- I don't think it would change our commitment
to fix this issue. - It wouldn't.
- Thousands of people--
- Because we-- - Okay.
- No, because we're firmly committed
to reducing drug pricing and out-of-patient costs.
- Oh, I know you are, very firmly--
- Nothing will change the firmness
of that commitment. - I know how firmly--
- [Narrator] That's Alex Azar, the former Big Pharma exec,
advocate of raising drug prices for those in need,
and the guy Trump put in charge of lowering drug prices
for those in need, because nothing makes sense.
Frankly, Alex used to run one of 'em,
so nobody the system better than Alex.
- [Narrator] Alex Michael Azar II
was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1967
to parents who were so apolitical,
he didn't know which side of the aisle they were even on.
Starved of a passed-down political opinion,
a young Azar formed his own.
By third grade,
he had a subscription to Conservative Digest.
Azar attended Dartmouth,
where he was a member of the Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity,
graduating in 1988.
After Dartmouth,
Azar graduated from Yale Law School in 1991,
a year after classmate Brett Kavanaugh.
After Yale, Azar clerked for a judge
on the United States Court of Appeals in the Ninth Circuit.
But according to Politico,
just about six weeks after his start,
he was reportedly fired and replaced by Brett Kavanaugh.
So, in a way, perhaps if Azar had done a better job
at keeping his job, Kavanaugh wouldn't have obtained
the resume needed to one day secure a lifetime appointment
on the United States Supreme Court.
(audience applauding) - Thank you very much.
- [Narrator] Nice one, Alex.
After paving the way for Kavanaugh,
Azar went on to clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia.
- I and my court owe no apology whatever for Bush v. Gore.
We did the right thing, so...
So, there.
- [Narrator] After parting ways with Scalia,
Azar played a role as an assistant independent counsel
in the Whitewater investigation, where Kavanaugh joined him.
Then he went to bat as a lawyer for George W. Bush
during the infamous 2000 Florida recount,
which Bush won before the manual recount was completed.
Azar's questionable legal tactics
secured him a role on the transition team
where, according to the Washington Post,
he screened potential senior White House staff
and cabinet members.
It's unclear if Azar screened and put in a good word
for people he liked, like Donald Rumsfeld.
- Do you think that the numbers you went into Iraq,
the numbers of US troops that you went into Iraq with
did absolve you from the responsibility
of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis
killed by the coalition
and those criminals that you talked about?
- Now, are you gonna stop? - Give me a straight answer.
- [Narrator] Around the same time Azar was screening
potential Bush cabinet members, he was donating to
extremely controversial far-right candidates.
Azar donated to the 2000 Senate campaign of George Allen,
a guy who displayed
a picture of Confederate troops in one office
and a noose in the other.
With Azar's help,
George Allen won a Senate seat in Virginia.
Azar also donated to the 2000 Seante campaign
of Spencer Abraham,
a guy who had previously voted against
expanding the definition of hate crimes
to include sexual orientation.
Around the time Azar was fundraising
for controversial Republicans
and working on Bush's transition team,
he himself was tapped for a role in the administration.
Bush's HHS secretary, Tommy Thompson,
picked Azar to be the department's general counsel,
quite possibly because,
according to a 2001 Washington Post report,
HHS was looking to scale back
efforts to promote family planning and contraception
while aggressively promoting abstinence-only programs.
At first, Azar seemed unsure if he was up for the task.
He wrote, "I'll confess that I wrestled with the question,
"since I had not focused on health law in my legal career."
But just a month into the gig, Azar settled in.
He said he found his life's calling to,
"Help people around the world
"live longer, healthier, and happier lives."
Azar resigned from his post in 2007 before going to work
for one of the 15 largest drug companies in the world,
Eli Lilly.
Before Azar took over
as Lilly's VP of corporate affairs and communications,
the company was swept up in scandal.
Lilly illegally marketed unapproved uses
for one of their drugs
intended to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia
and had it pushed on nursing homes
for off-label uses like dementia
without any proof that it would work.
Two years into Azar's tenure with the company,
Eli Lilly was forced to pay roughly $1.4 billion;
$1.4 billion.
Probably seems like a whole lot of money, because it is.
But in 2009, the company made
nearly three times as much profit as it paid out,
and Eli Lilly sold over $30 billion of the drug
during the time for which it was investigated.
When pressed by Elizabeth Warren over whether or not
Azar believed this low settlement was adequate, he dodged.
- But do you think it was adequate?
That's my question.
- It was certainly the largest ever,
and what I will tell you--
- [Elizabeth] Do you think it was adequate?
(indistinct cross-talking)
- Senator, what was important about that
was that it changed behaviors.
- No, I'm sorry.
What is important is the question I'm asking,
and that is whether or not
there was adequate accountability.
- [Narrator] In 2012, Azar was promoted
to the president of Lilly USA,
the company's largest affiliate.
Under Azar's leadership,
the company significantly raised its drug prices.
Lilly more than doubled the US list price
of their top-selling insulin,
which increase from $123 per vial in 2012
to $255 when Azar left in 2017.
According to the New York Times,
in a letter to the Health Committee,
the Type 1 Diabetes Defense Foundation, a nonprofit group,
said that Mr. Azar had condoned
Lilly's overpricing of insulin
and that some patients had suffered as a result.
This led to an investigation
and class-action lawsuit against Eli Lilly
for alleged price fixing during Azar's tenure.
In 2017, after he raised drug prices at Lilly,
Trump for some reason decided to put him in charge
of lowering drug prices
as secretary of Health and Human Services.
Trump tweeted, "Happy to announce,
"I'm nominating Alex Azar to be the next HHS Secretary.
"He'll be a star for better healthcare
"and lower drug prices."
- Thrilled to be here to administer the oath of office
to America's new secretary of Health and Human Services,
Mr. Alex Azar.
- [Narrator] Critics were quick to close in.
Bernie Sanders fired back, "Trump was clearly never serious
"about his promise to lower drug prices.
"We need an HHS secretary
"who will take on the drug industry's greed,
"not someone who has financially benefited from it."
- Come here, Alex.
He's gonna get those prescription drug prices way down
as a little bit of an extra, right?
It's gonna come rocketing down.
- [Narrator] Azar was confirmed to the post in early-2018.
A year later, an HHS spokesperson told Politico
that Azar was focused on opioids,
replacements for the Affordable Care Act,
and lowering drug prices.
Anti-choice groups were seemingly thrilled
with Azar's confirmation, and they had reason to be.
- Life from the moment of conception
up through natural death,
'cause we are the department of life.
- [Narrator] Azar has focused on
several anti-abortion measures.
Equity Forward, a watchdog organization which examines
anti-reproductive health groups in individuals,
notes Azar's, "Shocking moves,
"including hurting women's health
"by targeting the ACA birth control mandate,
"pushing to finalize the domestic gag rule,
"and moving to backtrack federal regulations
"around gender discrimination."
Azar was also left in charge
of the migrant children detained in the US facilities.
His HHS was unprepared for the amount of children
in their custody,
and their facilities quickly reached capacity.
Between September 2018 and May 2019, six children died,
either in US custody or shortly after leaving.
Some newly-reunited children
also showed signs of severe psychological trauma.
Meanwhile, Azar claimed the work the HHS was doing
to separate children from their parents
was one of the great acts of human generosity
and also live-saving.
- I'm proud of the work that we do.
I believe we are saving kids' lives here.
- [Narrator] It's unclear where Azar will go from here.
But if his history of pricing drugs is any indication,
it's probably up.