Fox News host Chris Wallace on Thursday grilled Donald Trump at the Republican presidential debate, telling the real estate mogul that the numbers in his tax plan didn’t add up and displaying Trump’s plan side-by-side with the facts to prove it.
Wallace asked Trump what he would cut under his tax plan in order to reduce the nation’s deficit.
“Department of Education. We’re cutting Common Core, we’re getting rid of Common Core. We’re bringing education locally. Department of Environmental Protection. We are going to get rid of it in almost every form,” Trump said. “We’re going to have little tidbits left, but we’re going to take a tremendous amount out. We have various other things. If you look at the IRS. If you look at every single agency, we can cut it down and I mean really cut it down and save.”
“But Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump, your numbers don’t add up,” Wallace protested. He then instructed the producers to display a graphic with a fact check and went through the items Trump had mentioned.
“The deficit this year is $544 billion,” Wallace said. “That’s more than a half trillion dollars. Your numbers don’t add up, sir.”
Seemingly out of nowhere, Trump said that pharmaceutical companies “don’t bid properly” and are wasting “hundreds of billions of dollars.”
“Excuse me. You are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump said.
“No you are not, sir,” Wallace said, instructing producers to put up another graphic showing that Medicare spends $78 billion annually.
Trump said the program could save $300 billion by negotiating lower drug prices.
“I’m saying saving through negotiation throughout the economy you will save $300 billion a year,” Trump said.
“But that doesn’t cut the federal deficit,” Wallace countered.
“Of course it is, we’re going to buy things for less money. Of course it is,” Trump said.
