1 Year Later: Trump’s 2025 Address Was Full of Promises That He Failed to Keep
February 23, 2026

Tomorrow night, as Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address, Americans will be reminded of the promises he’s failed to deliver on since his last address to Congress.
Instead of helping working families, Trump has focused his attention on all the wrong priorities and failed to deliver on the promises he made to the American people. To make matters worse, he’s sold out everyday Americans to pay for massive tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations, spent countless hours on pet projects like his $400 million ballroom renovation, and used taxpayer funds to buy private jets and investigate his political enemies.
In response, DNC Chair Ken Martin released the following statement:
“After one year in office, Donald Trump has proven himself to be the betrayer-in-chief. He promised America everything – lower prices, a better economy, new jobs — and delivered nothing. Instead of holding himself to his own promises, he’s selling out Americans, putting himself and his circle of rich elites above everybody else, and personally causing families in every part of the country to pay higher prices. Trump doubled health care premiums, screwed small businesses and farmers, and pickpocketed taxpayers to give a windfall to billionaires. He’s buried the Epstein Files, ripped up the Constitution, and treated the presidency as his personal piggybank. Americans know all of this, which is why he’s deeply, historically, and staggeringly unpopular. Even his own supporters are pissed off. The state of our union is weaker than ever under Donald Trump, and while he fails the country, Democrats are surging with a real vision to improve people’s lives.”
In his speech last year, Trump made commitments to the American people that he has failed to deliver on.
Trump vowed he would “defeat inflation” and bring down the cost of mortgages, car payments, and groceries.
- American households paid an estimated $2,120 more due to Trump’s inflation, and companies across industries are raising costs again in part because of Trump’s reckless trade war.
- A record share of Americans are being squeezed by soaring car prices and first-time home buyers are being priced out of the housing market.
Trump promised to “rescue our economy” and provide “dramatic and immediate relief to working families.”
- Trump’s “K-shaped” economy boosts the ultra-rich with massive, permanent tax cuts, forcing working families to foot the bill with devastating cuts to health care and food assistance. Lower and middle-income households are drowning under the weight of weaker wage growth, while higher-income households’ wage growth jumped from 3.3% in December to 3.7% in January.
Trump promised to “rapidly” bring down the cost of energy.
- Americans across the country are facing higher utility bills. Electricity rates increased by 13% under Trump, and at least 41 states and Washington, D.C., are already experiencing electricity and natural gas bill increases, or will soon.
Trump insisted his trade policy was going to “create jobs like we have never seen before” and that he was going to create a “manufacturing renaissance.”
- Trump has wrecked the job market and it’s getting harder for everyday Americans to find and keep a full-time job. His reckless trade war has caused mass layoffs and slowed hiring. In 2025, the economy added just 181,000 jobs, the worst year for job growth since 2003, excluding recessions. The manufacturing sector lost 8,000 jobs in January — continuing a streak of losses every month since Trump took office.
Trump promised his tariffs would boost U.S. agriculture and told “our farmers” to “have a lot of fun.”
- Trump’s trade war has devastated American farmers and rural communities, causing family farms to go bankrupt at the fastest pace in five years alongside record-high farm debt. Farmer sentiment plummeted in January amid concerns about the economy, and farmers are facing the widest gap between operating costs and yield profits in 10 years.
Trump made several promises on reducing the national debt, saying that money saved from the DOGE cuts was used to reduce the debt “to fight inflation” and that his gold card immigration program would generate money that the U.S. would use to “reduce our debt.”
- In reality, Trump added $2.25 trillion to the national debt in his first year alone and his “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” will add over $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. Additionally, DOGE generated at least $21.7 BILLION in wasteful spending and was forced to rehire thousands of the employees it fired.
Trump said he was “working tirelessly to end the savage conflict in Ukraine” and he was going to “create a more peaceful and prosperous future for the entire region” of the Middle East.
- After repeatedly saying he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of returning to office and bring peace to the Middle East, Trump has been unable to end the war in Ukraine and is positioning for a possible war with Iran. Meanwhile, he has ordered military strikes on seven countries, in addition to his strikes on boats in the Pacific and Caribbean.
Trump said that he “ended weaponized government” against political opponents and “acted swiftly and decisively to restore fair, equal, and impartial justice.”
- Trump has used the government to go after his perceived political enemies, including several Democratic members of Congress, Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and former CNN journalist Don Lemon, and his FCC has taken action against Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.
- Trump’s DOJ also has sought to undermine free and fair elections, demanding that nearly every state hand over its voter rolls and election-related data, and, in turn, suing more than 20 states that refused to comply.
- Trump has filed a lawsuit to recover $10 billion against the Internal Revenue Service, and if he won, the money would come out of the pockets of American taxpayers and straight into Trump’s wallet.