White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was widely mocked after she repeated President Donald Trump’s impossible claims that he got pharmaceutical companies to lower their drug prices by more than 100%, saying they are “going to be lowered by “200, 300, 100%.”
Even if Trump’s policy, which is dependent on cooperation from reluctant pharmaceutical companies and speculative future regulatory moves, were to result in a sharp drop in drug prices, it’s mathematically impossible to cut prices by 500% to 1,500%.
Even if every drug were somehow made free, that would represent a 100% reduction. Anything beyond that would mean Americans were being paid to take their medications rather than purchasing them.
Nevertheless, Leavitt said:
“Look, the president is definitely committed to fixing and improving our health care system. You saw it again last week when he had one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world coming into the Oval Office and promising to lower drug prices by 200, 300, 100%, in many cases for various types of drugs for American patients.”
“That is a huge fix to a broken system that has been ripping off the American people for far too long, so the president’s very committed to this. But right now we need to reopen the federal government and the president is remaining very firm in that position.”
You can hear what she said in the video below.
Her “MAGA Math” made no sense whatsoever—and she was mocked profusely for the bogus claim.
Leavitt’s comments referred to Trump’s recent announcement of an effort to reduce U.S. drug costs, which includes launching a “TrumpRx” website where consumers can purchase discounted medications and securing a sweeping deal with Pfizer to lower the prices of many of its products.
Pfizer became the first pharmaceutical company to fully comply with a letter Trump addressed to industry CEOs over the summer, agreeing to measures the president said he hopes others will soon adopt. Under the agreement, Pfizer will sell drugs to Medicaid and price new medications at “Most Favored Nation” rates, which are the lowest offered in comparable countries.
Pfizer said it will also offer many of its primary care and specialty brand-name drugs at roughly 50% off through TrumpRx, expand domestic manufacturing, and receive a three-year exemption from certain tariffs on imported pharmaceuticals.
However, industry analysts question whether these moves will meaningfully reduce what Americans actually pay for prescriptions, given that drug prices are heavily influenced by insurance coverage and intermediaries such as pharmacy benefit managers that sit between manufacturers and insurers.
