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Hello, and thanks for downloading the More or Less podcast. We're the programme that looks at the numbers in the news and in the increasingly strange experience we call life. And I'm Lizzie McNeill. On the 29th of April, Donald Trump took to the stage in Michigan. Thank you very much. Hello, Michigan. Hello, we love you, Michigan. We love you. He was there to celebrate a very important milestone in American politics –
The first 100 days of his presidency. The most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country. And that's according to many, many people. We thought to mark this historic start to his presidency, we'd get the BBC's US national digital reporter and friend of the programme, Mike Wendling, to chat through some of his claims about how well he's done. Hi, Mike. Hi, Lizzie. Hey, so did you watch the speech live?
Yeah, I did. And, you know, I have a little bit of experience in Trump rallies. This was really one of the classics. He was in his element. There's lots of crowd work, dancing. YMCA was playing on repeat. Lots of red hats, the whole thing. Watching it tells you a lot about Donald Trump, the showman. But did it tell us about Trump, the president? So...
Should we start with one claim that is apparently very important to Americans? The price of eggs. You had so many eggs for Easter and your price was down 87% from that point. I was actually quite triggered by this egg thing because I could just not figure out where he got this 87% figure from.
I am pretty used to tracking down the reality behind some of Trump's statements. And usually you can find a grain of fact somewhere. You know, you can find a report or a statistic. Maybe it's exaggerated, but there is something. But I couldn't find a single source that even remotely resembled this 87% figure. OK, so let's backtrack. What is the deal with eggs? I mean, why was the cost of eggs a political issue? I have to explain that...
It was recently a big thing here in the U.S. Last year, there was a bad bout of avian flu. This meant a lot of birds had been culled. So there wasn't as many eggs being produced. And you could really see this effect in shops. I remember eggs being in my local store $9 or $10 a dozen and even higher in some places.
Added to this, eggs weren't always available all the time. And it's very common, even still today, that stores are limiting customers to one dozen eggs per visit. Per visit, right. And do you buy a lot of eggs? How much do you reckon you spend a week on eggs? You know what? I like eggs. My family likes eggs. I have to admit, I'm into eggs. I had one for breakfast this morning. Okay. And are they getting cheaper? Yeah.
No, at least not significantly cheaper, not as cheap as Donald Trump says. So the average price of eggs is significantly higher than when he took office, but it's down from its peak. It appears that the market is adjusting. The wholesale price of eggs has come down, but by maybe 50 percent, not 87 percent. Again, I can't find anything to back that up.
Prices in the shops, like I said, have dropped from that peak, but not nearly as much as 50%. And experts say that they're kind of stubbornly high because the producers of the eggs are trying to recoup all the profits they've lost over the last three to six months.
Eventually, it's expected that the prices will come down at the retail side, but they're still pretty high in shops. It's a shame because, you know, without your egg a day, you'd become a shell of a man. Oh, gosh, that's a terrible joke. Moving on. And we had four great years. We had the greatest economy in the history of our country. The stock market went up 88 percent. We did great.
And we're going to do better now. He's talking about his first term here, when the S&P 500, which is the US's top 500 companies, gained about 70% on the stock market. As for doing better this time? Sorry.
The signs aren't looking too positive so far. This index has lost about 7% in Trump's first 100 days of this presidency. It's the biggest 100-day drop since Gerald Ford took over after the Watergate scandal over 50 years ago. Yeah, it's pretty dramatic. And basically, it comes down to all the turmoil over tariffs.
But on one of the big issues that he was elected on, his hyperbole actually does match the data. We've set all time records for the lowest number of illegal border crossings ever recorded. Think of that. Ever recorded?
Well, OK, so if we're being picky and we are certainly being picky, we point out they've only been counting monthly migrant encounters with the U.S. Border Patrol since the year 2000. So ever recorded doesn't cover a massive amount of time. But for as long as there have been monthly figures, it's true that the number for March this year, which is 7,181, that is the lowest on record. Even during COVID?
Yeah, surprisingly, even during COVID, the number for April 2020, which was the lowest that year, was around 16,000. Right. And before that? Well, there are yearly figures for before the year 2000. And you can compare this to the monthly figures in March by... Timesing it by 12?
Exactly. Math. And if you do that, you find that the last time the migrant numbers were so low was in the late 1960s. While we're still at the border, there's one last thing to talk about. Fentanyl, the opioid drug that Trump said had... Killed 300,000 people last year. Yeah. Allegedly, this is also one of the reasons for tariffs.
It's no secret that synthetic opioids are a problem in the US, a huge problem. They have been for a while. The peak of deaths was in 2022, and that number has been slowly falling from a very high level since then. Yeah, so according to latest CDC data, around 80% of people
80,000 died of all drug overdoses in 2024. And we don't have figures for specifically fentanyl for that year. But we do know that in 2023, 74,000 people died from overdoses that included fentanyl, falling from 76,000 in 2022. Yeah, so that number is falling. But people aren't sure why. There's been a few different reasons that have been put forth. Some people think it's because
So many of the people who could have potentially died of fentanyl overdoses have, well, already died. Dark. Yeah, kind of dark. On the lighter side, there's been some progress in awareness. There's been a big push to distribute drugs that act as antidotes to fentanyl. So some of those measures may have started to kick in and are starting to work. Right, but...
But there is another claim and we can't go without talking about it. This time it was something tweeted by the US Attorney General Pam Bondi who said,
In President Trump's first 100 days, we've seized over 22 million fentanyl-laced pills, saving over 119 million lives. Yeah, that's a very interesting claim. Right? This suggests that one in three Americans would have taken these pills and died in the last 100 days had they not been taken off the streets. It makes...
really no sense. Yeah, but wait, wait, since that tweet, she's actually upped the number. That would be like two in every three people in the United States. Yeah, but hey, at least it would have fixed the egg supply problem. So do we know the logic that's producing these massive numbers?
Yeah, so the Drug Enforcement Agency, or the DEA, here in the U.S. releases data on the amount of fentanyl that they have seized. And at the same time, the DEA also has a figure for the lethal dose of fentanyl. They say it's about two milligrams.
So if you divide the number of fentanyl seized by that lethal dose and you get these huge numbers of, quote, saved lives. Right. But they're only saving lives if people actually take the drugs. And there aren't that many people who want to take this highly toxic drug. I mean, two thirds of Americans do not have a fentanyl habit, right? No, no, no.
Not at all, at least as far as we know. OK, well, that's the lot for today. I'm sure the next 100 days will be nice and quiet on the fact check front. Surely, I am positive. We've just gotten started. You haven't even seen anything yet. It's all just kicking in. Oh, we'll be watching. Thanks, Mike.
And that's all we have time for this week. If you have any questions or comments, please write in to moreorless at bbc.co.uk. Until next week, goodbye.
Toyota is the best resale value brand for 2025, according to kellybluebookskbb.com. And with a wide range of dependable vehicles for any lifestyle, you can get everything you need in a vehicle today while investing in tomorrow. So choose Toyota and choose value. Shop buyatoyota.com for great deals and more. Vehicles projected resale value is specific to the 2025 model year. For more information, visit kellybluebookskbb.com. Kelly Blue Book is a registered trademark of Kelly Blue Book Co. Inc.
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