Each Friday, The Investigative Journal selects a handful of public statements from the past week — drawn from politicians, advocacy groups and influential commentators — and tests them against the underlying public record. Our practice is to go to the primary source: federal data releases, court filings, agency announcements and peer-reviewed research, rather than reproducing the conclusions of other fact-checking outlets. The verdicts below reflect what those primary sources show, not what we wish they showed.
Claim 1: “The roaring economy is roaring like never before.”
Source: President Donald Trump, 2026 State of the Union address, delivered February 24, 2026 and repeated in subsequent administration messaging through April. (Full text via PBS NewsHour transcript.)
The evidence: The most recent Employment Situation release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that nonfarm payrolls grew by 178,000 in March 2026, with the unemployment rate effectively unchanged at 4.3 percent and 7.2 million Americans counted as unemployed. According to FactCheck.org’s April update of cumulative federal data, total nonfarm employment has increased by roughly 369,000 jobs across the first 14 months of the second Trump term — a pace materially slower than the comparable period preceding it. The Federal Reserve Economic Data series for the unemployment rate shows the headline jobless number trending upward from a low of 4.0 percent in early 2025. Independent of partisan framing, the Council of Economic Advisers’ own April 2026 Economic Report of the President acknowledges that real GDP rose 2.2 percent in 2025, below the 2.8 percent recorded in 2024.
Verdict: The data do not support the qualifier “like never before.” Job growth has decelerated, the unemployment rate has drifted up about three-tenths of a point, and annual GDP growth was lower in 2025 than in either of the two preceding years. The economy is expanding — but at a slower pace than the recent trend. Misleading.
Claim 2: “83 percent of us favor requiring a photo ID to vote. In fact, most of the civilized world requires it but not us.”
Source: A nationally distributed advocacy advertisement from the group Restoration of America, which began airing on April 13, 2026 in support of the SAVE America Act.
The evidence: Survey data largely corroborate the polling number. Pew Research Center’s most recent survey on election rules reports that 81 percent of Americans favor requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification, including 95 percent of Republicans and 71 percent of Democrats. Gallup’s most recent benchmark registers 79 percent support. Estimates in the 83–84 percent range have appeared in more recent partisan-commissioned polls; the lower-bound figure published by independent outlets is closer to 79–81 percent.
The international comparison is more nuanced than the ad implies. Of the 37 OECD member states surveyed in a 2022 review by the America First Policy Institute, 33 require some form of identification — frequently a national ID — to vote in person; the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and New Zealand were identified as exceptions, though the UK has since adopted a photo ID requirement. Records suggest that the salient distinction between the United States and most peer democracies is not the existence of an ID requirement but the absence of a single, universally issued government identity document. As the University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement documented, several million U.S. citizens do not currently hold a current government-issued photo ID.
Verdict: The polling figure is at the high end of credible estimates but is consistent with the body of survey research; the international comparison is directionally accurate but omits the structural difference of universal national IDs in most comparator countries. Mostly accurate, missing context.
Claim 3: “As a result of the ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ 15 million Americans have been thrown off the healthcare that they need.”
Source: Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), in remarks and social media posts circulated through late April 2026.
The evidence: Two distinct policy changes are being aggregated under a single number. The first is the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in 2025, which imposed work requirements and other eligibility changes on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act marketplaces; the American Medical Association’s summary of the law’s key provisions describes the operative changes. The second is the scheduled expiration of enhanced ACA premium tax credits at the end of 2025, a separate matter currently before Congress.
According to Congressional Budget Office estimates referenced in committee testimony, the long-run combined effect of these changes is projected to increase the uninsured by an estimated 7.4 million through Medicaid changes and an additional roughly 3–4 million through tax credit expiration if no extension is enacted, with effects phasing in through 2034. ACA marketplace plan selections at the close of the most recent open enrollment period were down approximately 1 million from the prior year, per Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data. The figure of 15 million Americans presently “thrown off” coverage describes a forward-looking projection over multiple years — and one that conflates two separate policy mechanisms — rather than current insured-population data.
Verdict: Filings and projections do indicate substantial coverage losses are likely, but the present-tense framing is premature: the cumulative number quoted is a multi-year forecast that combines two policy changes, and current enrollment declines are an order of magnitude smaller. Premature and overstated.
Claim 4: “11 straight months of zero releases at the border.”
Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security press statement, issued April 9, 2026, and amplified by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The evidence: CBP’s published Southwest Land Border Encounters dataset shows that monthly U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions on the southwest border totaled 8,268 in March 2026 — a level that, by the agency’s own historical comparison, is 90 percent below the average monthly figure across the last 33 years and 97 percent below the December 2023 peak. CBP also reports that no migrants encountered between ports of entry on the southwest border were released into the United States during March 2026, marking the eleventh consecutive month under that policy posture. Drug seizure data published in the same release indicate 65,000 pounds of total drug seizures in March, including 613 pounds of fentanyl.
One important contextual note: CBP’s monthly statistics also show that southwest border encounters rose roughly 25 percent from February 2026 to March 2026 — an increase off a very low base, but the first uptick after seven consecutive months of declines. Comparable independent reporting from USAFacts and Pew Research Center’s analysis of CBP data corroborates the historic-low characterization.
Verdict: The “zero releases” claim is consistent with CBP’s own data, and the historic-low framing is supported by multiple independent compilations of the same federal source data. The omitted context — a March uptick from a low base — does not negate the core claim. Accurate.
Claim 5: “Thom Tillis is no longer a senator.”
Source: President Donald Trump, in an April 15, 2026 interview broadcast on Fox Business Network.
The evidence: Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) is currently serving the second of two consecutive six-year terms. According to his official Senate office website and GovTrack’s Senate roster, Tillis remains a sitting United States Senator whose current term concludes January 3, 2027. As NBC News reported in June 2025, Tillis announced he would not seek re-election to a third term, and the 2026 North Carolina Senate race to succeed him is scheduled for November 3, 2026. Until that successor is sworn in, Tillis retains his seat, his vote on the Senate floor and his committee assignments.
Verdict: Tillis is not seeking another term, but he remains a sitting senator with full Senate privileges through the end of the 119th Congress. False.
Methodology Note
The Investigative Journal conducts each weekly fact-check by identifying the original utterance — typically from a video, transcript or signed advocacy material — and locating the underlying public record against which the assertion can be tested. We prefer government data releases (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Customs and Border Protection, Energy Information Administration, Congressional Budget Office, Federal Reserve Economic Data), agency announcements, court filings, congressional records, peer-reviewed research and major non-partisan polling. Where a claim relies on projections, we distinguish between published forecasts and realized outcomes. We do not aggregate the conclusions of other fact-checkers as our primary basis; their work may inform our research, but our verdict tracks the documentary record.
We extend a right of reply to any office or organization whose claim is examined here. Corrections are appended to the original article and dated. Findings reported above describe what the cited public records show as of the date of publication; readers are encouraged to consult the linked primary sources directly.