AP FACT CHECK: Trump hype on drug costs, hydroxychloroquine

President Donald Trump is making grandiose claims about slashing drug prices and efficacy of a treatment for COVID-19 that don’t hold up to reality.

In a tweet Sunday, he asserts that he will reduce drug prices by at least 50%. That’s highly unlikely. Measures anunced last month by president will take time to roll out and ir effects are uncertain. y also have been less ambitious than a plan by Speaker Nancy Pelosi that passed House.

Meanwhile, Trump once again asserted that hydroxychloroquine is a drug safe and effective for treating COVID-19, only to be firmly rebutted Sunday by his own testing coordinator, who said people should “move on” to more effective measures, such as social distancing and wearing masks.

A look at Trump’s statements on health care, as well as his distortions over past week on mail-in voting and Democratic rival Joe Biden’s record:

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

TRUMP: “When you see Drug Companies taking massive television ads against me, forget what y say (which is false), YOU KW THAT DRUG PRICES ARE COMING DOWN, BIG.” — tweet Sunday.

TRUMP: “We think we’re going to cut prescription drug prices 50, 60, even 70%.” — remarks Thursday to New Hampshire supporters.

TRUMP, promising a big reduction in drug prices: “ or President would be able to produce what I have.” — tweet Tuesday.

FACTS: Actually, massive, across--board cuts are in offing for drug prices.

Efforts anunced last month by president — such as allowing importation of medicines from countries where prices are lower — take time to roll out. It remains to be seen how much y’ll move needle on prices.

Drug importation, for example, requires regulatory actions to be taken and supply chains to be established, a tall order when election is just three months away.

Trump has taken actions to reduce patient costs for some drugs, such as insulin, but steps have been less ambitious than those in a bill from Speaker Nancy Pelosi that House passed last year. Her proposal would authorize Medicare to negotiate prices for expensive medications and use savings from lower drug costs to establish Medicare cover for dental care, hearing and vision.

She would cap Medicare recipients’ out-of-pocket costs for medicines at $2,000 a year. limit exists on those annual costs w. vast majority of Medicare recipients have low drug costs, but Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that in 2017, about 1 million Medicare recipients paid much more, averaging $3,200 in a year.

White House actions, while t insignificant, don’t amount to massive changes Trump brags about. One major initiative would give people on Medicare option of limiting ir out-of-pocket costs for insulin to $35 a month starting next year, by picking an “enhanced” prescription drug plan for a slightly higher premium.

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VIRUS DRUG

TRUMP, on use of hydroxychloroquine to treat or try to prevent coronavirus: “I happen to be a believer in hydroxy. I used it. I had problem. I happen to be a believer.” — remarks Wednesday to reporters.

FACTS: Trump’s continued promotion of anti-malaria drug for COVID-19 has been repeatedly dismissed by his own health experts, including Adm. Brett Giroir, administration’s lead official on testing, who made clear Sunday he does t recommend treatment.

“Most physicians and prescribers are evidence-based, and y’re t influenced by whatever is on Twitter or anything else,” he told NBC’s “Meet Press.” In this case, “anything else” includes endorsements of drug by president.

Giroir said “ evidence just doesn’t show hydroxychloroquine is effective right w.”

He said people need to “move on” and “talk about what is effective.” He pointed to measures such as hand-washing, social-distancing and wearing masks, as well as treatments such as remdesivir and steroids.

Trump’s own health ncies as well as Dr. Anthony Fauci, government’s top infectious diseases expert, have cautioned that taking hydroxychloroquine to stave off virus could be dangerous due to side effects. If president is to be believed, he took drug himself.

Trump repeatedly has pushed hydroxychloroquine, with or without antibiotic azithromycin. But large, rigorous studies have found m safe or effective for COVID-19, and y can cause heart rhythm problems and or serious side effects. Food and Drug Administration has warned against drug combination and said hydroxychloroquine should only be used for coronavirus in hospitals and research settings.

