Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attempted to defend President Donald Trump's false claim that he had lowered drug prices by more than 500%.
During a Thursday event in the Oval Office, Kennedy recalled that Democrats had asked him to explain why the president had repeatedly suggested that he reduce drug prices by up to 1,000%.
"One of the Democratic senators who was questioning me during a hearing," Kennedy said. "And she was ridiculing President Trump for his math. And she was saying, it's mathematically impossible to have a drug drop by 600% cost, which he had claimed."
"And I said, well, if the drug was $100 and it raised the price to $600, that would be a 600% rise," he continued. "Well, if it drops from 600 to 100, that's a 600% savings."
Trump agreed: "You're right, I took a lot of heat. It's, say, 500, 600. But we also say sometimes 50%, 60%, different kind of calculation. 70, 80, and 90%. And people understand that better. But there are two ways of calculating it."
"It's also 500, 600, 700, depending on the way you want to look at it," he added. "So the way you word the calculation, it's either one."
Trump and Kennedy were met with scorn online for not understanding how math works.
"These mind numbingly stupid imbecile sycophants are now trying to invent new math that doesn't exist in order to not correct the cult leader's completely brain damaged idiocy. Its truly unbelievable how dumb this is, even for these fools," political commentary account Spiro's Ghost argued.
"I give up, this isn't even worth joking about anymore," commenter Daractenus lamented.
"This is just Idiocracy-level mathematical idiocy to claim that a price dropping from $600 to $100 is a '600% savings.' Yet Trump believes this and RFK Jr. is pushing it," one mathematician pointed out. "This answer would earn an 'F' in high school math."
"It was pretty inevitable that conservatives would move from science denial to math denial," Mike Drucker observed.
"How can anyone take these morons seriously?" Peter Chalcraft asked. "They can't even understand simple math, so how can you expect them to understand complex economics and geopolitics."
"We are led by drooling morons," another commenter complained.