During Donald Trump’s first term, there was Sharpiegate, which involved in part him altering a poster showing the expected track of a hurricane to include Alabama in the path of the storm. After he had falsely claimed it was at risk from the hurricane several days before. Here was the original poster being shown to him in the Oval Office:
And here is it after he drew on it:
Photos released by the White House show him doing this again this week, though with a less serious topic to mislead on, the price of weight loss drugs.
In this photo you can see Dr. Mehmet Oz explaining one of the posters that would be presented at an Oval Office press briefing:
They also released this black and white photo showing Trump in the process of changing the poster as Dr. Oz chuckles:
There were two additional photos released showing him inspecting the poster with Sharpie in hand:
Another photo they release shows the changes made unclearly:
A press photographer got a clearer shot of the changes.
The first change made was to add “Biden” to the bar for the list price of a weight loss drug. The label for the next bar has been blacked out and “retail now” has been added to the bar. The final bar, which has been labeled as “Trump (MFN)”, has had “or lower” added to the bar.
What might explain some of the change is that in an Oval Press briefing last month, Donald Trump claimed the price was going to be lowered to $150. To which, Dr. Oz interjected, “we have not negotiated those yet.”
Leave a Reply