The Dictatorship
Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are spectacularly flunking math
“There’s two ways of calculating a percentage,” Health and Human Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at a U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing. Warren had rightly dismissed President Donald Trump’s claim that he had lowered drug prices by up to 600%, and she demanded some “real math.” But Kennedy, out of either ignorance or shameless sycophancy to Trump, shot back with some MAGA math. “If you have a $600 drug, and you reduce it to $10,” Kennedy said, “that’s a 600% reduction.”
No, it’s not. This point can’t be stressed enough in case there’s a middle schooler reading the opinion page: No! It’s just not.
Kennedy, out of either ignorance or shameless sycophancy to Trump, shot back with some MAGA math.
If the price of a drug were reduced from $600 to $10, that would be a 98.3% decrease. A 600% reduction, Warren said, “means companies should be paying you to take their drugs.” While a $590 price drop, if true, would be a significant and beneficial policy change, Warren repeated a point that Democrats have been making for months: Several of the name-brand drugs at the TrumpRx websiteeven at lower prices, still cost considerably more than their generic equivalents.
Kennedy didn’t come up with the 600% nonsense himself. Trump has consistently claimed that he’s reduced the price of drugs by many times more than the price of those drugs. Kennedy’s maddening repetition of pseudo-math may be the most glaring sign of a broader problem: that the president has completely surrounded himself with yes-men during this term. Apparently, nobody has dared to tell him he’s wrong. Instead, they’re standing around marveling at the emperor’s new math.
When an administration is known equally for its lies and its incompetence, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to know which is at play at any time. Trump tells — and demands that his officials tell — obvious lies: about his poll numbersabout inflationabout Black migrants eating cats and dogsabout noncitizens voting. Just Thursday, he lied that more people attended his inauguration than the 1963 March on Washington.
But Trump also appears not to know things he should know — such as which Americans could have prevented the Civil Warwhy the president of Liberia can speak English “so beautifully” and why you don’t stare at a solar eclipse. Thus, it’s unclear if his insistence that he’s reduced drug prices by up to 600% is an authoritarian demand that people accept what he knows (and they know) to be a lie — or if the president and his appointees, who almost to a person are out of their depth, really are that mathematically inept.
The Trump White House isn’t the first group of policymakers pushing bogus math. In 1897, the Indiana House passed — unanimously! — “an act introducing a new mathematical truth,” namely that pi, a circle’s circumference divided by its diameter, equals 3.2. The roughest approximation of pi, an irrational number, is of course 3.14. A mocking editorial from The Chicago Tribune said, “An Illinois circle or a circle originating in Ohio will find its proportions modified as soon as it lands on Indiana soil,” and wondered if Indiana wouldn’t eventually take another look at pi, “lop off another decimal and call it 3.” (The bill died in the state Senate.)
We’re not dealing with geometry, just basic arithmetic. And this administration is flunking.
What the Trump administration is saying feels worse. Because in discussing the price of prescription drugs, we’re not dealing with geometry, just basic arithmetic. And this administration is flunking.
Surely, Kennedy had access to a pencil and paper between his face-off with Warren on Wednesday and his Oval Office meeting with Trump on Thursday. But he didn’t check his work, because while he was in the president’s presence, he claimed that Warren was the one wrong. “She was ridiculing President Trump for his math,” Kennedy said as he stood behind Trump. “She was saying it’s mathematically impossible to have a drug drop by 600% cost. And I said, ‘Well, if the drug was $100 and it raises to $600, that would be a 600% rise. But if it drops from $600 to $100, that’s a 600% savings.’”
“Right,” Trump nodded.
Dr. Mehmet Ozwho serves under Kennedy as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — and who graduated from Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school and its Wharton Business School — stood there nodding and smiling. But the nation’s math teachers must have been banging their heads on their whiteboards.
Kennedy was wrong every way it was possible to be wrong. First, $100 to $600 is a 500% increase. A drop from $600 to $100 would be an 83% decrease. Notice that Kennedy used $10 as his final price Wednesday and $100 as his final price Thursday. But somehow, $600 to $10 and $600 to $100 are both 600% reductions.
There were a couple of paper cups on the table in front of Kennedy as he testified to the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, and it would have been perfect if Warren had asked Kennedy to fill one of them to the top and then pour out 600%. The reason he wouldn’t have been able to pour out 600% is the same reason you can’t drop a price by that much.
As HHS secretary, Kennedy oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is the keeper of health care data and statistics for the country. We shouldn’t expect the HHS secretary to be able to do all the high-level math the department’s statisticians do, but we should expect him to solve a problem that might have appeared on “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”
Jarvis DeBerry is an opinion editor for MS NOW Daily. He was previously editor-in-chief at the Louisiana Illuminator and a columnist and deputy opinion editor at The Times-Picayune.
The Dictatorship
Friday’s Campaign Round-Up, 7.10.26: Democrats pour into Maine race to replace Platner
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In Maine’s closely watched Senate raceGraham Platner has until Monday to officially withdraw his Democratic candidacy. And according to multiple reportshe intends to wait until Monday to file the paperwork. It’s not at all clear why he’s dragging out the process.
In the meantime, the field of contenders hoping to replace him on the general election ballot is growing quickly. Former state Senate President Troy Jackson, for example, announced his candidacy less than an hour after Platner left the race. Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company, is also in, along with former gubernatorial hopeful Nirav Shah, who led the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention during the pandemic.
As Thursday progressed, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows joined the party’s field, as did Jordan Wood, who recently lost a competitive House primary race in the northern part of Maine.
Over the past 30 years, there have been only nine instances in which a major party replaced its Senate nominee. Two of those nine won.
