U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Turning Point USA event at Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., April 17, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump delivered the cap to the Turning Point USA event in Phoenix, Arizona, and he had a friendly audience to take his words. This might explain the absence of rolling eyes and questioning looks on a few claims that Trump inflated, played down or made a point not to mention at all due to their controversy.
1.The U.S. will march in and take the Iranian nukes that he claimed were obliterated.
Months ago, Trump claimed to have “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities — the lingering existence of which he then later cited as one of the reasons to attack Iran last month and blow-up global fuel prices. But at the Friday TPUSA event, Trump said Iran’s nuclear capabilities are still somehow both “obliterated” yet in need of collection.
“You'll be very happy. The USA will get all nuclear dust,” he told the cheering TPUSA crowd. “You know what the nuclear dust is? That was that white powdery substance created by our B-2 bombers, those great B-2 bombers. Late one evening seven months ago. … And you know how we're going to get the dust, right? We're going to take it anyway. But taking it, taking it that way is slightly more dangerous. But we were going to get it anyway. … They will never have a nuclear weapon.”
But this information was immediately fact-checked by CNN reporter Nick Robinson, who told CNN anchor Jake Tapper that Iran has agreed to no such plan.
“[W]e’re hearing from Iranian sources who say that is just not the case. So, the Iranians are pushing back on some of what the president is claiming,” said Robinson.
2. The U.S. is paying Iran no compensation for Trump’s unilateral war.
Trump must be hotly aware of critics accusing him of hypocrisy for agreeing to pay Iran $20 billion after criticizing former President Obama for giving the country $1.7 billion because he denied that very fact at TPUSA.
“No money will exchange hands in any way, shape or form,” Trump insisted, in defiance of news that the U.S. has tentatively agreed to unfreeze $20 billion in Iranian assets.
British ambassador to the United States, Christian Turner claimed to CNN that he was “not close enough to the detail of how that would work” to say whether or not the transaction counted as a gift, but he conceded that as part of U.S./Iran negotiations Iran and Syria is “asking for an economic lifeline” from the U.S.
Bulwark Editor Jonathan Last called the transaction of money for Iran’s nuclear arsenal “a purchase … to the tune of $20 billion, which would be something that Donald Trump criticized the Obama administration for doing, but at a much greater scale.”
3. Ten wars ended.
The number of wars Trump has allegedly singlehandedly put an end to appears to be creeping up. This apparently includes the ending of the war he voluntarily started himself with February airstrikes on Iran, that left the nation’s more combative leadership in charge of the country.
Trump called his second term “by far the most successful first year of any administration in the history of our country, acknowledged by everybody.”
“To begin with, I ended eight wars, and it may be a little early to say this, but if we add Iran and Lebanon, that will be ten wars ended and many, many millions of lives saved,” Trump said.
Critics rated much of that claim bogus, with various international leaders denying either Trump’s intervention, or that the wars really ended at all.