I'll tell you a story. A friend of mine who's a business man, very, very, very top guy. Most of you would have heard of him. Highly neurotic. Brilliant businessman. Seriously overweight. And he takes the fat, the fat shot drug. [00:00:18] And he called me up. President, could I ask you a question? What? I'm in London, and I just paid for this damn fat drug I take. I said it's not working. He said. He said I just paid $88. [00:00:34] And in New York, I paid $1,300. What the hell is going on? Americans get price gouged for pharmaceutical drugs by the pharmaceutical industry. And it appears that for the first time ever, Trump has caught on to that reality [00:00:50] and wants to do something about it, allegedly through an executive order. So are you buying it? No. And I'm going to tell you two reasons why you should be skeptical of this story. No no. - No. Let us whisper of a dream. - I know, but hey, it's not impossible. [00:01:07] And if he does actually do it, then I would give him all the credit in the world. Okay. And then we'll have fights over that, and that'll be fun. But I'm going to get to the two reasons for healthy skepticism in a second. Okay. Let me just I'm going to say this. I'm also skeptical. Okay. But putting that aside, if anyone from the Trump administration [00:01:25] is hearing this right now, just know that he will go down as one of the best presidents in American history if he is able to do what no other president has been able to do, which is to lower drug prices, allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. [00:01:42] So American taxpayers are no longer getting price gouged by the pharmaceutical industry. It would be historic. Now, will he really do it? We'll see. But here are the details. So he made an announcement on Truth Social, hinting that he is going to force [00:02:00] pharmaceutical drug companies to lower drug prices through executive order. There are a whole host of questions here, including whether he is even able to do that through an executive order. But nonetheless, he announced this on Truth Social, writing that for many years, the world has wondered why prescription drugs and pharmaceuticals in the United [00:02:18] States of America were so much higher in price than they were in any other nation, sometimes being 5 to 10 times more expensive than the same drug manufactured in the exact same laboratory or plant by the same company. [00:02:33] The the pharmaceutical drug companies would say for years that it was research and development costs, which, by the way, American taxpayers fund and that all of these costs were and would be for no reason whatsoever, borne on the suckers of America alone. [00:02:51] Campaign contributions can do wonders. So he's talking about the pharmaceutical industry bribing our politicians, but not with me. I mean, I'll take a $400 million jet from Qatar, but I added that part. But nonetheless. But not with me and not with the Republican Party. [00:03:09] We are. We are going to do the right thing, something that the Democrats have fought for many years. So obviously, lots of lies there. The Biden administration allegedly wanted to allow Medicare to negotiate [00:03:24] pharmaceutical drug prices for all drugs. That was the initial plan. But they watered down that policy, watered it down, watered it down until it only impacted ten pharmaceutical drugs, many of which were going to have the generic versions come out pretty soon anyway. [00:03:40] But putting that aside, look, whatever. If Trump needs to give himself and Republicans credit for allegedly being uncorrupted, in order to drum up support for an executive order that could lower pharmaceutical drug prices. [00:03:56] Sure. I mean, whatever, but will he actually do it? And with that, I'm not so sure. He then announced that his executive order will allegedly do the following. Prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices will be reduced [00:04:11] almost immediately by 30% to 80%. They will rise throughout the world in order to equalize and for the first time in many years, bring fairness to America. I will be instituting a most favored nations policy, whereby [00:04:27] the United States will pay the same price as the nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the world. So that's what he's claiming. He's claiming he's going to do this through executive action. To be fair, the white House was pushing Republicans in the House to put out a [00:04:43] budget bill that included a provision that would lower pharmaceutical drug prices, that got torpedoed by Republicans in the House. So that will not be included in the budget bill. The real question is whether Trump really does intend to try to do this through executive order, and whether that's even allowed. [00:05:00] - So what do you think, Jake? - Yeah. So before I get to the two reasons not to believe this, some fun stuff we're asking in our live chat poll. Is Elon Musk the fatso he's referring to? Okay. [00:05:16] So that's just for fun. I don't I actually don't think so. Because I don't think Elon was, like, over the top fat. And he's still fat. No, I don't think he was. I don't think he was. I don't think he was fat. He was a little out of shape. But it's well known that he went on ozempic to get in shape. [00:05:32] And he is no neurotic. - And he is. - Neurotic and he's close to Trump. It's just a fun poll. I don't think it's him, but it's a fun poll. Okay, so check that out. Shows live 6 to 8 p.m.. Be part of the show. Okay, so now, Republicans. But the biggest joke is not what Trump said. [00:05:50] You know, he took the shot to not be fat. Didn't work. That was hilarious. Okay, but no, the biggest joke is when he said, now it's the Republicans who are trying to protect you from high drug prices. No, brother, it has never been the Republicans trying to protect us [00:06:07] from higher drug prices. They're the ones who brought us higher drug prices. Bush is the first one that passed this. Trump didn't do anything about it in his first term, although there is one caveat to that, which I'll get to. It's related to the skepticism. And so no, Republicans love this. And they're worried, about this overall. [00:06:24] And they love the higher drug prices. They love the money from Big Pharma, etc.. Okay. Now we move on to, the two problems. Okay. So number one, the Trump, actually, to be fair to him, wanted it in the big beautiful bill, [00:06:41] the big reconciliation bill that has the five over $5 trillion in tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. And so if