* Despite credible concerns about Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s eligibility to run for governor in Alabama, a state judge this week dismissed a lawsuit that argued he does not meet the residency requirement to run.
* In Texas’ closely watched Senate raceRepublican Attorney General Ken Paxton raised over $9 million in the second quarter (spanning April through June), while Democratic state Rep. James Talarico raised a staggering $30 million over the same three months. According to The Texas TribuneTalarico’s haul “is a record total for a U.S. Senate candidate in the second quarter of an election year.”
* As Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s Republican gubernatorial campaign prepares for an Aug. 6 primary, the senator launched a new television ad this week that has been widely panned as racist.
* Rep. Mike Collins’ Republican Senate campaign in Georgia was already facing long oddsand it probably won’t help that the far-right congressman is now struggling with staffing issuesincluding the departure of two chiefs of staff.
* And while it’s undeniable that Republicans enjoy a financial advantage headed into the midterm electionsSenate Majority PAC, a super PAC aligned with the Senate Democratic leadership, and its affiliated nonprofit raised $147 million in the second quarter. That’s the best quarter it’s ever had.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was not the target of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation that resulted in his fatal shooting, Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, told MS NOW.
Salgado, a Mexican immigrant who moved to the United States 35 years ago, was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday. According to Garcia, acting ICE Director David Venturella told her that neither Salgado nor his brother, who was in the vehicle with him, were the individuals that ICE officers were looking for. But Venturella “refused” to provide further information, Garcia said.
In a statement to MS NOW, a DHS spokesperson said that “officers conducted surveillance on a target’s address” where “they noted two white vans at the property. On July 7, officers were almost at the target’s address when they observed a white van with an individual who resembled the target. Officers then initiated the vehicle stop.”
The New York Timesciting a DHS spokeswoman, also reported on Thursday that ICE officers had been looking for a different person.
The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences has ruled Salgado’s death a homicide.
How the incident escalated to result in Salgado’s killing is unclear. Three other men arrested in the operation have disputed in handwritten statements to The Washington Post the claim by DHS that Salgado “weaponized his vehicle” against an officer.
“That is a lie,” Jose Trinidad Rojas said. “It is impossible for them to say that they were going to get run over … there were no officers in front of or behind the vehicle. They were on the sides.”
The officers engaging in the operation were also not wearing body cameras, nor were there cameras on the car dashboard. A DHS spokesperson told MS NOW in a statement that officers had not been issued body cameras because of the government shutdowns over funding for the department, saying the process of acquiring the equipment for ICE field offices “was interrupted by the Democrats multiple government shutdowns.”
Salgado’s death has sparked a firestorm across the country. His family said he was in the process of obtaining his work permit and was en route to a construction site when he was killed.
They have also called for an independent investigation into his killing, pointing to the similarities in DHS’ claim about the circumstances of Salgado’s death to that of Renee Good’s in Minneapolis.
DHS has said its Office of Inspector General is probing the incident. A spokesperson for the FBI in Houston previously told MS NOW that it is “leading an investigation into the potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Laura Barrón-López covers the White House for MS NOW.
Rosa Flores is a national correspondent for MS NOW.
Sara Weisfeldt is a field producer for MS NOW.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
Voters in Colorado haven’t elected a Republican governor in more than two decades, and now that this year’s GOP gubernatorial primary has been called, it seems the streak will continue for four more years. The Associated Press reported:
Marine Corps veteran Victor Marx won the Republican primary for Colorado governor on Thursday, inching past a state senator who had the establishment’s backing.
Marx, described as a “high risk humanitarian” and the fastest gun disarmer in the world, defeated Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, his stiffest competition, in the June 30 election.
The results were incredibly close, and as of the latest tallies, Marx’s lead over Kirkmeyer was only about half a percentage point. That said, the advantage was good enough for news organizations to call the contest.
For her party, Kirkmeyer thanked her supporters and volunteers in a statement Thursday evening, signing off by saying, “I’m still proud of the campaign we ran … and, for the record, I still haven’t killed anyone.”
That might sound like a strange thing to say, but in this case, it was highly relevant: According to Marx, who founded a group called All Things Possible Ministries, he had an abusive stepfather who effectively forced him, at just 7 years old, to kill a man.
Asked in May how many people he has killed since then, the GOP candidate paused before telling Kyle Clark, an anchor at the NBC affiliate in Denver, “Does it matter?” He went on to call it an “odd question.”
(For the record, there are lingering questions about whether Marx actually killed a man as a child, and according to local law enforcementthere are unsolved murders from that time period.)
In case that weren’t quite enough, in the same interview, Marx explained that he also performs exorcisms, which he added can be completed over the phone.
He did not appear to be kidding.
A recent Slate report noted that party insiders not only expect him to lose badly, they’re also concerned that having Marx at the top of the GOP ballot “could imperil other Republican seats in the statehouse and Congress, plunging the fractured, marginalized party into chaos.”
Marx will face Phil Weiser, the Democratic state attorney general, in November. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
- Trump refuses to sign landmark housing bill, taking aim at GOP
- Capitol agenda: GOP faces megabill angst and a ‘time problem’
- ‘The new animal at the zoo’: John Kennedy is suddenly everywhere
- Morris Katz: ‘I’m deeply disappointed’
- Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is officially running for Senate
- Who will cheer for Palestine now?
- How Trump radicalized the Belgians
- Belgian airline needles Spain ahead of World Cup quarterfinal
- Trump refuses to sign landmark housing bill, taking aim at GOP
- Friday’s Campaign Round-Up, 7.10.26: Democrats pour into Maine race to replace Platner
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship10 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words