Oval Office Press Conference
At a November 6, 2025 press conference in the Oval Office, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said that the Trump administration's new deal to lower the cost of GLP-1 medications had the potential to help Americans lose "135 billion pounds" by the 2026 midterm elections.
At the press conference Oz also said:
We thought it was 125 million pounds. Mr. President, our estimate — based on the company numbers as well — Americans will lose 135 billion pounds by the midterms.
Source:
Raposas, Rachel. (November 7, 2025). "Dr. Oz Proclaims Americans Could Lose '135 Billion Pounds' by Midterm Elections with New Weight Loss Drug Pricing". People. Retrieved 2025-11-23.
Later in the day, speaking with Kellie Meyer from NewsNation, when Meyer mentioned the 135 billion number Oz had stated during the press conference, Oz responded by saying 135 million.
Based on what Oz said, it's clear that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated 125 million and that the 135 billion figure (according to Oz) is what drug companies estimated.
The problem, however, is that Oz was being irresponsible and was in effect gaslighting for stating the 135 billion number. 135 billion is about 1,000 times as much as 125 million. Which number, 125 million or 135 billion, do you think anyone hearing what he said is going to remember?
The total population of the U.S. (as of July 1, 2025) is 342,034,432. According to data on the U.S. CDC website, the prevalence of obesity in adults (August 2021–August 2023) is 40.3%. Doing the math (342,034,432 times .403) you get 137,839,876 obese people. Using the 135 billion figure, that means that each obese person in the U.S. would lose about 1,000 pounds (135,000,000,000 divided by 137,839,876).
Why am I going to all the trouble to look up this data and do the math? I'm doing it to show how astronomically over-exaggerated the "company numbers" are.
Oz didn't have to state the "company numbers." He could have just stated the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimate of 125 million. If Oz actually knew how grossly over-exaggerated the 135 billion number is, then he knowingly stated it in order to have an even greater impact on anyone and everyone who heard what he said, and he did it to make himself and the Trump administration look like they were pulling off some kind of miracle by helping people lose so much weight. If Oz didn't know, then he's not doing his job. He is the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services - the U.S. federal agency responsible for the healthcare of tens of millions of American citizens. Oz gets paid to know this kind of information, and he gets paid to correctly inform American citizens about important data like this.
What Oz did is what Trump does all the time: stating misleading, cherry-picked, highly-exaggerated, and false information. The effect, intended or not, is to gaslight people into believing false and grossly over-exaggerated information.
NBC News Interview
On October 22, 2025, Dr. Oz was interviewed by Kristen Welker of NBC News. During the interview Welker noted that Trump has repeatedly talked about cutting drug prices by more than 100 percent, even suggesting much higher percentages up to 1,500 percent. Welker asked Oz if making 100 percent or higher drug discounts would essentially make drugs free. Oz responded by saying:
The president does the calculation by saying, 'OK, if a drug was $100 and you reduce it to $50, it's 100 percent cheaper because you're taking $50 off and left with only $50, so the amount you took off the price is equal to the amount that's left. They're equal so it's 100 percent.
When Welker pressed Oz on Trump's 1,500 percent claim Oz responded:
Well, 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're talking about.
Source:
Rashid, Hafiz. (October 23, 2025). "Dr. Oz Fails Obvious Math Question Trying to Defend Trump Drug Prices". The New Republic. Retrieved 2025-11-23.
For those of you who understand basic, remedial math, you are shaking your head in disbelief like me and no mathematical explanation is necessary. For those of you don't, let me explain.
$50 is NOT 100 percent of $100.
$50 is 50 percent of $100.
To say that a drug is "100 percent cheaper" is a LIE, and a big one.
A reduction in price from $100 to $50 is a 50 percent decrease, NOT a 100 percent decrease.
Likewise, $10 is NOT 1,500 percent of $200.
$10 is 5 percent of $200.
To calculate a percentage you take one number and divide it by the other, then multiply the result by 100 to get the percentage.
In this case, you divide 50 by 100 (which equals 0.5), then multiply it by 100 (which equals 50).
An even simpler way to explain this is that 50 is one-half of 100, which is 50 percent.
Oz said "the president does the calculation," so I suppose we shouldn't put all the blame on Oz for this remedial failing of basic math, but this tells us just how inept Trump is at basic math.
What Trump and Oz attempted here isn't "fuzzy math" and the numbers stated by Oz (and Trump) are NOT subject to interpretation. Oz's explanation of Trump's reasoning makes absolutely no sense and it's beyond FUBAR.
This seemingly innocuous little episode shines a bright light on how Trump (and his minions) use numbers to not only justify claims and policies, but how they use them to grossly exaggerate and gaslight people into believing what is categorically and mathematically untrue.
This isn't coming from some slick and devious used car salesman. This is coming from the president of the United States, from a guy who either can't do basic math, or who knows he's making up a bunch of mathematical B.S. trying to "pull the wool over the eyes" of the American people. I think it's the latter.