it's in that bill, then its chances of passing are much, much, much, much, much higher, because that's the bill that every Republican is going to vote for. Oh, we care about balancing the budget. [00:06:59] They care about giving as much money to the rich as humanly possible. And every Democrat will go, oh, we are trying so hard to prevent the rich from getting another 5 trillion. Oh, another one got past the goalie. So that Bill is going to pass. Right. And so what goes into that bill then becomes really important. [00:07:20] Because if it's in the bill, it passes. If it isn't, it's very likely not going to pass. So Trump tells the Republicans, to his credit, put it in the bill. And the Republican senators like. Make drug prices lower. No, we're not going to do that. Where's the cash? [00:07:37] Yeah. And then big Pharma comes along and makes it rain on their heads and they're. Like, yeah. The Wall Street Journal, by the way, reports that. Let's go to the last graphic here. The White House's position startled the drug industry, people familiar with the matter said, triggering a last minute dash by pharmaceutical lobbyists [00:07:54] to get Congress to kill the plan. And that's exactly what they did. So the current budget proposal does not include this Trump provision to lower pharmaceutical drug prices. Yeah. So, two more reasons why you should be skeptical. First, now, you mentioned the drug companies. [00:08:10] I'm going to read you a hilarious statement from them. Okay. It's from Axios. They claim, the trade group Pharma, their CEO, importing foreign prices will cut billions of dollars from Medicare with no guarantee that it helps patients or improves their access to medicines. [00:08:27] Okay. So when Axios writes this, people go, oh, okay, well, then I guess it's not going to have any benefit. What do you mean it's not gonna have any benefit. We're going to pay a lot less. That's a giant benefit. And then it's they say importing the foreign prices will cut billions of dollars from Medicare. Yeah. [00:08:42] Because we're not paying extra money to you guys for no goddamn reason. That's why it makes it sound like as if they're cutting Medicare benefits, but they're not. - They're cutting Medicare costs. - Exactly. We're going to spend less on Medicare because pharmaceutical drug companies [00:08:59] can no longer charge the Medicare system whatever they want. Without the Medicare system or the government being able to negotiate for lower drug prices. Yeah. And so that one's a little bit different. I'll get to that in a second in terms of the provision. But one more funny comment from Axios. This is Chris Meekins who's an analyst. [00:09:17] Political analyst I think he nails it here. He says the president has a long history in his first term of talking bigger on drug pricing than what his policies would actually do. So now we get to the rest of the skepticism. So if he really wanted to negotiate drug prices, number one, [00:09:32] he would focus on that issue. This is taking drug prices and saying, let's add most favored nation status to drugs, right. Or drugs to that list, which means that you take an average of the lowest prices that that drug is for selling for in other countries, and then you bring them here. [00:09:49] It doesn't mean that you necessarily negotiate drug prices at Medicare. In fact, one of the first things that Trump did was he took away Biden's minuscule efforts to negotiate drug prices at Medicare. [00:10:05] Biden had done it for insulin and a couple of other drugs, which we thought was way too small. Right. But Trump took that away. He's like, how dare you? And in that case, he was totally big pharma 100% pro big pharma right now. Lastly, he knows what the drug companies are going to do next. [00:10:23] They're going to sue him. How does he know that? Because in the first term, he proposed the same thing and the drug companies sued him, and they delayed its implementation until Biden got into office. And then Biden killed it. Now, interesting because we just said took credit away from Trump for killing [00:10:42] something small that Biden had done. But what was good in negotiating drug prices? But now I'll take credit away from Biden, because why did you kill the most favored nation status thing that Trump was doing? - It would lower drug prices a lot. - Yeah, because these policies. He doesn't want to lower drug prices because it's the uniparty. [00:10:59] No. Look. Yes, that that point is correct. But also look with Trump. Why did Trump torpedo the the wonderful and totally working, Iran nuclear deal? Did he do? [00:11:14] And now he wants to enter a new nuclear deal. The reason why he ended the original nuclear deal is because Obama is the one who negotiated and accomplished that nuclear deal with the ten pharmaceutical drugs that Medicare can negotiate under Biden's plan. Well, it was Biden's plan. [00:11:31] So Trump wants to revert. Like these politicians are so frustrating. But look, if if Trump does something better in lowering all pharmaceutical drug prices, great. - That's awesome. - Yeah. So at the end of the day, whether it's the negotiating directly or [00:11:47] this particular, route that he's taking, if he actually reduces the drug prices 30 to 80%, as he's saying, anywhere near that scale, I'm going to give him a ton of credit. A world of credit. Okay. And then every other left wing host will say, I'm more pure, I don't care. [00:12:05] I want higher drug prices because Trump is for lower drug prices and I don't mind. And they could all attack us, I don't mind. Okay. I just want what's best for the American people. 100%. And lower drug prices would definitely be best. But if you're MAGA and you're thinking it's already a done deal. No, no, you always give him credit before he actually does it. [00:12:23] He keeps saying things and he keeps talking big and then not delivering. He did the same exact trick in the last term. And so in this term, he knows he's going to get sued. He's going to say, oh, I'm going to lower him later. But meanwhile we're not negotiating drug prices at Medicare. [00:12:38] Exactly. And meanwhile, we're still paying a lot. So until Trump actually does it, which is this is definitely not it. Once he actually does it, then we give him the credit. But if he doesn't do it, then we take away the credit and go, oh, you are full of crap, just like Biden. And just like every other politician who said that they were going [00:12:56] to lower drug prices and didn't even try. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.