I’ve blogged numerous times about Donald Trump and his sorry reputation of cheating at golf. I’ve got a chapter in my book, Bible Predicts Trump Fall, about it. But Mr. Trump applies his penchant for mistaken statistics in other areas of life as well, even during the last few days.
Trump the Statistician
Donald Trump needs to go back to school and take a course on business statistics. In my freshman year of college, I took two semesters of such a course, and it was one of my favorite college courses. But Trump has always displayed a dislike for details. He makes outlandish statements without backing them up with factual evidence. And when he does, he loves to exaggerate these statements with bald-faced, lying statistics.
Trump Defends Blowing Up Narco Boats
For example, President Trump has been defending his decision to have the Navy patrolling the Caribbean Sea with warships searching for drug-smuggling boats coming foreign countries to the U.S. to deposit their cargoes. F-35 fighter jets also are being deployed.
But President Trump has gone much farther than that with his campaign against illegal narcotics being trafficked to the U.S. and sold here. He is now ordering that such vessels at sea be blown up without due process of law. These are unprecedented acts committed of the U.S. presidency that may be illegal according to human rights and international maritime law.
Yesterday, President Trump announced that the U.S. Navy had fired a missile at a drug-smuggling boat that killed “3 male narcoterrorists.” He did not say where it happened or from what country the boat and its crew had originated, but only that the craft was navigating in “international waters.”
This was the third such episode in the past few weeks. The first one occurred on September 2, killing eleven men, with no crew survivors. The boat had originated from Venezuela. The U.S. claimed they were members of the narco gang Tren de Aragua. But Venezuela denied that it was drug smugglers, claiming it was a fishing boat. Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior minister, accused the U.S. of “murder.”
Trump Has Reward Against Venezuela President
President Donald Trump has gotten crossways with Venezuela’s President Nicholas Maduro. Trump has even gotten the U.S. government to offer a $50 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest and conviction of alleged crimes. As for the second boat incident, it originated from Venezuela as well. It occurred a few days ago. Trump announced it Monday, that three men were killed.
On September 14, President Trump spoke to reporters about the first blown-up boat incident twelve days prior. He denied the murder charge by saying, “No. What’s illegal are the drugs that were on the boat and the drugs that are being sent into our country, and the fact that 300 million people died last year from drugs. That’s what’s illegal.”
Trump Said 300 Million of Us Died from Drugs?
So, the context in which Trump said that, about 300 million people dying, refers to U.S. citizens last year. The internet then lit up, mocking Trump as being quite a bad statistician. That is, the U.S. has only a total of 340 million citizens.
Even if Trump meant the total number of citizens in the world who died from drug overdose last year, which he probably did, the United Nations announced that in 2024 62.4 million people in the world died from drug overdose. And as for the number of U.S. citizens who died from drug overdose last year, the CDC said it was about 75,000.
Trump Said He’d Reduce Drug Prices “1,000 %”
Trump campaigned for president in 2004 by claiming he would bring down drug prices in the U.S. by “1,000 percent.” Ah folks, you can’t reduce the price of something more than 100 percent. That’s why I’m saying Donald Trump needs to quit being president and go back to college to get his penchant for alarming statistics straightened out! In fact, Trump said it multiple times, only he got his numbers even more alarming at different times. The Daily Beast reports today, “In late July [this year], Trump bragged about cutting prices by ‘1,000 … 1,100, 12,00, 1,300, 1,400 … 700, 600 percent.'”
But it gets worse! The Daily Beast says in a recent Fox News interview with Trump, that he said, “‘We’re gonna be reducing drug costs over the next year, year and a half … by a thousand percent, it’ll go from $10 to $20 for us.'” Wha-a-a-a-at!!! You’re going to reduce drug prices by making them go from $10 to $20! That’s increasing drug prices 100 percent Mr. McDoo Trump! (I think Donald Trump is turning into Mr. Magoo.) Plus, I don’t know what universe Trump lives in with drug prices being only $10. Yeah, one pill for $10. But Trump was talking about “drug prices.” Trump sometimes flubs the context of his speech as bad as he gets his stats way off.
The Daily Beast says the internet lit up on this one as well. One X user called him a “moron,” which isn’t original. Another was more creative with “Donny Dementia.”
That’s why I think Donny Trump should be checked for his decision, implemented on August 1, to fire Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He didn’t like their last numbers report about the unexpected drop in new jobs. Yet, that statistic had been dropping in recent months, thus adding to the dreaded increase in the rate of unemployment. That is why the Federal Reserve has been refusing to lower interest rates because of inflation. At least they started it this week.
Conclusion
Yet the BLS is an apolitical agency. They are not crunching numbers to make the economy, and thus chief of the White House, look good. It’s just the numbers. But what Trump looks to me that he’d like to do is mess with those numbers like he does on the golf course, at least as I have documented according to people who’ve played golf with him. What do you think?
Here is food for thought from the Bible’s wisdom literature, the book of Proverbs:
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