Take Attorney General Pam Bondi, for example.

The Republican AG appeared on Fox News this week, and marked Fentanyl Awareness Day with a curious claim. “In President Trump’s first 100 days, we’ve seized over 22 million fentanyl laced pills, saving over 119 million lives,” Bondi said.

According to the Census Bureau, the current population of the United States is over 341 million people. According to the attorney general, fentanyl laced pills were poised to kill roughly one in three Americans — which seemed difficult to believe.

A day later, Bondi attended a White House Cabinet meeting, where she gushed for quite a while about how awesome Donald Trump’s awesomeness is, before turning her attention to fentanyl seizures.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3lo27p7wrls2d

Link to tweet

After prefacing her comments by asking whether journalists were “ready” for her big announcement, Bondi credited Trump with saving “258 million lives” — or roughly three-quarters of the population of the United States......

So, a few things.

First, the Trump administration really should stop coming up with weird mathematical formulas. Readers who were baffled by what the DOJ told the Daily Beast can take comfort in the fact that they're not alone, though it's about as strange as the White House's tariffs formula.

Second, the first hint that this formula was flawed should’ve been obvious to Bondi and her team given that fentanyl-laced pills, though extremely dangerous, were never going to wipe out 78% of the American population.

Finally, let’s also not overlook a recent report from Reuters, which noted that under the Biden administration, there was a sharp decline in overdose deaths from fentanyl, but those directly involved in the anti-narcotics fight are concerned about a reversal due to “federal spending cuts instigated by” the Trump White House.