You may have heard President Donald Trump declare once or more his often repeated claim that the United States government has saved the lives of 25,000 Americans each time its military has blown up a purported drug trafficking boat over the last few months in the Caribbean and Pacific. That sounds impressive. But, as Jacob Sullum, explained in Tuesday Reason article, Trump’s numbers don’t make sense.

At the rate of 25,000 lives saved per each of the 26 boats the US military claims to have blown up, that would be 650,000 lives saved so far. However, related Sullum, that would mean blowing up the boats prevented “eight times the number of U.S. drug deaths recorded in 2024 (about 82,000, per the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]).”

Read Sullum’s article here.

Sullum did not stop in the article with demonstrating that Trump’s repeated claim of how many lives have been saved is preposterous. Sullum also provided additional analysis casting doubt on the proposition that the blowing up of boats has saved the lives of any Americans at all.