Fox News host John Roberts told White House aide Howard Lutnick that President Donald Trump's claim of cutting drug prices by 600% was "mathematically impossible."
"I'm going to ask you about the reality versus the perception," Roberts said the day after Trump's speech to the nation. "Because some of them were just mathematically impossible."
"Well, if you cut something by 100%, the cost goes down to zero," he continued. "If you cut it by four, five, or 600%, the drug companies are actually paying you to take their products."
"So it raises the question, how much of last night's speech was hyperbole and how much was fact?"
"Now, what he's saying is you bring it, if a drug was $100 and you bring the drug down to $13, right?" Lutnick replied. "If you're looking at it from $13, it's down seven times."
"It's not 600%!" Roberts protested.
"Well, but it's 700% percent higher price before it's down 700% now, right?" Lutnick insisted. "A $13 would have to go up 700% to get back to the old one. So it all depends on when you look at it, you could say it's down 87%, or you could say it would have to go up 700% to be the same one."
"But basically what he's saying, and we all know what he's saying, is we are hammering the price of drugs," he added.
