https://apnews.com/article/trump-fake-math-drug-price-reductions-1c89714a4b60ead1485d1de31b27da92
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump, who helped push the term “ fake news ” into the mainstream, now seems to have a new favorite subject: fake math.

During a Thursday event announcing a deal with drugmaker Regeneron to lower the cost of its pharmaceutical products, Trump defended his past claims that prices on prescription medications had been cut by well over 100% — something that is mathematically impossible without manufacturers dropping prices to zero and then presumably paying consumers to use their product.

Trump acknowledged having boasted that his efforts to lower drug prices had reduced what consumers pay by “500%, 600%.” But he added, “We also sometimes say 50%, 60%” and called it a “different kind of calculation” that could go up to “70, 80 and 90%.”

“People understand that better,” Trump said. “But they’re two ways of calculating” and “either way, it doesn’t make any difference.”

There could indeed be two ways of calculating such things — but the difference is very important. One is correct. The other is nonmathematical.

It was one of several times Trump used his own — but incorrect — math during the drug pricing event. He claimed the 7 1/2-week-and-still-going Iran war actually fell within the four- to six-week timeline he predicted early on. The president also brought up the crowd size for his 2017 inauguration — a subject that led onetime top Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway to unwittingly make the phrase “ alternative facts ” famous.