Pam Bondi is drawing sharp criticism after deleting a social media post that falsely credited Donald Trump for a decline in U.S. drug overdose deaths that occurred before he returned to office.
The U.S. attorney general briefly shared a graph highlighting a steep drop in overdose deaths between October 2015 and October 2024, presenting it as proof of Trump’s leadership. The post was later removed after critics pointed out that the most significant decline happened while Joe Biden was president.
Bondi’s attempt to praise Trump backfired when observers noted that the data undermined her claim.
Data Shows Decline Occurred Under Biden
The graph Bondi posted showed overdose deaths rising nationwide beginning in 2015, a trend that research from the Journal of the American Medical Association partially attributes to a surge in fentanyl use. Deaths continued to climb ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, which struck toward the end of Trump’s first term.
According to the same data, overdose deaths plateaued in 2022 and 2023 during Biden’s presidency, then fell sharply in the latter half of his time in office. A June 2025 JAMA study reported that the decline under Biden was nearly twice the rate of overdose deaths recorded between 2019 and 2021, when Trump was president.
Despite this, Bondi framed the data as evidence of Trump’s success.
“President Trump closed the border. DOJ agents have seized hundreds of millions of potentially lethal fentanyl doses. We are aggressively prosecuting drug traffickers and cartel leaders. These are the results,” Bondi wrote in the now-deleted post. “Elections have consequences. Electing President Trump and enforcing the law is saving American lives.”
Critics quickly pushed back, pointing out that the chart clearly showed the downturn in deaths before Trump took office again in January 2025.
Online Backlash and Deleted Post
Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California mocked the post while resharing it, writing, “Thank you for unintentionally giving massive credit to Joe Biden.” He also criticized Bondi on unrelated issues before adding a New Year’s greeting.
After Bondi quietly deleted the post, screenshots continued to circulate online. Lieu followed up with another message, sharing an image of the removed post and commenting, “Lol, the truth hurts. @AGPamBondi was glazing Trump again with another lying sycophantic tweet, but the chart she attached stopped in Oct 2024, thus showing the great work done by Joe Biden.”
Others piled on with harsh reactions. One critic wrote, “Everything this regime does is corrupt. Everything they touch is fraud. Everything they do is toxic to all Americans! Everything they say are lies!”
Another added, “More sloppy work by the incompetent pedo-protector @PamBondi. She can’t find even ONE accomplishment of @realDonaldTrump to tout, so she lies then does a cover-up when caught. That’s Fascism. Sloppy Fascism.”
A third commenter questioned Bondi’s competence, writing, “This shows the intelligence level of the current AG of the US. This should scare the s— outta people.”
The incident has fueled broader criticism of Bondi’s credibility, with detractors arguing that the deleted post illustrates a pattern of misinformation and political spin rather than a simple mistake.
