Trump ally defends president’s fantasy math as ‘a different way of calculating’ - BERITAJA

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a Senate Finance Committee proceeding that President Donald Trump uses a “different way” of calculating supplier value reductions, a defense that drew speedy ridicule from mathematicians and Democratic senators.

Kennedy appeared earlier the committee to talk the Department of Health and Human Services fund petition for fiscal twelvemonth 2027. The hearing’s defining infinitesimal came erstwhile Sen. Elizabeth Warren pressed him connected claims that the TrumpRx programme had trim medicine costs by arsenic overmuch arsenic 600 percent.

RFK Jr: "President Trump has a different measurement of calculating percentages. If you person a $600 supplier and you trim it to $10, that's a 600% reduction." pic.twitter.com/MjDNADqc8p

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 22, 2026

Kennedy’s consequence was blunt. “President Trump has a different measurement of calculating,” he said. “There’s 2 ways of calculating percentages. If you person a $600 drug, and you trim it to $10, that’s a 600% reduction.”

That declare is mathematically wrong. A driblet from $600 to $10 is simply a simplification of much than 98%. A discount cannot transcend 100%, because that would trim the value to zero aliases connote the purchaser is being paid.

We've known for a while that the USA's existent authorities person been retired for science, but I ne'er though they would effort to messiness pinch math(s)!

You can't conscionable redefine really you cipher percentages.
1/2 pic.twitter.com/3jk2LPY5kJ

— Kit Yates (@Kit_Yates_Maths) April 22, 2026

Mathematician Kit Yates reacted connected societal media. “We’ve known for a while that the USA’s existent authorities person been retired for science, but I ne'er thought they would effort to messiness pinch math! You can’t conscionable redefine really you cipher percentages.”

What Trump really claimed

The flawed mathematics did not commencement astatine the hearing. On October 10, 2025, Trump told supporters that supplier prices would autumn “100 percent, 400 percent, 600 percent, 1,000 percent, successful immoderate cases.”

At the motorboat of TrumpRx, he cited examples. He said Novo Nordisk would trim Ozempic from complete $1,000 to $199 and Wegovy from complete $1,300 to $199, calling it “a 578% difference.” In reality, that driblet is about 85%. His method appears to flip the calculation, measuring the summation from the little value backmost to the original. A emergence from $199 to $1,300 is about 553%, which is person to his figure, but that reflects an increase, not a decrease.

Despite truth checks, Trump repeated akin claims done December 2025 and into 2026, saying prices were falling by “300, 400, 500, moreover 600 percent.” Kennedy’s defense marked the first clip a elder charismatic publically backed this replacement approach.

Warren’s drugstore mathematics vs. Kennedy’s arithmetic

Warren brought existent examples to the hearing. She noted that TrumpRx lists Protonix astatine $200, while Costco sells the generic for $16.

After backmost and forth, Kennedy said TrumpRx prices mention to brand-name drugs. “You’re comparing apples to oranges because you’re comparing the marque supplier to the generic drug. We will beryllium directing [people] to the generic,” he said.

Warren pushed backmost and said, “They’ve sewage a 1 retired of 4 chance of paying much astatine TrumpRx than they would if they went to Costco.”

Kennedy shifted blasted to Congress. “We did this because you refused to do it.”

Warren was not persuaded. “Americans are getting crushed by healthcare costs, and you and Donald Trump are really making the problem worse. The American nationalist deserves better.”

Sanders presses Kennedy

Sen. Bernie Sanders besides challenged Kennedy’s claims that Americans now salary the lowest supplier prices successful the world. “That is an absurd statement,” Sanders said. “Nobody successful the world believes that.”

Kennedy pushed back, telling Democrats, “You person a batch much powerfulness to negotiate. Why don’t you conscionable spell do it?”

Rising supplier prices successful the background

The discourse down the proceeding made Kennedy’s capacity moreover much striking. Reuters reported successful December 2025 that astatine slightest 350 branded medications are group for value hikes successful 2026, including vaccines against COVID, RSV, and shingles, arsenic good arsenic the blockbuster crab curen Ibrance.

Americans paid a grounds $98 cardinal out-of-pocket for medicine narcotics successful 2024, a 25 percent summation complete 5 years. By 2025, about 42 percent of Americans reported being prescribed a medicine they could not afford, and 1 successful 5 skipped a medicine owed to cost.