President Donald Trump needed only eight seconds to start lying in his prime-time address on Wednesday night, shouting through a fairly typical unhinged rally speech, except relatively brief and to a prime-time audience directly from the White House. “I inherited a mess years ago, and I’m fixing it. When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country,” Trump said in the first of numerous falsehoods throughout the address that his White House requested television networks carry live. In fact, inflation was down to about 3% when Trump took office 11 months ago and was trending downward still. That trend reversed in May, after Trump declared his trade war against the rest of the world and imposed taxes on most imports ― what has become the largest tax increase on Americans in decades. The only new announcement in the 18-minute address was that he was issuing $1,776 checks to 1.5 million military service members ― a bonus that will cost $2.5 billion. Trump claimed the money would come from tariffs collected from imported goods. “We made a lot more money than anybody thought because of tariffs,” he said, but failed to point out that every dollar collected in tariffs comes from American importers. During his address to the nation on Wednesday night, President Donald Trump repeatedly lied, and accused his predecessor, President Joe Biden, of ruining the country. Nearly all of the elements in Trump’s address, which he yelled all the way through, even though he had a microphone set up for him on his lectern in the Diplomatic Reception Room, have been heard many times previously in his public remarks, his question-and-answer sessions with reporters, and his social media posts. “This is what the Biden administration allowed to happen to our country, and it can never be allowed to happen again. We had men playing in women’s sports, transgender for everybody, crime at record levels with law enforcement and words such as that, just absolutely forbidden,” he said. What he meant by the “law enforcement and words” remark is unclear. He attacked predecessor Joe Biden for not cracking down on illegal immigration. He again conflated asylum seekers with people in mental institutions. He lied about grocery prices coming down and the number of wars he has ended. And he claimed that he was cutting prescription drug prices by mathematically impossible amounts. “I negotiated directly with the drug companies and foreign nations which were taking advantage of our country for many decades to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500 and even 600%,” he said. At one point, he even accused Biden and Democrats ― without elaboration or evidence ― of stealing taxpayer money. “The last administration and their allies in Congress looted our Treasury for trillions of dollars driving up prices and everything at levels never seen before,” he said. On the current impasse over expiring enhanced subsidies for millions of Americans who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, Trump bizarrely claimed that Democrats, who want to maintain the subsidies, somehow want to increase ACA premiums. “It was bad health care at much too high a cost, and you see that now in the steep increase in premiums being demanded by the Democrats, and they are demanding those increases and it’s their fault,” he said. It is not immediately clear what Trump meant. It is also unclear why the speech was given at all. Typically, when presidents deliver an address from the White House, it is to make the case for a particular policy directly to the American people. That did not appear to be the case Wednesday night. In brief comments to the limited pool of reporters present for the speech – only one television reporter and one photographer were allowed to be there – Trump suggested he gave the speech because chief of staff Susie Wiles said he needed to. Trump is scheduled to give a rally speech in North Carolina on Friday night, in which he is likely to repeat many of his falsehoods and attacks, before continuing on to Florida for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.