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TRUMP, on hydroxychloroquine: “Many, many people agree with me. A great test just came out from Ford clinic in Michigan — very respected.” — remarks Wednesday to reporters.

FACTS: Trump is cherry picking a study widely criticized as flawed, igring multiple studies finding hydroxychloroquine doesn’t help.

Numerous rigorous tests of hydroxychloroquine, including a large one from Britain and one led by National Institutes of Health, concluded that anti-malaria drug was ineffective for treating hospitalized coronavirus patients.

Henry Ford Health System study that Trump refers to was an observational look back at how various patients fared. It was t a rigorous test where similar patients are randomly assigned to get drug or t and where each group is compared later on how y did.

In study, some people with heart or certain or conditions were t given drugs, which can cause heart rhythm problems, so those patients were fundamentally different from group y were compared with. Researchers said y adjusted statistically for some differences, but many variables make it tough to reach firm conclusions.

Some patients also received or treatments such as steroids and antiviral drug remdesivir, furr clouding any ability to tell wher hydroxychloroquine helped.

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VEMBER ELECTION

TRUMP: “Must kw Election results on night of Election, t days, months, or even years later!” — tweet Thursday.

TRUMP: “I want to have result of election. I don’t want to be waiting around for weeks and months.” — news conference Thursday.

FACTS: He’s demanding something one can deliver. president appeared unaware that American democracy can’t be shaped to produce a same-day result to sate his impatience.

re’s certainly requirement for a winner to be declared election night, and prospect of having to wait to kw who won has t been used as justification to try to delay vote itself.

State election officials in some battleground states recently warned it may take days to count an expected surge of ballots that people send by mail because y don’t feel safe showing up to polls. In an election as close as 2016′s, a delayed tally in key states could keep outcome from being quickly kwn.

Delayed results are common in a few states where elections are already conducted largely by mail. But a presidential election hasn’t been left in limbo since 2000, when ballot irregularities in Florida led to weeks of chaos and court fights.

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TRUMP: “With Universal Mail-In Voting (t Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to USA. Delay Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” — tweet Thursday.

FACTS: Trump has persistently orized about voter fraud and never supported those ories with facts. He appointed a commission to get to bottom of voter fraud and it disbanded without making any findings.

Time and again, voter fraud has proved exceedingly rare, and voting without going to polling places has become more common.

Multiple checks, such as signature verification in many states, must happen before a ballot can be counted, and experts say any fraud can be detected.

Five states relied on mail-in ballots even before coronavirus pandemic raised concerns about voting in person. Those states say y have necessary safeguards in place to ensure that a hostile foreign actor doesn’t co-opt vote. More states intend to rely more heavily on mail-in voting for same reason.

“Trump is simply wrong about mail-in balloting raising a ‘tremendous’ potential for fraud,” Richard L. Hasen, an elections expert at University of California, Irvine, School of Law, wrote recently. “While certain pockets of country have seen ir share of absentee-ballot scandals, problems are extremely rare in five states that rely primarily on vote-by-mail, including heavily Republican state of Utah.”

Indeed, election experts widely say that all forms of voter fraud are rare. Brennan Center for Justice in 2017 ranked risk of ballot fraud at an infinitesimal 0.00004% to 0.0009%, based on studies of past elections.

Even so, Trump has sketched wild scenarios, recently imagining “thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebody’s living room, signing ballots all over place.”

As for extraordinary step of moving v. 3 election, chances are almost nil. On Sunday, Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller suggested Trump won’t push for a delay.

“ election is going to be on v. 3,” Miller told “Fox News Sunday.” “President Trump wants election on v. 3.”

date of presidential election — Tuesday after first Monday in vember in every fourth year — is enshrined in federal law and would require an act of Congress to change. Democrats, who control House, will t support Trump on this. Republicans, who control Senate, are unlikely to, eir.

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TRUMP: “Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter race.” — tweet Thursday.

