The citizens of Ukraine have been in my nightly prayers since Russia invaded that country on Feb. 24, 2022. The death and destruction they have had to endure for over three years should have never happened.

The United States and countries of Europe have been helping Ukraine finance that war and that is because Ukrainians are fighting for free people everywhere. The assistance continued until President Donald Trump for the second time directed a “pause” in U.S. assistance and no one knows how long it may last.

The Associated Press reported that Trump has expressed increasing frustration with Zelenskyy over the war, while simultaneously expressing confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin can be trusted to keep the peace if a truce in the conflict is reached.

If Trump could face the truth, which he has trouble with, he would be frustrated with Putin and confident that Zelensky can be trusted. One of his wildest stretches of the truth has been his continuous false statements about U.S. aid to Ukraine.

Ukrainian aid is one of 26 suspect claims Trump made in his Tuesday address to a joint session of Congress, according to The Washington Post. The newspaper called the speech “vintage Trump: long, rambling and chock-full of stretched facts and dubious figures. Many of these claims have been fact-checked repeatedly, yet the president persists in using them…”

Trump said of aid to Ukraine,  “We’ve spent perhaps $350 billion, like taking candy from a baby. That’s what happened. And they’ve (the European Union) spent $100 billion.”

The Post said the EU has both authorized more money and spent more money on Ukraine than the United States, but not all of the money authorized has been spent.

The U.S. has appropriated $186 billion and disbursed or obligated $140.5 billion. Meanwhile, the EU has committed $198 billion and spent $145 billion. And it has been estimated that U.S. industries manufacturing war materials for Ukraine have received half of the U.S. money spent.

Time magazine said Trump overstated the numbers on his immigration crackdown, inflated the number of people who entered the U.S. illegally under President Joe Biden and overstated hotel costs for noncitizens in New York.

The inflation story has also been exaggerated by Trump. The Post said Trump inherited an economy with relatively low unemployment, falling inflation and strong growth. The Economist newspaper published a cover story before last November’s election that said the U.S. economy was “the envy of the world.”

Then, there was the statement that “Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control.” The bad guy here is the bird flu.

Trump said the Department of Government Economy (DOGE) run by billionaire Elon Musk has “found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud.” The Post said there have been significant errors and double counting in the DOGE list and many specific claims of fraud have proven to be wrong or misleading.

The fentanyl numbers are also misleading. In the first three months of the 2025 fiscal year, 10 pounds had been seized at the Canadian border, compared with 4,400 pounds on the Mexican border.

For the first time, we have been told that most of the smuggling of fentanyl is done by U.S. citizens. The Cato Institute said between 2019 and 2024, U.S. citizens were 80% of the people caught with fentanyl during border crossing at ports of entry.

Trump said 38,000 workers died building the Panama Canal. The accepted estimate is fewer than 6,000, and many were not Americans. An earlier French effort to build a canal led to the death of 22,000, many from malaria and yellow fever.

“We have hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have not been showing up for work,” Trump said.

The Post said he appears to equate teleworking with not showing up for work and often uses inflated numbers for how many federal workers work from home.

Many news organizations have written stories about Trump’s false statements Tuesday evening, but the facts and truth they have reported will be discredited by Trump and his allies as “fake news.”

That’s OK because truth will win out over the long haul. And let’s hope the people of Ukraine before too long will be safe and free once again.

Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than six decades. Contact him at 337-515-8871 or jim.beam.press@gmail.com.

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