Well, guess what's gonna happen then?
The drug companies are gonna descend on Washington and go,
you better remove those judges cuz this is now interfering with corporate rule.
>> It's not about what's right or wrong.
I don't think our politicians give a damn about that.
>> No way.
>> Right? But
they do give a damn about their donors.
And pharmaceutical companies, Big Pharma happens to be one of the top donors for
both Democrats and Republicans.
There's no way in hell they're gonna allow this to stand.
It looks like Cenk's prediction is starting to come to
fruition in regard to the federal judge's decision to reverse
the FDA's approval of the abortion bill Mifepristone.
Now, this is a story that was reported by the American Prospect.
David Dayan reporting of course saying that the industry leaders meaning
the pharmaceutical companies.
Fashioned an open letter condemning the federal judge's act of judicial
interference which creates uncertainty for the entire biopharma industry.
Adding regulatory uncertainty to the already inherently risky work of
discovering and developing new medicines will likely
have the effect of reducing incentives for investment.
Endangering the innovation that characterizes our industry.
So that was the open letter to the federal government in regard to this federal
judge's decision to reverse the FDA's approval of the abortion pill.
400 industry CEOs and top executives have signed the letter and
I'm gonna get into just the insane amounts of money that they have
funneled to the Republican Party in just a moment.
But if corporate executives are talking, politicians are listening,
corporate politicians are listening.
So there is some chance that they will have some sway over
the final decision on the abortion pill.
>> No, I'm gonna disagree a little bit.
>> Okay.
>> I don't think they're gonna have some sway,
I think they're gonna have complete sway.
>> Okay, that's great.
I agree actually, yeah.
I was just being careful but I think you're right about that.
Because look, when it comes to the right wing Supreme Court justices who
are on the federalist list for nominations and
they made their way to the Supreme Court especially under the Trump administration.
Yes, they might be socially conservative but let's not make the mistake of thinking
their social conservatism outweighs the pro-corporate stances that they have.
The Federalist Society chose them,
handpicked them because of their pro-corporate policies.
And if the pharmaceutical industry is
concerned about bans of various drugs that they produce.
They're gonna make sure that they have again a lot of sway
probably entirely sway the decision of the Supreme Court.
And I do think that this will ultimately be adjudicated in the Supreme Court.
>> Okay, so I'll make a further prediction here.
I predict that several Republican politicians will now come out,
senators, congressmen, etc.
And they will say that, look, while we care a lot about this abortion issue and
we really respect this judge, etc, I think he might have overstepped her.
And that is because politicians are servants.
They're the servants of the wealthy and the donor class.
So they have no opinions of their own.
They have no principles.
They're pro-life.
They're not pro-life.
They're just whatever their donors tell them to be.
So there's no way that drug companies with their infinite power are gonna lose to
a bunch of local yokels who are like, hey, listen, we really care about abortion.
Hey, don't you get it schmucks?
They use you guys for your votes.
They don't give a damn about you.
Maggot, do you think any of your Republican senators are honest people who
believe the things that you believe?
No, they're all sellouts.
They're all obsessed with servicing their donors.
There's no way in the world that the drug companies lose on this one.
So in this case the left, you lucked out.
Coincidentally, big money happens to be on your side on this one so
you will win, congrats.
>> But that's rare.
And that's why it's really, really important to get money out of politics and
have a political system that represents the best interests
of the American people and we do not have that right now.
So well, yeah, potentially it will work out for us this time.
More often than not it works against ordinary people including workers,
including people of color, including members of the LGBTQ community.
So I wanted to get into some of the numbers here in terms of just how much
money the pharmaceutical industry just pumps into both the Republican and
Democratic Party to be sure.
Let's go to graphic three here.
So a 2021 report in Stat News found that two-thirds of all members of Congress
received contributions from pharmaceutical firms leading up to the 2020 election.
Pfizer alone just one pharmaceutical company which has three signatories on
the letter donated to 228 lawmakers through its political action
committee that cycle.
There are PACs for Pfizer and
other pharmaceutical companies that we should look into.
So the PACs of Pfizer, Genentech, Biogen, and
Lundbeck, all of whose CEOs also signed that open letter.
Have given donations to 45 of the 52 Republican senators who actually voted for
Judge Kacsmaryk over the past three election cycles for
a total of more than half a million dollars.
$584,999 according to data from the center for Responsive Politics.
And we can break this down even further by mentioning specific politicians.
I'll do that in just a moment but I wanna break for you Cenk, thoughts?
>> Yeah, I actually love this last graphic so I'm gonna read that one.
And this is all David Dayen in the American Prospect.
Great reporting as always.
Look at that, independent progressive media doing great reporting.
Dayen wrote in, unlike many individual companies,
PhRMA's donations are tilted towards Republicans.
Aha, that's weird, I thought, man,
we don't want the Pfizer coronavirus [INAUDIBLE].
With 81% of its 1.5 million in donations from 2007 to 2022 going to the GOP,
McConnell and Cornyn have been the largest recipients of PhRMA money in
Congress in that period with 31,500 and 28,500 respectively.
And guys, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Then there's the dark money and the dark money is much,
much larger and everybody openly admits it.
Barack Obama campaigned saying, I'm gonna make sure that we beat the big drug
companies and we're gonna negotiate drug prices.
And then he came in and said, yeah, I was just kidding.
No, the drug companies own Washington.
I'll do exactly as they tell me to do.
Trump did the same exact thing.
I'm gonna negotiate drug prices.
I'm the best negotiator.
No, no, it turns out I'm their bitch and
I will do whatever the drug companies say and we will not negotiate prices.
So of course the drug companies are gonna order their servants to
get the judges back in line and this drug will be perfectly approved.
And by the way, it should be.
It's a wonderfully safe drug.
It's a drug that actually is safer than Tylenol and Viagra.
And the judge was ridiculous, totally made up science.
One of the studies he cited was a blog post of conservative websites.
>> Man, our country is just falling apart.
The level of incompetence at all levels of government is embarrassing to say
the least.
The fact that he would cite a blog post in his decision, he's a federal judge.
But this is what you get when you end up electing someone
like Donald Trump who appoints these types of judges.