. “Records indicate that during the period of US construction, more than 55,000 people were employed and an estimated 5,600 died of injury and disease.” However, the White House spokesman also pointed to an April 2018 article in The Conversation from then-Yale doctoral candidate Caroline Lieffers, who wrote that “many historians think the real toll was several times higher” than the official total of 5,609.
Moreover, it appears Trump’s “38,000” figure also includes worker fatalities from construction of the Panama Canal Railway. “In addition to the Canal, the United States was also responsible for the construction of the Panama Railroad,” a White House spokesman told The Dispatch Fact Check. “The Canal—which was later built parallel to the Railroad—benefited from the construction, which cleared dense forests and terrain and made the Canal feasible.” He added, though without citing a primary source, “Roughly 12,000 workers died during construction of the Panama Railroad.”
Trump falsely claimed that Panama violated a treaty with the U.S. by giving control of the canal to China. “It [the canal] was given away by the Carter administration for $1,” he said. “But that agreement has been violated very severely. We didn’t give it to China,” Trump added, “we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
But the U.S.-Panama Treaty was not a business transaction where the canal was sold, but was an agreement to allow Panama to operate the canal in exchange for indefinite access to its waterway. As The Dispatch Fact Check previously reported,
Former President Jimmy Carter agreed in 1977 to return the canal to Panamanian jurisdiction in phases that ended with Panama taking full control of the canal in 1999. In return, Panama guaranteed the U.S. and all other nations neutral access to the canal. As outlined in the U.S.-Panama treaty, the canal “shall remain secure and open to peaceful transit by the vessels of all nations on terms of entire equality, so that there will be no discrimination against any nation, or its citizens or subjects, concerning the conditions or charges of transit, or for any other reason.”
When asked how to clarify how Panama violated the treaty, a White House spokesman told The Dispatch Fact Check, “The Torrijos–Carter treaties mobilized the process of granting the Panamanians ‘free control’ of the canal so long as Panama signed a treaty guaranteeing the permanent neutrality of the canal. … Panama gave control of the ports at the Canal’s Atlantic and Pacific outlets to Hong-Kong based Hutchison Ports Holdings,” the White House spokesman said, “voiding the neutrality clause by favoring China.” But, as The Dispatch Fact Check also previously reported, that is not a violation of the U.S.-Panama treaties.
Panama also continues to operate the canal—not China. When Panama obtained full control of the canal at the turn of the 21st-century, the country awarded a contract to a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based company Hutchinson-Whampoa—later renamed CK Hutchinson Holdings following a merger with another Hong Kong-based company—to operate two shipping ports located on both ends of the canal, essentially privatizing the ports that were formerly government-run. The company has no jurisdiction or control over the canal itself, as that authority is vested with a Panamanian government agency, the Panama Canal Authority.
Claim: Europe Has Spent More Money Buying Russian Oil Than on Ukraine’s Defense
Trump attempted to draw a contrast between European and American financial support for Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion. “Europe has sadly spent more money buying Russian oil and gas than they’ve spent on defending Ukraine, by far,” he said. “Think of that,” he added. “They’ve spent more buying Russian oil and gas than they have defending.”
But Europe has actually spent more money on Ukraine’s defense than on Russian oil and gas purchases, not less. A report last month from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA)—a environmental research think-tank based in Helsinki, Finland—found that European imports of Russian fossil fuels in 2024 totaled 21.9 billion euros, or about $23.6 billion. The Ukraine Support Tracker—a project of the German-based research think tank, the Kiel Institute—shows that European nations and institutions gave a combined 43.4 billion euros, or $46.9 billion, to the Ukrainian government in 2024.
Trump then claimed that the U.S. paid $350 billion for Ukraine’s defense since 2022, while asserting that Europe has contributed only $100 billion.”We’ve spent perhaps $350 billion, like taking candy from a baby,” he said. “And they’ve [Europe] spent $100 billion. What a difference that is,” Trump added. “Biden has authorized more money in this fight than Europe has spent by billions and billions of dollars.”
