Newsweek has examined claims Donald Trump made in his 60 Minutes interview which included topics like trade, the economy and nuclear weapons.
During the wide-ranging interview with CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell, the U.S. president took a swipe at the China policy of his predecessor Joe Biden, claimed that grocery prices had gone down and praised American electricity production.
Out of eight claims that emerged from the interview, Newsweek found that two were true and six were false.
Why It Matters
Trump’s appearance on 60 Minutes came one year after he sued the CBS show over the editing of an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, alleging it misled the public in a case that was settled for $16 million.
Trump would have been aware that his interview would be edited but Sunday night’s broadcast also comes as the U.S. faces regular scrutiny over his statements which are often branded as misleading, and his constant claims that he is the victim of “fake news.”
1. Joe Biden Gave Exemptions to China Tariffs on “Almost Everything” – Ruling: False
Trump was asked about his meeting with Chinese President Xi JinPing in Busan, South Korea in which a deal was struck which included tariff cuts, rare earth access, and fentanyl controls.
The U.S. agreed to reduce tariffs on Chinese goods from 57 percent to 47 percent and Beijing pledged to eliminate export controls on rare earths and other critical minerals.
Trump told CBS he got “everything that we wanted and that while he had previously put tariffs on China, it was former President Joe Biden who had let it lapse and “gave exemptions on almost everything, which was just ridiculous.”
However, the Biden administration kept, and even increased several Section 301 China tariffs that had been imposed during Trump’s first term to counter what were deemed unfair Chinese trade practices, especially around intellectual property and technology transfer.
In September 2024, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced its final modifications to the Section 301 tariffs, keeping all of the proposed tariff increases—including higher tariffs on many categories of medical products.
The USTR decided against exclusions for solar manufacturing equipment for modules, citing sufficient availability outside of China, meaning there were no exemptions on “almost everything” as Trump claimed.
Craig Singleton, China Program Senior Director at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), told Newsweek the tariff cut in exchange for a promised fentanyl crackdown buys temporary calm, but it’s transactional relief—not a structural reset. “Both sides gave just enough to claim success— Trump gets soybeans and soundbites, Xi retains his rare-earth chokehold for use later.”
2. The U.S. Is Producing Electricity “Like Never Before” – Ruling: True
Trump was asked about the AI race and whether he would allow the chip maker, Nvidia, to sell their “most advanced” chips to China. The U.S. president replied he would not allow this, suggesting this would mean losing the advantage in the AI race.
Trump said the U.S. was winning the AI race because it was “producing electricity like never before” by allowing companies to make their own electricity with their generating plants and selling any extra back into the grid.
Trump is right,—the U.S. is producing more electricity in 2025 than in previous years, reaching record highs driven by rising demand and growth in both clean and fossil fuel generation.
In the first five months of 2025, U.S. power producers lifted total output by 2 percent compared with the previous year to a new record of 69.3 million megawatt hours (MWh), according to data by LSEG, cited by Reuters.
3. The Biggest Chip Makers Are Leaving Taiwan for the U.S. Because of Tariffs – Ruling: False
Trump told O’Donnell in two years, the U.S. will have up to 50 percent of the chip market because tariffs had forced the biggest companies to leave Taiwan.
In April, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TMSC) said it would produce 30 percent of its most advanced chips in Arizona when its six Phoenix plants are operational amid a U.S. national security push to increase domestic chips production and accelerate the AI economy.
However, TMSC has insisted Taiwan would remain its primary hub and the U.S. factories will not overtake Taiwan on most-advanced tech in the near term. The company announced plans to build 15 new chip fabs in Taiwan, reinforcing its commitment to domestic manufacturing.
Singleton from the FDD told Newsweek that “Chinese leaders fear addiction to U.S. chips and possible backdoors in advanced systems,” however following the summit between Trump and Xi “no formal tech détente was declared, and Taiwan never came up.”
4. The U.S. Has More Nuclear Weapons Than Any Other Country – Ruling: False
Trump was asked about his social media post to start testing nuclear weapons. The president told CBS the U.S. had more nuclear weapons in the world, ahead of Russia and China “a distant third.”
This is not true. As of mid-2024, according to the Arms Control Association (ACA) Russia’s nuclear arsenal is estimated to comprise around 5,460 warheads, including approximately 1,150 that have been retired and are awaiting dismantlement.
By comparison, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reported in January 2025 that the U.S. had a stockpile of approximately 3,700 warheads, of which about 1,770 warheads are deployed and around 1,930 are held in reserve.
There are around 1,477 retired warheads awaiting dismantlement, giving a total inventory of about 5,177 nuclear warheads, less than Russia’s number.
5. The U.S. Is The Only Country That Doesn’t Test Nuclear Weapons – Ruling: False
When explaining his nuclear social media message, Trump said, “we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do.”
Trump then rejected O’Donnell’s riposte that only North Korea was actually testing nuclear weapons. The U.S. president said Russia and China were testing these capabilities ”but they don’t talk about it.”
Trump’s comment suggested that he had inside information but publicly available information shows that Russia and China have—along with the U.S.— observed a moratorium on explosive nuclear testing since 1992.
Daryl Kimball, ACA executive director, told Newsweek that “Trump is misinformed” and that U.S. had no technical, military, or political reason to resume nuclear explosive testing for the first time since 1992. No country, except North Korea, has conducted a nuclear test explosion this century, he added.
“It would take at least 36 months to resume contained testing underground, ” Kimball said, “additionally, nearly all the world’s nations have joined the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which as a signatory the United States is legally obligated to respect.”
6. Illegal Crossings at the Southern Border Are at a 55-year Low – Ruling: True
When the interview turned to immigration, it was O’Donnell rather than Trump who said that illegal crossings at the southern border were at a 55-year low when the president was asked about the tactics used by ICE which have been widely criticized.
O’Donnell was citing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data which confirmed an earlier CBS report that illegal border crossings were at their lowest level since 1970.
7. Venezuela Emptied Its prisons Into the U.S. – Ruling: False
Trump was asked about the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean as part of his administration’s crackdown on drug trafficking it says is linked to the regime of Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro.
Trump said that Venezuela has “dumped hundreds of thousands of people into our country that we didn’t want” and “emptied their prisons” into our country. This repeated a talking point for some GOP lawmakers who have alleged that Venezuelan immigrants had been sent to the southern border.
However, analysis by the Poynter Institute found that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not confirm the existence of any “intelligence report” about Venezuela sending criminals to the southern U.S. border.
The Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact fact-check said it found no evidence supporting the claim, which it said originated with a Breitbart News article that cited an unnamed Customs and Border Protection source.
8. Grocery Prices Are Down – Ruling: False
Trump was also quizzed by O’Donnell on the cost of living and rising grocery prices. The U.S. president replied that prices “went up under Biden” and that “right now they’re going down.”
Trump said that the price of beef “went up a little bit” but would come down quickly and the price of eggs when he entered the White House “were double, triple, quadruple what they were. This was because of Biden.”
This is false, with food prices rising this year, according to government data.
The index for food rose 0.2 percent in September, after rising 0.5 percent in August, while four of the six major grocery store food group indexes increased in September, according to the Department of Labor.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said that food prices have risen faster than overall inflation, increasing by 3.2 percent between August 2024 and August 2025.
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