What did Donald Trump do today?

He bragged about an article that credited President Biden with lowering drug prices.

Trump's White House communications team spent the day trumpeting a headline from yesterday's Washington Post that noted a drop in prescription drug prices. The PR blitz came a day after Trump waved a printout of the article at reporters, proudly asking, "Did you see it? Okay, got it? Everybody have it?"

 

But the actual article explicitly gives the credit for the drop in drug prices to former President Joe Biden, repeatedly and pointedly noting that Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which required Medicare to negotiate for bulk discounts on drugs, was most likely the reason.

Trump is famous for his short attention span and unwillingness, if not inability, to read anything that's not about him. It's not clear if his press team had also failed to read the article either, or whether they knew what it contained and simply felt it was easier to pacify Trump by following his lead in bragging about "his" accomplishment.

But at least one person in the Trump White House seemed to know why he shouldn't be drawing attention to what the article actually said. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted a screen shot of the headline only—with no link to the text that praised Biden's accomplishment.
 

Why does this matter?

• A president with achievements of his own wouldn't have to try to steal credit for things his predecessors had done.
   
• Presidents should be both willing and able to read a short newspaper article.