Ben Cline issued a statement on the State of the Union, and the response from Abigail Spanberger, quick enough after both that you have to assume the statement was pre-written.
And given that we’re talking about Ben Cline here, that it was pre-written by somebody else.
Anyway, you read the statement, and you have to wonder, what world does Ben Cline live in?
To wit, this is how it started
“President Trump’s first year in office was a tremendous success, and he laid out the many reasons in his speech tonight,” the statement from our lame-duck MAGA congressman began.
Yeah, here we go.
“America is back. The economy is in high gear, inflation is down, wages are up, and mortgage rates are below 6 percent for the first time in four years.”
Fact checks
Claim: “The economy is in high gear.”
Verdict: The economy is in second gear.
- GDP in the fourth quarter was up an anemic 1.4 percent.
- For reference, the average quarterly GDP growth rate in the Biden years: 3.8 percent.
- The average quarterly GDP growth through three quarters of the second Trump term: 3.2 percent.
- The average quarterly GDP growth through the first three years of the first Trump term (pre-COVID): 2.9 percent.
Claim: “Inflation is down.”
Verdict: No.
- The monthly inflation rate for the past three months: 2.7 percent in November and December 2025, 2.4 percent January 2026.
- Monthly inflation in September 2025, when the Trump regime decided to recalculate how it handles economic numbers, thus skipping October 2025: 3 percent.
- Monthly inflation in December 2024, the last full month of the Biden term: 2.9 percent.
- Inflation in January 2025, when Trump began his second term: 3 percent.
- Inflation in January 2024: 3.4 percent.
- Fluctuation in calendar year 2024: 3.5 percent (March) to 2.4 percent (September)
Claim: “Wages are up.”
Verdict: See below.
- Per data from the Federal Reserve, the median weekly wage for a U.S. worker was an inflation-adjusted $1,221.33 in the fourth quarter of 2024, the final full quarter of the Biden term; the median weekly wage in the third quarter of 2025, the most recent numbers we have for the second Trump term: $1,227.86. That’s $6.53 a week extra in your pocket, which, technically, is, you know, “up.”
Claim: “Mortgage rates are below 6 percent for the first time in four years.”
Verdict: Breaking news!
- The 30-year fixed rate dipped to 5.99 percent on Monday. We’ve been able to enjoy this newfound freedom for all of two days.
Cline on the border, crime
“Our southern border is secure, the flow of illegal immigrants has been stopped, and crime is down all over, setting 100-year lows in some places. By any objective measure, the first year of his second term has been fantastic.”
Fact checks
Claim: “Our southern border is secure, the flow of illegal immigrants has been stopped.”
Verdict: Mixed
- Illegal border crossings are down significantly, so, that part, right on.
- As to the “our southern border is secure” part, well. Even the Trump regime, in its own PR, tells us that, in 2025, “fentanyl trafficking at the southern border was cut by 56%compared to the previous year.” “Cut by 56%” isn’t “cut by 100%.” Close to half the fentanyl that got through our border in 2024 got through in 2025. “Secure,” by any reasonable definition,” would be “no fentanyl getting through,” not around half.
Claim: “Crime is down all over, setting 100-year lows in some places.”
Verdict: Crime is down; been trending down for decades
- Per data from the Council on Justice, violent crime peaked in 2020-2021 during the pandemic, steadily declined during the Biden term, and continued to decline in 2025 – following a trend dating to the mid-1990s.
Cline on Spanberger
Somebody we know cowers in the presence of a powerful woman.
“Abigail Spanberger, sadly, was involved in the night’s festivities for different reasons. She came to root against the United States, because good things happening to Americans is bad news for Democrats. They are unable to admit that something is good, for the sole reason that it was Donald Trump and congressional Republicans who did it,” Cline said.
“Spanberger was chosen for this plum speaking assignment because she’s a model for how two-faced Democrats need their candidates to be,” Cline said. “If she told the truth on the campaign trail, she would never have been elected, so she concealed her true leftist agenda, as well as her plans to gerrymander Virginia’s congressional map, until after she had taken office. Now she’s attempting to steal four Republican congressional seats, and this little speech was her reward.”
Fact check
Claim: “She’s attempting to steal four Republican congressional seats.”
Verdict: There are such things as Republican congressional seats embedded in the Constitution?
- Republicans stole congressional seats in the 2021 “nonpartisan” redistricting by using the process to force the redrawing of maps to a state court.
Final analysis
Cline is butthurt with respect to Abigail Spanberger because he’s about to lose his plum job that pays him $174,000 a year for doing nothing in Congress because of her.
He could moderate his extremist positions to try to be competitive in a leans-D district, but it appears he’s had too much of the kool-aid.
Hope for him that he can find an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney job somewhere in the I-81 corridor so he can get back to doing what he does best: prosecuting jaywalkers.
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Chris Graham
