No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump dealt major new legal, political blow in NY trial

Episode Date: May 5, 2024

Trump dealt major new legal, political blow in NY trialTrump deals with the sudden legal and political impacts that his contempt finding in the NY trial is having on his presidential campaign.... Brian interviews Senator Bernie Sanders about his message to young people and progressives who may be moving away from Biden, his thoughts on the Republican slate of millionaire out-of-state candidates running for the Senate, and whether he thinks Marjorie Taylor Greene is losing influence in the GOP.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Today we're going to talk about the sudden legal and political impacts that Trump's contempt finding in his New York criminal trial is having on his presidential campaign. And I interview Senator Bernie Sanders about his message to young people and progressives who may be moving away from Biden, his thoughts on the Republican slate of millionaire out-of-state candidates running for the Senate, and whether he thinks Marjorie Taylor Green is losing influence in the GOP. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. There are two big updates here as far as Trump being held in contempt for violations of his gals. gag order in his New York criminal trial are concerned. There is a legal update and a political update. So the legal update is this. Since Judge Mershan found Trump in contempt for his first tranche of violations of his gag order,
Starting point is 00:00:41 which basically amounted to, you know, a nothing burger of a fine $9,000, but also a promise to lock him up pending trial for further violations, clearly Trump is spooked because he's made a decently concerted effort to not violate the gag order further. In fact, he's even begun conceding that the gag order won't stop him from testifying walking back a lie that he told earlier. Thank you very much. The gag order is not going to testify. No, it won't stop me for justice.
Starting point is 00:01:07 The gag order is not for testify. The gag order stops me from talking about people and responding when they say things about me. We have people saying things about me and I'm not allowed to respond. So this judge is taken away my constitutional right. Now, as far as this little impromptu courtroom press conference is concerned, it is straight bullshit.
Starting point is 00:01:27 The only thing that the gag order prevents Donald Trump from doing, is attacking witnesses and members of the jury. If he can't open his mouth without doing that, then that's not the judge's problem, it is Trump's problem. But more importantly, what it says is that Trump likely doesn't want to be jailed. He isn't goading the judge into revoking his pretrial release, as many people thought might be the case, myself included, which is not to say there may not be some merits to that idea,
Starting point is 00:01:51 as far as Trump is concerned, because the guy loves nothing more than to present himself as the victim, and sitting in a jail cell would be the ultimate instance of victimhood, like dude would be able to send out no less than 5,000 fundraising emails and rally the Sean Hannity's and Judge Janine's and Laura Ingrams to ramp up the faux outrage to a 10. So I don't think it's off the table as a strategy, but the fact is that Trump doesn't seem like he's super intent
Starting point is 00:02:14 on getting himself thrown into jail. If he wanted to, it would be pretty damn easy. It seems like he's at least moderately reticent about employing that tactic. And the reason why is actually the second update, which is totally focused on politics, and that is that Donald Trump is, starting to recognize just how weak all of this is making him look. He's now been found in contempt.
Starting point is 00:02:34 He was forced to pay a fine, which he did. He was forced to delete his offending posts, which he did. He was forced to acknowledge that he would end up in jail for subsequent violations, which he did. He was forced to change his tune during these mid-trial press conferences, which he did. He is not in control here. He isn't calling the shots. He doesn't look strong. He is being ordered around by the judge, and he has no choice but to comply.
Starting point is 00:02:57 and the more violations he commits, the more he'll be punished, and the weaker he'll seem. Remember, Trump relies on his branding as a strongman. Nobody tells him what to do, nobody tells him what to say, nobody tells him how to behave, except now that's not the case. Now he's submitting to all of it. And optics-wise, there's a weakness to that. He's still very much at the mercy of a justice system, where it rightly shouldn't matter who he is, he still has to follow the rules of the trial.
