CNN's Daniel Dale provided one of his signature fact checks to President Donald Trump's blizzard of "lies" during his latest cabinet meeting.
The president insisted "affordability" was a meaningless word made up by Democrats to make him look bad and offered an unbidden "soliloquy" about cognitive tests he recently took, and the 79-year-old Trump then made a series of boasts about the economy that Dale told "Inside Politics" were mathematically impossible.
"A whole lot of lies about awhole lot of subjects," Dale began, "and someof the greatest-hits claimswe've been hearing over andover from him on the subjects ofthe economy and affordability.For example, he said that he'scutting prescription drug pricesby 500 percent to 900 percent. He said that'ssomething nobody's ever heardof. Well, nobody's ever heard ofit because those numbers don'tmake mathematical sense."
"Ifthere was a reduction of morethan 100 percent, Americans would getpaid to acquire theirmedications, which is nothappening," Dale added. "He could tout someactual reductions in the pricesof a smattering of drugs, butthey're not more than 100 percent, andthat's certainly notwidespread."
Trump campaigned on bringing down consumer prices on Day One, but that hasn't been the case – despite his claims to the contrary.
"He said againgrocery prices are down – no,they're up," Dale said. "They're up 2.7 percentyear over year as of September,1.4 percent from the month he returnedto office in January – so up, notdown. He said since last January we've stoppedinflation in its tracks. Well,the inflation rate in September,the most recent [reporting] we had, was 3 percentyear over year. That is theexact same as it was in January, and September was the fifthconsecutive month of the year-over-year rate had increased, soit's rising. It hasn't been astop. He said he inherited theworst inflation in history. No, again, he inherited 3 percent inflation.Even the peak Biden-erainflation, 9.1 percent in June2022, was not close to the all-time record."
"He said we're nowat about $2.50 for gasoline," Dale added. "Youcan find some stations todaywhere gas is $2.50 or less, butthe national average was right around exactly $3, sosignificantly higher than hesaid. He said his 'Big, Beautiful Bill' included no tax on Social Security – didn't do that. Ittemporarily increased thestandard deduction for seniors,but didn't fulfill his campaignpledge to completely eliminatetax on Social Security, and thenboasting about his supposedeconomic success. He said againthat he secured over $18trillion in investment sincereturning to office in January.That number is about double thenumber the White House's ownwebsite uses. That website uses $9.6 trillion. I went throughthat number line by line, basedon the White House's supposedfigures, found that even thatsmaller figure is a large,wild exaggeration. So certainlyno basis for that $18 trillionfigure."
"So in summary, we'veheard all this before," Dale concluded. "We'vedebunked them before online [and] onTV, but the president keepssaying them."