>> There's a raging debate in regard to lowering the cost of pharmaceutical drugs.
It's happening not among Democrats versus Republicans but Centrist Democrats versus
Progressives.
Now this is all in regard to Nancy Pelosi's bill to lower the price of prescription drugs,
but it is already an incredibly watered down and weak piece of legislation.
Progressives are attempting to strengthen it but they are getting a lot of resistance
from so-called Blue Dog Democrats.
So a group of centrists including representative Stephanie Murphy, co-chair woman of the Moderate
Blue Dog Coalition, has warned leadership that some moderate Democrats might vote against
the bill if it moves any further to the left.
So I just wanna talk a little bit about who Stephanie Murphy is.
She is a democratic lawmaker from Orlando, Florida, and we should look at her campaign
donations a little bit.
So when it comes to campaign donations from the healthcare industry between 2015 and 2020,
she has received about $367,573.
>> Wow.
>> I only mention that, because here's the thing.
Lowering the cost of pharmaceutical drugs is not a partisan issue.
So if you're gonna come at anyone with this nonsense argument about, I'm in a moderate
district, I'm facing re-election.
What if I don't get re-elected?
Really, are you gonna make an argument that conservative voters want high pharmaceutical
drug prices?
Pretty sure they don't.
Anyway, let's move on to another representative Anthony Brindisi, the further left you go
with drug pricing bills.
It just means it's only going to be a house only bill and a Democrat only bill that's
not helping people in my district.
Let's take a look at how much he received from the health care industry.
Now this is only from 2020, but so far he's received nearly $40,000 from the health care
industry.
And he is facing a tough reelection.
And so again, same argument toward him.
And Cenk, you interviewed representative Ro Khanna about this legislation yesterday.
Do you want to talk about it a little bit?
>> Yeah, so look, all the articles that talk about this don't talk about the real issue,
which is the corruption.
So to Ana's point about partisanship or not, well, there's a big bifurcation there.
So the Republican voters also want lower drug prices.
That's why from time to time Donald Trump will talk about lower drug prices.
So because, I mean, you go find me anyone in your neighborhood that wants higher drug
prices, you won't be able to do it.
That's a maniacal thing to say, right?
So on the other hand, Republican politicians will not consider this bill under any circumstance,
right?
So Mitch McConnell says dead on arrival, we'll never vote it on the Senate, I don't care
if it only covers one drug.
Because what they're doing, the so-called moderates, in fact, the corporate Democrats
are saying, in the beginning they said this should only cover 25 drugs.
Why can we only negotiate prices on 25 drugs?
There's thousands of drugs in the country.
The progressives fought and fought, they got it to 35 drugs.
And then the progressives refused to listen because the house leadership told them bow
your head.
We're gonna go with a compromise here so that the corporate democrats can continue to take
that money, okay?
Of course they never say those words.
But that brings me to Ro Knanna.
So he was on the program last night.
So third hour the young Turks is when we do interviews the conversation.
Now he actually mentioned the money which is almost never done in politics.
Listen, why are the corporate democrats doing it.
Why are they limiting the number of drugs we can negotiate?
>> The only thing honestly that I can think of is the pharmaceutical companies in influence
and that there has been some deal that look we're not gonna go beyond these amount of
drugs.
And the pharmaceutical companies are running disingenuous attack ads against some of our
members of Congress, which is what I don't understand.
I mean they're running attack ads anyway on the 25 drugs.
So you might as well then understand that they're not going to be the allies of this,
they are going to be the opposition.
>> So, look represent Ro Khanna, as usual, showing courage here by telling you the reality
that all voters know but no one in politics and no one in the media will acknowledge.
So it's of course it's the drug company money, that's who we're actually negotiating with.
We're talking about, hey how can we pretend to solve this problem so we can get more voters
but not actually solve it.
And the lobbyists say pretend to negotiate with us on these 25 drugs that we don't really
care that much about all right?
And by the way we'll fight you on that anyway and to pull to congressman point there, we're
gonna run ads against you anyway.
>> Exactly.
>> But these corporate democrats go, no, my district is purple and the Republican voters
in that district love higher drug prices, and so we wanna make sure that we appeal to
them.
And then the other guy says, no, we don't want this to be Democrat only and house only.