Trump exaggerates the amount of funding the U.S. has allocated for Ukraine’s defense while understating Europe’s contributions. Since Russia’s invasion, Congress has authorized Ukraine defense aid on five separate occasions totaling $174.2 billion. However, that authorized funding does not instantly mail cash to Ukraine as soon as the bill’s ink dries, but first needs to be allocated toward specific projects. Some of those funds, instead of being sent directly to Ukraine, is spent in the U.S. to resupply U.S. weapon stockpiles, given to humanitarian aid institutions helping Ukraine, and other uncompleted contracts serving Ukraine’s defense. The Ukrainian Support Tracker shows a total of 114.2 billion euros, or $123.2 billion, allocated to the Ukrainian government by the U.S. between January 2022 and December 2024.
Nor has American support for Ukraine totaled anywhere near $350 billion. Even calculating in debt-servicing expenses—costs incurred from having to borrow additional money, which the Cato Institute’s Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett estimated in April 2024 would come out to $66 billion by 2034—would still only bring the combined total to just over $240 million.
Further, Biden did not authorize these payments to Ukraine unilaterally. All five packages were passed by Congress, and votes did not follow strict party lines. For example, the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2022, the second bill passed granting Ukraine financial aid, gained the support of 39 of the GOP’s 50 senators and 149 GOP House members. The most recent bill passed that secured funding for Ukraine, in April 2024, received the support of 101 of the GOP House caucus’ 218 members. In the Senate, 31 of 49 Senate Republicans supported the aid.
Claim: The Federal Government Spent $8 Million ‘Making Mice Transgender’
“$8 million for making mice transgender,” Trump said. He emphasized, “this is real.”
It’s not real. Taxpayer dollars have not been used to “make mice transgender,” though funds have been used to study the effects of hormone therapy on mice in an effort to understand long-term implications for humans. Further, some of the research involving the hormone-injected mice was not focused on questions of gender identity.
On Wednesday, the White House put out a statement refuting a CNN fact check article that initially categorized Trump’s transgender mice claim as “false.” (CNN has since updated its rating to “needs context.”) The White House in its statement listed six separate National Institute of Health (NIH) grants for the purpose of “perform[ing] transgender experiments on mice.”
However, as Reason’s Joe Lancaster noted, “a quick glance at the list shows Trump’s claim is still not accurate: Indeed, the top bullet point lists $455,000 in grants ‘to test the effects of gender-affirming hormone therapy on HIV vaccine-induced immune responses.’” Ultimately, Lancaster noted that the funding went to research for HIV vaccine development, and had no direct relation to studies of gender-transition care. “They would use the grant money to study ‘the immunological responsiveness of transgender people, a population at considerably higher risk for HIV and other STIs [sexually transmitted infections].’”
Here’s a brief description of the research conducted with the five other NIH grants:
$2,500,000 for “Reproductive Consequences of Steroid Hormone Administration”: This study developed mice with “defects in ovarian architecture and … altered folliculogenesis” to research the long-term effects of testosterone hormone therapy on transgender men (individuals born female who identify as male), specifically their reproductive system. Researchers were creating mutations within mouse models that would “mimic” hormone treatment for transgender individuals.
$299,940 for “Gender-Affirming Testosterone Therapy on Breast Cancer Risk and Treatment Outcomes”: This study researches breast cancer risk and treatment for transgender men, and involves mouse models that have their ages “accelerate by a factor of 70” to invoke “hormone regulation of breast development.”
$735,113 for “Microbiome mediated effects of gender affirming hormone therapy in mice”: This study researched the effect of hormone therapy on skeletal maturation. Some mice were given cross-sex hormone therapy to examine the effect on skeletal development.
$1,200,000 for “Androgen effects on the reproductive neuroendocrine axis”: This study directly examined transgender individuals and the effects of hormone therapy on their reproductive health. However, the study also involved studying transgenic mice—not the same things as transgender mice. While those transgenic mice were tested with hormone treatment too, transgenic mice are “mice that have had DNA from another source put into their DNA,” per the National Cancer Institute, not mice that have changed genders. “The new DNA becomes part of every cell and tissue of the mouse,” it added. “These mice are used in the laboratory to study diseases.”
