What did Donald Trump do today?

He lied about gas prices, in the best case scenario.

Today, Trump said this about gas prices:

TRUMP: If you look at fuel, uh, $2.35 a gallon. A lot of that, but, uh, we actually had three states, four states, where it's down, $1.99. One dollar and ninety-nine cents, as opposed to three and a half, four dollars.

In reality, there are zero states—and zero individual gas stations—where gas prices are anywhere near that low. The state with the lowest average is Mississippi, at $2.70. The national average is $3.10.

Trump has been making his false $1.99 claim a lot lately, perhaps a dozen separate times since returning to office. It wasn't true then, either: the only time in recent memory when any state's average gas price got anywhere near the $2 mark was during the economic shutdown of the pandemic in summer of 2020. Adjusted for inflation, gas prices are remarkably steady over the years, regardless of what effect Trump may think he personally has on them.

It's not clear why Trump thinks anyone would believe him when he says this. As someone who has quite possibly never purchased gas for himself in his life, he may simply not understand how obvious a lie this is to Americans who do actually have to fill up their own tanks on a regular basis.

Another possibility is that Trump is once again confabulating—that is to say, making things up on the spot out of bits and pieces of information without really knowing he's lying. Elderly people with memory issues often end up repeating the same story elements over and over, because that places a lower cognitive burden on them than directly engaging with the facts that exist in the present day.

Why does this matter?

• There's no practical difference between a president who can't be bothered to stop lying, and one who can't remember the truth.