FACTS: , it’s one of most difficult ways for a foreign adversary to meddle in a U.S. election.

Swaying a federal election using absentee ballots would mean paying thousands of U.S. citizens, carefully selected in key cities in battleground states, who are willing to conspire with a foreign government and risk detection and prosecution.

Far easier and cheaper would be a social media campaign seeking to discour certain groups of people from voting, something FBI has already warned about. Or launching a sophisticated cyberattack on voter registration data that would eliminate certain voters from rolls, causing havoc at polling places or election offices as officials look to count ballots from people who are “missing” from ir voter databases.

Last month Attorney General Bill Barr raised possibility that a “foreign country could print up tens of thousands of counterfeit ballots.” He argued y would be hard to detect, but that’s been disputed by election experts.

Absentee ballots are printed on special paper and must be formatted correctly in order to be processed and counted. Ballots are specific to each precinct, often with a long list of local races, and would be easily identified as fraudulent if everything didn’t match precisely.

“This is a complete red herring,” said Wendy Weiser, director of democracy program at Brennan Center for Justice. “It’s completely t plausible, and t something that security and election experts are actually worried about.”

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BIDEN’S PLATFORM

TRUMP: “Biden came out against fracking. Well, that means Texas is going to be one of most unemployed states in our country. That means Oklahoma, rth Dakota, New Mexico are going to be a disaster. Ohio, Pennsylvania — disaster. fracking.” — news conference Thursday.

FACTS: , that’s t Biden’s position at all.

In a March 15 primary debate, Biden misstated his fracking policy to suggest he’d ban it and his campaign quickly corrected record. Trump continually igres correction.

Biden has been orwise consistent on his middle-of--road position, going so far as to tell an anti-fracking activist that he “ought to vote for somebody else” if he wanted an immediate fracking ban. He proposes to deny new fracking permits only on federal lands. Such a limited step cant spell “disaster” for entire states. By far most fracking happens on private land.

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TRUMP: “Joe Biden said he would defund police. Biden would defund m. He’d abolish m, I guess.” — remarks Thursday to New Hampshire supporters.

FACTS: We’ve heard this falsehood many times. What’s new is that Trump was informed face to face nearly two weeks ago that Biden does t propose defunding or abolishing police, yet he is still saying it.

Biden actually proposes more money for police departments and he has explicitly rejected calls of some on left to defund or abolish departments. He’d spend more to support improvements in police practices.

Two weeks ago, Fox News reporter Chris Wallace confronted Trump on matter when president tried to hang a defund-abolish label on Biden. Trump cited a policy document drafted by aides to Biden and ex-rival Bernie Sanders. It contains recommendations, t necessarily policies embraced by candidate. But even that document would t defund or wipe out police departments.

It seeks, for example, “increased funding for officer health and well-being in police departments across country, including for personal safety equipment and mental health services.”

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RUSSIAN BOUNTIES

TRUMP, on a U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia was paying a bounty to militants in Afghanistan to kill Americans re. “If it reached my desk I would have done something about it.” — interview Tuesday with “Axios on HBO.”

FACTS: His claim that matter didn’t reach him is unconvincing.

Associated Press reported in June that assessment was included in at least one of Trump’s written daily intelligence briefings last year. As well, n-national security adviser John Bolton told colleagues he briefed Trump on intelligence assessment and subject was sole purpose of that meeting with president.

This was according to U.S. officials with direct kwledge of intelligence who spoke on condition of anymity because y were t authorized to discuss highly sensitive information publicly.

Trump said this past week he did t raise matter in recent phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would t tell senators in testimony wher he has brought it up with his Russian counterpart. He said he discusses with Russians all threats that y pose to Americans and U.S. interests.

White House officials have argued that Trump wasn’t briefed on suspected bounties because assessment is t conclusive. However presidents are commonly informed of most consequential intelligence even if findings are t complete, so y can make decisions about potential or emerging threats.