RFK Jr.: Trump Action On Drug Prices Achieves Key Bernie Sanders Campaign Promise

At a press briefing, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. celebrated President Trump's executive order on bringing down drug pricing.

Transcript

00:00to say a few words please thank you thank you mr. president this is uh this is an extraordinary day

00:11this is an issue that you know i grew up in the democratic party and every major democratic leader

00:17for 20 years been making this promise to the american people this was the fulcrum of bernie

00:22sanders runs for presidency that he was going to eliminate this discrepancy between europe and the

00:29united states but as it turns out none of them were doing and it's one of these promises that

00:35politicians make to their constituents knowing that they'll never have to do it and the reason

00:41they'll never have to do it is because they know that congress is controlled in so many ways by the

00:47pharmaceutical industry there's at least one pharmaceutical lobbyist for every congressman

00:53every senator and capitol hill and every member of the supreme court by some estimates three

00:58pharmaceutical companies the industry itself spends three times which what the next largest lobbyist

01:06spends on lobbying so this was a this this was an issue that people talked about but nobody wanted

01:14to do anything because it was radioactive they knew you couldn't get it by congress we now have

01:20a president who is a man of his word who has the courage president trump was taking money from the

01:28pharmaceutical industry too i think they gave you a hundred million dollars but he can't be bought

01:34unlike most of the politicians in this country and he is standing here for the american people

01:40i don't know why you know there's there's writers like lord elizabeth warren or robert reich who are

01:48saying that president trump is on this side of the oligarchs there has never been a president more

01:54willing to stand up to the oligarchs than president donald trump and i'm very very proud of you mr

02:02president for your courage uh for i'll say because i don't want to be crude your intestinal fortitude

02:09uh your stiffest spine and your your willingness to stand up for the american people we have four

02:17point two percent of the world's population we rep our country represents 75 of the revenues for

02:26pharmaceutical companies we spend in our country eleven hundred and twenty six dollars per capita

02:33on drugs in britain they spend about 240 they spend one-fifth of what we do and this is true across

02:43europe and this and the drug companies europeans if you ask them it made no sense what they're saying

02:49america has to pay for this innovation or it's not going to happen president trump is saying to

02:55our european partners is you got to raise the amount that you're paying for those drugs

03:00and pay for your share of the innovation oh that the united states is no longer subsidizing that

03:06if the europeans raise their at the price of their drugs by just 20 percent that is 10 trillion dollars

03:15that can be spent on innovation and the health of all people all across the globe is going to increase

03:22because we're going to have better products so um i am i'm just so grateful to be here today i never

03:30thought that this would happen in my lifetime i have a couple of kids who are democrats

03:36our big bernie sanders fans and when i told them that this was going to happen they had tears in

03:42their eyes because they thought this is never going to happen in our lifetime and we finally have a

03:47president who's willing to stand up for the american people