Congratulations! Today is the 52nd day of the second Trump administration, which means we are over halfway through the 'first 100 days' marker. If these have felt like the longest 52 days of your life, don't worry, you're not alone.

Welcome back to our #TrumpCheck series, the LACDP's weekly newsletter that holds the Trump administration accountable for its lies, deception, and self-serving actions. Every week, the LACDP will provide updates and fact-checks on actions, claims, or atrocities made by Trump himself, his cronies, or his new employer, Elon Musk.

This week, we're here to correct some of the misinformation being spread about the Department of Education, a wildly popular part of the American government that over 68% of voters want to INCREASE funding to. 

• Trump has widely and frequently claimed that that "I'm going to close the Department of Education." 

FACT: The president does not have the authority to eliminate a Cabinet department. That power lies with Congress, and would then require 60 votes in the Senate, an unlikely outcome with the current Senate cohort. 

• While justifying the dismantling of the education system, Donald Trump reported that the United States is dead last in education rankings."They talk about 40 countries. We’re rated No. 40.”

FACT: There are no metrics in which the U.S. ranks 40th on any list for educational outcomes. The White House has been unable to provide any ranking that aligns with this claim. In fact, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranked the U.S. 8th out of 41 countries for education.

• While discussing eliminating the Department of Education with Fox & Friends, Trump explained that this will allow them to defund schools whose curriculum they do not like, like teaching about slavery. 

FACT: News flash, Donald - the states already control the curriculum. The U.S. Department of Education does NOT write curriculum or impact curriculum in any way in the United States. 

Education is the foundation of a civilized society, and providing a good education for American children is the first step to building prosperous futures for all. Trying to destroy the basis of education in our country is no more than a power grab, and an unsuccessful one at that. 

Correcting misinformation distributed by the United States government is the first step in the fight and a job for us all. We will keep it up here, and on our social media accounts, linked below.

Well, Trump has officially made his first official address to Congress of his second term. He spoke for over 90 minutes last night, the longest presidential address in over 60 years. More impressive is the record 89 minutes that JD Vance and Mike Johnson spent clapping.

Welcome back to our #TrumpCheck series, the LACDP's weekly newsletter that holds the Trump administration accountable for its lies and self-serving actions. Every week, the LACDP will provide updates and fact-checks on actions, claims, or atrocities made by Trump himself, his cronies, or his boss, Elon Musk. This week, we're here to correct some of the lies that Donald Trump spread in his dizzying speech last night. 

• Announced last week, Trump re-emphasized his plan to create a "gold card" visa for wealthy immigrants. The visa would cost $5 million, and would go on sale "very, very soon." 

FACT: The president does not have the authority to create a new visa.  Congress is the only entity with that power. Even if it’s just an adjustment of the current EB-5 visa, it still requires congressional action. As of now, there has been no current proposal brought forth by the Trump administration, so this plan is currently unclear. 

• In a rant about energy prices, Donald Trump claimed that the Biden administration "closed more than 100 power plants."

FACT: Under the Biden administration, the number of utility-scale electric power plants increased. Only coal-fired power plants, which are increasingly moving out of favor, decreased from to 227 from from 284 during that same time. 

• Donald Trump read aloud a list of 'government waste' that had been cut by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Among these 'corrupt' expenditures: $3.5 million on "lavish fish monitoring," $20 million on the "Arab Sesame Street" and $8 million on "transgender mice". 

FACT: Trump was referring to 'larval' fish monitoring, which is a typical method for tracking species health and abundance. The "Arab Sesame Street" claim was referring to $20 million that was allocated to an Iraq early childhood development program, over the course of 6 years; none of that money is spent on a TV show, although the program does produce a show with "Sesame Street" characters. The "transgender mice" claim is referring to medical trials conducted on rodents, having to do with thyroid and hormonal care for diseases like cancer and HIV. 

No one is providing gender-affirming care to mice or rats. 

Correcting misinformation distributed by the United States government is the first step in the fight and a job for us all. We will keep it up here, and on our social media accounts, linked below.

Happy Wednesday, and congratulations on surviving another week in the Trump era. Welcome back to our #TrumpCheck series, the LACDP's weekly newsletter that holds the Trump administration accountable for its lies and self-serving actions.

• Our new Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. has made his opinion on vaccines crystal clear: "There's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective."

FACT: All FDA-approved vaccines in the United States have undergone large clinical studies that have found that the health benefits far exceed any potential risks. Measles, which had been considered eradicated in the United States 25 years ago due to the effectiveness of the measles vaccine, killed an unvaccinated child in Texas this morning, the first US death from the disease in 10 years. 

• Donald Trump halted 60 billion in foreign aid dollars on his very first day as President in 2025, under the logic that "we're giving billions and billions of dollars to countries who hate us." This put the President’s Emergency Response Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program into jeopardy.

FACT: The PEPFAR program has been supported by every president since President Bush implemented it... including Donald Trump, when he signed the PEPFAR Extension Act of 2018. In the 2018 announcement, the Trump White House said, "PEPFAR has saved over 17 million lives, prevented millions of HIV infections, and transformed the global AIDS response from death and despair to life and hope." Lack of HIV healthcare globally for over 20 million people will cause HIV to spread and increase the chances of a drug-resistant strain developing. 

• In a press conference this morning with the new cabinet, President Trump promised that federal budget cuts would not affect Medicaid: "We're not going to touch it."

FACT: There is no path to meeting the newly passed Republican budget resolution that does not cut Medicaid funding. Even if every other item in the budget was reduced to $0, a $600 billion cut would still be required from the federal healthcare budget. 

The Trump administration is playing fast and loose with our health, safety, and, consequently, the world's health. This has life and death consequences, as we have unfortunately already witnessed.  

Correcting misinformation distributed by the United States government is the first step in the fight and a job for us all. We will keep it up here, and on our social media accounts, linked below.