America has 340M people and according to President Donald Trump, 300M of them have been dead for a year. Wow

President Donald Trump sparked widespread confusion and fact-checking after claiming that 300 million people died from drug overdoses in the United States last year. The statement was made on September 15, 2025, during a press conference at Morristown Airport in New Jersey while Trump was defending a recent military strike on a Venezuelan boat.

Trump made the comment while responding to criticism from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who called the U.S. military action illegal. “What’s illegal are the drugs that were on the boat, and the drugs that are being sent into our country, and the fact that 300 million people died last year from drugs, that’s what’s illegal,” Trump said.

The claim quickly drew attention because the math simply doesn’t work. America has a total population of approximately 340 million people, meaning Trump’s statement would suggest that nearly 90 percent of all Americans died from drug overdoses in a single year. If true, this would leave only about 40 million people alive in the entire country.

Trump’s history of inflated drug death claims

This is not the first time Trump has made dramatically inflated claims about drug deaths. He previously stated that 300,000 Americans died from overdoses during the 2024 campaign and repeated similar numbers in January while signing an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Trump has a pattern of making controversial statements that often require fact-checking from news organizations.

The actual numbers tell a different story. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 80,391 people died from drug overdoses in the United States in 2024. This represents a significant decrease from the 110,037 deaths recorded in 2023. While these numbers remain tragically high, they are nowhere near the figures Trump cited.

Some supporters of the former president suggested he might have meant worldwide deaths from drug overdoses. However, even this interpretation doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The World Health Organization last calculated global drug overdose deaths in 2019, reporting approximately 600,000 deaths worldwide. No official data supports the claim that global overdose deaths reached 300 million in 2024.

The statement immediately went viral on social media platforms, with users pointing out the mathematical impossibility of Trump’s claim. Twitter added a Community Note to posts sharing the quote, clarifying that the actual number of drug overdose deaths in America is significantly lower. Critics expressed disbelief at the statement, with many making jokes about how most Americans would apparently be dead if Trump’s numbers were accurate.

Trump’s tendency to make statements that stretch the truth has become a regular feature of his public appearances. The White House later attempted to defend the statement by suggesting Trump meant people “affected” by drugs rather than deaths, despite the president specifically using the word “died” in his remarks.

The incident highlights ongoing concerns about the accuracy of statements made by public officials regarding serious health issues. While drug overdose deaths remain a significant public health concern in America, the actual statistics show the problem is being addressed through various prevention and treatment programs, with death rates declining in recent years.