Committee member challenges Trump claim that he cut prescription drug prices

A committee member at a hearing challenged President Trump’s repeated assertion that he had solved the nation’s prescription drug pricing problem, saying the claim “has no basis in reality.” The member quoted the president’s State of the Union remark that he had taken drug prices “from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest,” then asked whether Americans believe that.

The committee member said U.S. consumers still pay “by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs” and that, with very few exceptions, prices have risen rather than fallen since Mr. Trump was elected. As an example, the member said “during the first 2 weeks of this year, the pharmaceutical industry raised the price of more than 870 prescription drugs.”

Why this matters: elected officials’ public claims about drug pricing can shape public expectations and policy debate. The committee member framed the remarks as a factual rebuttal to the president’s statement and sought to show that people’s experience at the pharmacy conflicts with the president’s characterization.

The member used a rhetorical example — saying a 1,200–1,300% drop would mean pharmacists handing customers money — to underscore the implausibility of the president’s claim and to contrast it with reported price increases. The member did not cite a specific data source in the transcript for the 870 figure during these remarks, and no response or verification appears in the provided segment.

No formal motion or vote was recorded in the provided transcript excerpt. The hearing proceeded with the member’s remarks as a factual challenge to the president’s statement and a prompt for further examination of drug pricing trends.