'Two ways of calculating': Trump defends his mathematically impossible
calculations on drug prices
[April 24, 2026]
By WILL WEISSERT
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump, who helped push the term “
fake news ” into the mainstream, now seems to have a new favorite
subject: fake math.
During a Thursday event announcing a deal with drugmaker Regeneron to
lower the cost of its pharmaceutical products, Trump defended his past
claims that prices on prescription medications had been cut by well over
100% — something that is mathematically impossible without manufacturers
dropping prices to zero and then presumably paying consumers to use
their product.
Trump acknowledged having boasted that his efforts to lower drug prices
had reduced what consumers pay by “500%, 600%.” But he added, “We also
sometimes say 50%, 60%” and called it a "different kind of calculation"
that could go up to "70, 80 and 90%."
“People understand that better,” Trump said. “But they're two ways of
calculating” and “either way, it doesn't make any difference.”
There could indeed be two ways of calculating such things — but the
difference is very important. One is correct. The other is
nonmathematical.
It was one of several times Trump used his own — but incorrect — math
during the drug pricing event. He claimed the 7 1/2-week-and-still-going
Iran war actually fell within the four- to six-week timeline he
predicted early on. The president also brought up the crowd size for his
2017 inauguration — a subject that led onetime top Trump adviser
Kellyanne Conway to unwittingly make the phrase “ alternative facts ”
famous.
Trump’s incorrect take on percentages — something he has long repeated —
came just after his health chief, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., brought up the
issue on his own during the same Oval Office event Thursday.
Kennedy noted that he was reminded of his exchange the previous day with
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at a congressional hearing when she said
that claiming price cuts exceeding 100% might suggest “companies should
be paying you to take their drugs.”
Kennedy said during the hearing that Trump “has a different way of
calculating.”
On Thursday, Kennedy argued that drug manufacturers had raised prices on
popular medications by more than 100% and that Trump was then cutting
the price down substantially — meaning he was wiping out percentages of
costs worth more than 100%.
[to top of second column]
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Chris Klomp, director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, right, speaks as President Donald Trump and Health and
Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listen during an
event on health care affordability in the Oval Office at the White
House, Thursday, April 23, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark
Schiefelbein)
 “If the drug was $100, and it raised
the price to $600, that would be a 600% rise,” Kennedy said — even
though that's incorrect. Six hundred is indeed 600% of the original
100 value, but the increase from one to the other is actually only
500%.
Kennedy then continued, “And the president used that mathematical
device.”
But no such device exists for the way Trump characterizes it — at
least not when math is done correctly.
Something can increase in price by more than 100%. A product that
increases from $1 to $2.10 has increased by 110%. But prices cannot
be reduced by more than 100% without being pushed to a value of $0 —
or reduced 100% of the full price — and then into negative
territory, where consumers presumably would need to be paid for
using a product.
In a subsequent question-and-answer session with reporters during
the price announcement event, meanwhile, Trump offered another dash
of fake math for how long the war in Iran, which began Feb. 28, had
been going on.
Asked about the war having exceeding the four to six weeks he
originally suggested it would last, Trump argued that he'd actually
met his own timeline because Iran's military was “decimated” by
then.
The U.S. and Iran agreed to a ceasefire this month, and Trump
announced this week that he was extending it. But neither side says
the war is over, and a conclusion that hasn't been achieved
certainly didn't occur in the four to six weeks that have already
elapsed.
Trump also brought up his 2017 inaugural crowd size issue on
Thursday, when talking about renovations at the Lincoln Memorial
Reflecting Pool. He noted that Martin Luther King Jr. had drawn
hundreds of thousands of people to the National Mall for his “I Have
a Dream” speech in 1963 and claimed: “I had the same exact crowd.
Maybe a little bit more,” arguing that pictures of both events
backed him up.
“I actually had more people," Trump added. “But that’s OK.”
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