But McConnell already told you he will not consider it under any circumstance.
So those are all definitively lies.
>> He called it.
Senator Mitch McConnell said that being able to negotiate for lower drug prices, which
is essentially what this bill is, amounts to socialism.
He said that, he thinks that this is socialism.
Being able to negotiate for better drug prices is what he considers Socialism.
He's a disgusting human being and as corrupt as you could possibly be.
>> No, the government saying they can charge you anything they want, and you're not allowed
to negotiate on behalf of the American people for drug prices for Medicare and Medicaid
that we all pay into with our taxes.
He said, not being able to negotiate is the exact opposite of Capitalism.
And that's because he's a corrupt crony capitalist but so are the Democrats.
>> Yes.
>> Like the Blue Dog Democrats that are actually doing this fraud of a bill.
So I love that the progressives are fighting back and they should be more aggressive about
it.
Look was that even when they take $40,000 the drug companies didn't give that to you
for their health or for your health or for charity, they did it to buy you and it worked.
But Stephanie Murphy, what did she take over $360,000.
You can't find me a single real American, outside of Washington that doesn't think that
that's a bribe.
I know that's legal because of the Supreme Court decisions, but it's legalized bribe
and it totally worked.
>> Absolutely, so I just wanted to directly talk about what progressives have been pushing
for, so you can understand the clear differences.
But then I also wanna talk about, I don't even know if it's the naive nature of Nancy
Pelosi, because she can't be this naive.
But nonetheless let me tell you what progressives are doing.
They're pushing for a range of changes such as increasing the minimum number of drugs
that will be subject to negotiation up from 35, and fully repealing the ban on medicare
negotiating drug prices.
And as the bill stands now, it creates an exception allowing a limited number of drugs
to be negotiated, rather than fully repealing the ban.
It should be fully repealed.
Also Representative Jayapal's amendment, adopted in committee to ensure it's not stripped out
of the final bill because of objections by moderates, would extend protections against
drug price increases to people in private employer sponsored insurance plans, not just
those on Medicare.
So it would actually apply to everyone, which I think that makes all the sense in the world.
Now, just quickly, what is Nancy Pelosi saying?
This is gonna blow your mind.
Or maybe it won't, if you've been watching the show for a while.
Pelosi's office has held out hope that President Trump might endorse her bill.
>> Given his rhetoric against high drug prices and some centrists want to move toward common
ground with Republicans to increase those odds.
>> So Pelosi strategy is moved to common ground with Trump to try to pass an incredibly weak,
watered down bill in the hopes that McConnell, first of all, we won't even get to Trump if
we kind of blocks it.
That McConnell changes his mind because he was convinced because you reached out to republicans
enough.
Not now nobody can actually believe that that's not a real thing.
So and and Pelosi I think is incredibly ineffectual, but I don't think she's that unintelligent.
No, that is just brazen corruption, saying, yeah, my members take corporate drug money,
I take drug company money and we revel in it.
And so we're gonna play this Kabuki theater with the corrupt Republicans.
It's not the Democrats versus Republicans, it's the corporate politicians versus the
non-corporate politicians.
If you don't take over pack money all of a sudden you got progressives or fighters who
are strong and smart going, give me a real reason.
Give me a real reason why we shouldn't negotiate all drug prices on behalf of the American
people?
We're the ones paying the bill in Medicare and Medicaid.
Name me one reason, Mark Pocan the leader of the progressive caucus along with Jayapal
is saying, give me one reason why we shouldn't negotiate all drug prices.
Not one corporate Democrat can give a real reason.
By the way, if you say you wanna find common ground with a problem this great.
Get me enough Republicans in the Senate that would get me McConnell say yes, I'll introduce
it.
And enough Republicans that will vote with the Democrats on your version of the bill
saying publicly, yes, we will vote for it.
Then we'll say hey, look, I don't love it, but I get it, at least we could pass it and
it's a compromise.
That's the usual trick they play, but here they got nothing to stand on.
You're not gonna be able to find a single Republican, because don't get me wrong.
Most of the Democratic Party is deeply corrupt, but the Republican Party is 100% corrupt,
every single one of them is corrupt.
So they all take drug company money and they will bow their heads and do it as their corporate
overlords command of that including President Trump.