Former President Donald Trump replied to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday night, emphasizing on the southern border’s enormous illegal immigration, violence, real wage declines, and “corruption.”

“Here’s the real State of the Union: Over the past two years under Biden, millions and millions of illegal aliens from 160 different countries have stormed across our southern border,” said Trump, the lone GOP candidate officially in the 2024 primary field.

According to Breitbart News, 4.2 million aliens have been captured by Border Patrol personnel along the southern border since Biden took office in January 2021, a record high. On January 28, at his first formal campaign trail rally in South Carolina, Trump stated that if re-elected, his government will expedite deportation measures.

Another border concern raised by Trump in his answer to Biden on Tuesday was the fentanyl crisis. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded 71,238 U.S. fatalities from “synthetic opioids (primarily fentanyl),” a significant increase from 57,834 in 2020.

“Drug cartels are now raking in billions of dollars from smuggling poison to kill our people and to kill our children,” said Trump.

According to the New York Post, fentanyl production often begins in China, where precursor chemicals are made, and then Mexican gangs synthesis the narcotics before they are brought across the border.

Trump then went on to say that “[s]avage killers, rapists, and violent criminals are being released from jail to continue their crime wave.”

“Biden and the radical Democrats have wasted trillions of dollars and caused the worst inflation in half a century,” Trump continued.

“Real wages are down 21 months in a row, gas prices have soared and are now going much higher than even before, and the typical American family is paying $2,200 in increased energy and food costs each year,” he added.

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, real wages, which include both average hourly and weekly earnings, have been falling every month since March 2021.

The 45th president, whose Mar-a-Lago estate was seized in August as part of a secret materials investigation, then chastised Biden’s “weaponized Justice Department” for “persecuting his political opponents,” claiming the “administration is waging war on free speech.”

In reality, in December, Trump proposed a detailed policy program to “shatter the left-wing censorship regime and reclaim the right to speech for all Americans.”

“They’re trying to indoctrinate and mutilate our children,” Trump said Tuesday. “[Biden is] leading us to the brink of World War III, and on top of all of that, he’s the most corrupt President in American history, and it’s not even close.”

Trump then pledged he would “reverse every single crisis, calamity, and disaster that Joe Biden has created” if elected president, vowing he will “complete the unfinished business of Making America Great Again.”