It Appears Like The President Who Brags About How Sensible He Is Can not Do Arithmetic

[ad_1] WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump , who has repeatedly bragged about how good he's, apparently has bother with primary arithmetic, having asserted a mystifying lie about drug costs <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-doubles-down-impossible-drug-price-cuts-2108365" target="_blank" role="link" class=" js-entry-link cet-external-link" data-vars-item-name="several times" data-vars-item-type="text" data-vars-unit-name="68910579e4b0da7485d50c8f" data-vars-unit-type="buzz_body" data-vars-target-content-id="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-doubles-down-impossible-drug-price-cuts-2108365" data-vars-target-content-type="url" data-vars-type="web_external_link" data-vars-subunit-name="article_body" data-vars-subunit-type="component" data-vars-position-in-subunit="0">several times now.

“You realize, we’ve reduce drug costs by 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500%. I don’t imply 50%, I imply 1400, 1500%,” he instructed reporters Sunday earlier than boarding Air Power One to return to the White Home following one other weekend of golf at his New Jersey course.

He had made the identical false declare 12 days earlier at a reception for Republican members of Congress: “We’re going to get the drug costs down — not 30 or 40%, which might be nice, not 50 or 60. No, we’re going to get them down 1000%, 600%, 500%, 1500%.”

The declaration, in fact, is absurd on its face.

A product turns into free if the sale value is lowered by 100%. To cut back the price of a prescription drug past that suggests that the client would really obtain a rebate to take the medicine off the pharmacy’s palms.

Trump’s “1500%” declare would imply {that a} affected person would obtain a prescription that usually prices $100 for nothing, together with $1,400 in money.

White Home press aides didn't reply to HuffPost’s queries about what Trump may need meant.

“He’s past uncommon. And that I’ve by no means met an individual so intellectually and emotionally — as a result of there is no such thing as a compensation — restricted,” mentioned Charles Leerhsen, the co-author of Trump’s 1990 e book “Surviving on the Prime,” who has been warning about Trump’s innumeracy and, extra typically, his ignorance, since Trump started his first run for president in 2015.

“And that’s why some individuals mistake his idiocy for ‘chess on three ranges,’” Leerhsen continued, “as a result of, being unable to know him, and feeling that no person could possibly be as dumb as he appears, they arrive on the conclusion that he's really smarter than they're.”

<img class="img-sized__img landscape" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="auto" alt="President Donald Trump speaks with reporters at Lehigh Valley International Airport on Aug. 3, 2025." width="720" height="481" src="https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/689107a417000013652a104b.jpeg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale%2Cquality_100" srcset="https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/689107a417000013652a104b.jpeg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale%2Cquality_100 1x, https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/689107a417000013652a104b.jpeg?ops=scalefit_1440%2Cquality_100 2x"/> President Donald Trump speaks with reporters at Lehigh Valley Worldwide Airport on Aug. 3, 2025. AP Picture/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

Through the years, Trump has repeatedly boasted about how clever he's, providing as proof the truth that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44457471" target="_blank" role="link" class=" js-entry-link cet-external-link" data-vars-item-name="his uncle" data-vars-item-type="text" data-vars-unit-name="68910579e4b0da7485d50c8f" data-vars-unit-type="buzz_body" data-vars-target-content-id="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44457471" data-vars-target-content-type="url" data-vars-type="web_external_link" data-vars-subunit-name="article_body" data-vars-subunit-type="component" data-vars-position-in-subunit="1">his uncle taught on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise. “Truly, all through my life, my two best property have been psychological stability and being, like, actually good,” Trump <a href="https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/949618475877765120" role="link" class=" js-entry-link cet-external-link" data-vars-item-name="wrote " data-vars-item-type="text" data-vars-unit-name="68910579e4b0da7485d50c8f" data-vars-unit-type="buzz_body" data-vars-target-content-id="https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/949618475877765120" data-vars-target-content-type="url" data-vars-type="web_external_link" data-vars-subunit-name="article_body" data-vars-subunit-type="component" data-vars-position-in-subunit="2">wrote in a 2018 social media put up.

Leerhsen mentioned Trump’s obvious lack of ability to know how percentages work helps clarify his enterprise failures, comparable to massively overpaying for the Plaza Lodge in New York Metropolis and bankrupting casinos in Atlantic Metropolis.

“That’s precisely why these issues occurred. He’s not a kind of individuals who compensates for being unhealthy at one factor — say, phrases — by being good at one other — say, numbers,” he mentioned.

In actuality, Trump has really undone his predecessor Joe Biden ’s efforts to cut back prescription costs. On his first day in workplace, Trump rescinded a protracted listing of Biden’s govt orders, together with these decreasing drug costs for enrollees of Medicare and Medicaid.

Final week, Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114949049238065269" role="link" class=" js-entry-link cet-external-link" data-vars-item-name="posted" data-vars-item-type="text" data-vars-unit-name="68910579e4b0da7485d50c8f" data-vars-unit-type="buzz_body" data-vars-target-content-id="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114949049238065269" data-vars-target-content-type="url" data-vars-type="web_external_link" data-vars-subunit-name="article_body" data-vars-subunit-type="component" data-vars-position-in-subunit="3">posted a letter on social media that he mentioned he had despatched to Eli Lilly and Firm demanding that it cost its American prospects the low costs it fees elsewhere on the earth. He then posted letters to 16 different main pharmaceutical corporations.

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“Should you refuse to step up, we are going to deploy each device in our arsenal to guard American households from continued abusive drug pricing practices,” Trump wrote.

He additionally complained that trade proposals to decrease costs, as he had demanded in a Could 12 <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/delivering-most-favored-nation-prescription-drug-pricing-to-american-patients/" role="link" class=" js-entry-link cet-external-link" data-vars-item-name="executive order" data-vars-item-type="text" data-vars-unit-name="68910579e4b0da7485d50c8f" data-vars-unit-type="buzz_body" data-vars-target-content-id="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/delivering-most-favored-nation-prescription-drug-pricing-to-american-patients/" data-vars-target-content-type="url" data-vars-type="web_external_link" data-vars-subunit-name="article_body" data-vars-subunit-type="component" data-vars-position-in-subunit="4">executive order , had solely “promised extra of the identical: shifting blame and requesting coverage adjustments that will lead to billions of {dollars} in handouts to trade.”