Donald Trump promised drug costs would drop “1,000 percent”—then claimed a $10 pill would become $20—in a head-spinning arithmetic car crash.
In a Fox News hit that left viewers baffled, Trump said, “We’re gonna be reducing drug costs over the next year, year and a half… by a thousand percent,” before adding, “it’ll go from $10 to $20 for us.”
The two ideas cannot both be true. A 1,000 percent “reduction” from $10 would take the price to negative $90—meaning drugmakers would pay patients to take pills—while doubling $10 to $20 is, well, a 100 percent increase.
Trump: “We’re gonna reducing drug costs over the next year and a half by 1,000 percent.” pic.twitter.com/jX5eg3QEQY
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 18, 2025
Trump was skewered on X for his mad math. One person derided him as a “moron,” while another described him as “Donny Dementia.”
Yet, incredibly, The Story host Martha MacCallum, despite looking a little confused, didn’t push back on his bizarre claims.
But this is not a one-off flub. In late July, Trump bragged about cutting prices by “1,000… 1,100, 1,200, 1,300, 1,400… 700, 600 percent.”
In reality, you cannot reduce the price of something by more than 100 percent.
He even waved around a plan to strong-arm Europe by threatening Mercedes, BMW, and Volkswagen to get his way on pharma—fantasy economics that would still not make his math add up.
Trump later boasted of “1,200 to 1,500 percent” drops—another numerical impossibility, unless Big Pharma all of a sudden is happy to pay people to take its drugs.
Pressed on policy, the White House has touted a “most-favored nation” approach—demanding U.S. prices match or beat those abroad—and says letters have gone to pharma CEOs to secure commitments.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has also talked up pressure tactics and sweeping savings, per a report last Friday in Axios.
But while those ideas may lead to some price cuts, none make “minus 1,000 percent” a thing.
Even Trump’s own anecdotes undermine him. He claimed a friend paid $88 for Ozempic in London and much more in New York, using it to set up his “world versus us” line—then promptly contradicted himself by predicting Americans would pay $20 for a $10 pill while claiming a four-digit “reduction.”
Away from drug prices, Trump has mixed up the basics on the world stage on multiple occasions, as questions grow about his potential mental fragility.
In August, he blanked on the name of the Pacific Ocean, musing aloud as if searching for it, and days later boasted he’d just been to the Middle East when his last trip had been months earlier.
Trump has also forgotten several times which conflict he supposedly “solved,” swapping in the wrong countries entirely.
He has also struggled with simple situational awareness. At a public event in early August, Trump failed to locate people standing just feet away—even after an ally told him “right here”—before the moment turned awkward on camera.
And during his Windsor Castle appearance this week, he rambled through an error-strewn address, compounding the perception that these aren’t isolated slips.
Then there are the head-scratchers that don’t fit any diplomatic or logistical excuse—like when he invented a governor who doesn’t exist.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment, as well as Fox News, to ask why it allowed him to make such a statement seemingly without challenge.
The post Trump, 79, Gets Mad Math Wildly Wrong in Yet Another Senior Moment appeared first on The Daily Beast.
