Appearing on NBC News<\/a>\u2019s Meet the Press<\/a> with Kristen Welker<\/a>, the former daytime TV personality was invited to watch a montage of Trump making wildly inflated promises on the percentage by which his administration planned to cut the cost of pharmaceuticals, which rose from 1,200 percent to 1,500 percent depending on which press event the president was speaking at.<\/p>\n \u201cCutting drug prices by 400 percent, anything over 100 percent, wouldn\u2019t that effectively make them free? Is that a realistic goal from the president?\u201d Welker asked Dr Oz.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Kristen Welker is left baffled by Dr Mehmet Oz’s explanation of the Trump administration’s drug price reduction calculations on NBC’s Meet the Press on Wednesday, October 2,2 2025 (Meet the Press\/NBC)<\/p>\n Strictly speaking, cutting prices by 100 percent would make them free, and any reduction beyond that would put the seller in the nonsensical position of having to pay people to take their product.<\/p>\n Attempting to mount an explanation, the administrator said: \u201cThe president does the calculation by saying, \u2018OK, if a drug was $100 and you reduce it to $50, it\u2019s 100 percent cheaper because you\u2019re taking $50 off and left with only $50, so the amount you took off the price is equal to the amount that\u2019s left. They\u2019re equal so it\u2019s 100 percent.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, reducing a $100 item to $50 would mean it is only 50 percent cheaper.<\/p>\n Pressing on without correcting Oz, the understandably baffled Welker pointed out that Trump has boasted about reducing drug prices by up to 1,500 percent. <\/p>\n \u201cWell, if you take a drug that is $200 or $240 like we did last week and reduce it to $10, those are the numbers you\u2019re talking about,\u201d Oz answered, only intensifying the atmosphere of confusion.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Dr Oz appearing at a White House press conference on drug pricing on October 16 alongside President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr (AP)<\/p>\n The physician struggled with precisely the same calculation at a White House press conference on October 16, held to promote a new deal on fertility drugs, when he said<\/a> at one stage in his address: \u201cYou\u2019ll notice, President Trump, these are discounted from $242 to $10. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what the math is on that. We can\u2019t even calculate it. It\u2019s too high to calculate.\u201d<\/p>\n A reduction from $242 to $10 is 95.87 percent.<\/p>\n The Independent has contacted the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for further comment.<\/p>\n Trump was previously accused of engaging in \u201cMAGA math\u201d<\/a> earlier this year, when a clip of him bragging about bringing down drug prices by 1,400 and 1,500 percent was amended with a Community Note<\/a> on X that read: \u201cMisleading news. If you reduce price by 100 percent, price becomes zero.\u201d <\/p>\n![\"Kristen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Welker-Oz.png\")
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