$3,100,000 for “Gonadal hormones as mediators of sex and gender influences in asthma”: This study researches the question of why asthma diagnoses in women exceed those in men. It involves research conducted on mice that are exposed to hormone treatments, which aims to show possible differences between “asthma outcomes” between men and women. Its research does not directly relate to questions of viability or effectiveness of gender transition care.
Claim: The Federal Government Spent $59 Million on Hotel Rooms for Illegal Immigrants in New York City
Trump’s speech on Tuesday was not the first time he claimed federal taxpayers were footing the bill for “$59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City.” He made the same claim from the Oval Office in February. “The DOGE team just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants,” he tweeted on February 10. “That money is meant for American disaster relief and instead is being spent on high end hotels for illegals!”
But, as The Dispatch’s Grayson Logue reported on February 17, that’s not entirely true.
Musk alleged that the hotels were running a “racket,” charging the city double their normal prices with 100 percent occupancy. Over the last few years, there have been multiple examples of the city paying hotels on similar terms as officials dealt with the migrant influx—although a report from the comptroller found that the city had paid an average daily hotel rate of $156 in fiscal year 2024.
…
Regardless of how sound or unsound the city’s hotel contracting choices have been, federal dollars have not footed anywhere near the full bill for hotel rates. [The Shelter and Services Program (SSP)] has extensive rules governing the type and quantity of eligible expenses that cities and nonprofits can receive funds for, including a stipulation that the reimbursement rate for hotel stays “cannot exceed $12.50 per noncitizen migrant per day.”
Nonetheless, four FEMA employees including the agency’s chief financial officer, Mary Comans, were fired over the payment although the administration did not detail how their actions violated FEMA policies aside from saying the personnel acted insubordinately. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokeswoman said the employees had “circumvented leadership and unilaterally made this payment.”
While New York City did receive $59 million in federal money to provide support for noncitizen migrants, not all of that amount was spent on hotel rooms, as a Dispatch Fact Check previously covered. Meanwhile, the Shelter and Services Program is administered by FEMA but receives funding from the budget of a different federal agency, Customs and Border Protection. Federal taxpayer dollars spent under this SSP migrant housing program were not taken from the bank account of FEMA or the pockets of natural disaster victims.
Claim: Money From a $1.9 Billion Federal Grant ‘Was Passed Over’ to Stacey Abrams
In announcing what he characterized as irresponsible federal spending uncovered by the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, Trump accused Stacey Abrams, a former Democratic state representative of Georgia who twice ran for governor in the state and lost both races, of receiving taxpayer funds. “$1.9 billion to recently created decarbonization of homes committee, headed up—and we know she’s involved — just at the last moment, the money was passed over by a woman named Stacey Abrams,” Trump said.
Abrams is linked to a nonprofit organization, Power Forward Communities, that received a $2 billion grant authorized through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that the group said was to “affordably decarbonize American homes.” While Abrams is not listed as having any direct involvement with Power Forward Communities, she is listed as a “senior advisor” to Rewiring America, a separate nonprofit organization. Rewiring America was one of five distinct nonprofits to launch Power Forward Communities in October 2023, mere months before it received the $2 billion grant in August 2024.
As The Dispatch Fact Check previously reported,
The rumors began after the Trump administration’s new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, former New York GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin, announced on February 13 that the federal agency found “billions of taxpayer dollars” in climate grants held in a bank account formed by former President Joe Biden’s White House administration. That funding, authorized from the Inflation Reduction Act, awarded a total of $20 billion to eight nonprofit organizations for investments in a slew of clean energy initiatives, including $2 billion to Power Forward Communities, a group linked to Abrams.
…
Power Forward Communities stated in a press release announcing the grant that “Rewiring America will orchestrate financing, financial assistance, and technical assistance to homeowners in specific markets, and will offer nationwide planning tools and resources, including cost savings and carbon emissions abatement projections to support household electrification at the single-family level.”
There have been legitimate issues raised regarding the Biden administration’s funding of Power Toward Communities. As the Washington Free Beacon reported last week, Power Forward Communities had reported a total of $100 for both its “total revenue” and “net assets” in its 2023 tax return. GuideStar, a website that tracks public information for nonprofit organizations, notes that the Internal Revenue Service granted tax-exempt status to Power Forward Communities only in 2024. But claims that Abrams personally received $2 billion in government funding are false.
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