Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation.
President Donald Trump made a promise at a reception last week for Republican lawmakers that was as impossible as it was specific: He would drive down drug prices by as much as 1,500 percent — “numbers that are not even thought to be achievable,” he said.
A price cannot drop by more than 100 percent, but Trump went on to make several other precise but clearly false numerical claims. The cost of gasoline had fallen to $1.99 a gallon in five states, he said; according to AAA, it was over $3 in every state. Businesses had invested $16 trillion in America in the past four months, he added; the entire U.S. economy last year was worth less than $30 trillion.
Trump even congratulated Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas A. Collins for having an approval rating of 92 percent. In this polarized moment, it is unlikely any U.S. political figure enjoys a figure close to that, and the White House provided no source for the claim.
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Trump tangled with numbers again last Thursday in an appearance with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell, whom he has hinted he might fire. The president complained that a renovation of two Fed headquarters buildings was expected to cost $3.1 billion, prompting Powell to shake his head and respond, “I’m not aware of that.”
Trump handed Powell a sheet of paper, saying the $3.1 billion figure number had just come out. “You’re including the Martin renovation,” Powell said, looking at the paper. “You just added in a third building, is what that is.” Trump said, “It’s a building that’s being built,” and Powell countered: “No, it was built five years ago. We finished Martin five years ago.”
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Trump was also specific in the weeks before the July 3 passage of his sweeping budget bill, which extended tax cuts from his first term. If his bill did not pass, he warned on May 30: “You’ll have a 68 percent tax increase. That’s a number nobody’s ever heard of before. You’ll have a massive tax increase.”
He reiterated that figure in a June 26 speech from the White House, adding, “Think of that: 68 percent.”
Financial experts were predicting taxes would go up about 7.5 percent if the legislation failed — still a substantial hike but far from the 68 percent figure. The White House has declined to comment and several fact-checkers tried unsuccessfully to determine where Trump’s number was coming from, speculating that Trump was conflating it with the proportion of Americans who would see their taxes go up.