'Whole lotta lies': Fact-checker shreds Trump boasts that 'don't make mathematical sense'
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 a whole lot of subjects," Dale began, "and some of the greatest-hits claims we've been hearing over and over from him on the subjects of the economy and affordability. For example, he said that he's cutting prescription drug prices by 500 percent to 900 percent. He said that's something nobody's ever heard of. Well, nobody's ever heard of it because those numbers don't make mathematical sense."
"If there was a reduction of more than 100 percent, Americans would get paid to acquire their medications, which is not happening," Dale added. "He could tout some actual reductions in the prices of a smattering of drugs, but they're not more than 100 percent, and that's certainly not widespread."
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 again grocery prices are down – no, they're up," Dale said. "They're up 2.7 percent year over year as of September, 1.4 percent from the month he returned to office in January – so up, not down. He said since last January we've stopped inflation in its tracks. Well, the inflation rate in September, the most recent [reporting] we had, was 3 percent year over year. That is the exact same as it was in January, and September was the fifth consecutive month of the year-over-year rate had increased, so it's rising. It hasn't been a stop. He said he inherited the worst inflation in history. No, again, he inherited 3 percent inflation. Even the peak Biden-era inflation, 9.1 percent in June 2022, was not close to the all-time record."
"He said we're now at about $2.50 for gasoline," Dale added. "You can find some stations today where gas is $2.50 or less, but the national average was right around exactly $3, so significantly higher than he said. He said his 'Big, Beautiful Bill' included no tax on Social Security – didn't do that. It temporarily increased the standard deduction for seniors, but didn't fulfill his campaign pledge to completely eliminate tax on Social Security, and then boasting about his supposed economic success. He said again that he secured over $18 trillion in investment since returning to office in January. That number is about double the number the White House's own website uses. That website uses $9.6 trillion. I went through that number line by line, based on the White House's supposed figures, found that even that smaller figure is a large, wild exaggeration. So certainly no basis for that $18 trillion figure."
"So in summary, we've heard all this before," Dale concluded. "We've debunked them before online [and] on TV, but the president keeps saying them."
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