Starting point is 00:03:23 And so all of this is piercing the bubble, this branding, that is his image, of Trump being in charge, and in the fact that he can't stay awake in the courtroom, that he's whining about how cold it is in there, that he's complaining he can't go to his kids' high school graduation, which, by the way, he can. He's so lost in the bitching and moaning that he can't even see who he's turned into, which is just the image of weakness. And by teetering on the brink now of sitting in a jail cell, I know he's tried to kind of pre-frame this as a Nelson Mandela thing, but even he recognizes what will happen if he ends up there, behind all the ranting and the raving and the fundraising emails, he will be sitting alone and quietly
Starting point is 00:04:00 in a cell. He will have to submit to his punishment and look like the sad, tired, washed up, defeated person who he is. And I think that nothing scares him more than that. So look, this is, again, not to say that this won't happen, that he won't swing for the fences. Maybe he'll need a nice fundraising day and he'll figure why not. But more likely, he and his team recognize how badly this is going for them. And yet, by the way, because Donald Trump himself is physically incapable of not wallowing in his own victimhood and crying about how aggrieved he is, he will continue to entrench this image of weakness and distance himself from the very trait that benefits him most. And let's be clear, the same reason that it's bad for him is why I'm
Starting point is 00:04:39 covering it here. Trump does derive a lot of benefit from his base for what they perceive his strength. Like, I personally think it looks like him compensating for his raging insecurity, but his fans don't. They think it's just toughness. So the more that I and you all can perpetuate the fact that Donald Trump is in fact weak, the more it pierces that branding that he relies on. Don't talk about how he's a strong man, because while the dangers of that might be apparent to the people
Starting point is 00:05:04 who hate him, that actually reinforces the very thing that Trump's base likes about him. So instead, talk about who he's not, how he's not a strong man. Talk about how he's sleepy and how he can't stay awake in the courtroom. Talk about how he has no new material and that he's just recycling old nicknames. Talk about how he's slurring his words and how his speeches
Starting point is 00:05:20 don't make sense. I cover his nonsensical rallies for that exact reason. Because it disproves this notion that he's some marketing genius. He is not. He is a confused, rambling moron who is very much not in control. And the more people who can see that, the better off will be. Next up is my interview with Bernie Sanders. Now we've got Senator Bernie Sanders. Thanks so much for taking the time. My pleasure. Good to be with you. You too. We've got the most consequential election of our lifetimes coming up after what was already the most consequential election of our lifetimes in the 2020 election, but President Biden's now contending with waning enthusiasm
Starting point is 00:05:59 from young people and progressives as the result of Gaza and Israel, for example. What do you say to those people who right now feel like they want to punish Biden at the ballot box in November by either voting against him or not voting at all? Well, Brian, that is maybe the most important question that we can discuss. So let me be clear. I strongly, strongly, strongly disagree with President Biden over his administration's approach to what's going on in Gaza. In my view, and I think that view is shared by a strong majority of the American people, especially young people, often young people of color, the reality is that while Israel has every right in the world to respond militarily to the terrorist attack by Hamas, they do not
Starting point is 00:06:51 have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people. And that is precisely what we are seeing right now. I think as we speak, close to 35,000 Palestinians have been killed. Over 77,000 have been wounded. That is more than 5% of the entire population. Infrastructure destroyed, education destroyed, and right now, we're looking at the possibility of hundreds of thousands of children starving. So I think the president is dead wrong on that issue. And I did my best to make sure, and will continue to do my best to make sure that Israel does not get U.S. military aid to continue that war. Having said that, I would hope that people in response to your question take a deep breath and say, okay, what are our options here? We disagree with Biden on Gaza.
Starting point is 00:07:49 Well, Donald Trump is a pathological liar. Donald Trump is a guy who does not believe that women have a right to control their wrong bodies. He is somebody who thinks that climate change is a hoax. Somebody who has said incredibly bigoted and racist remarks, who wants to give massive tax breaks to billionaires, who wants to throw millions of people off the health care. That is not an alternative. What is the alternative?
Starting point is 00:08:19 The alternative is to continue to elect progressives to the House and occasionally to the Senate, build a political movement which demands that Biden starts addressing the needs of working people, the environment, and changes his views on foreign policy. To that point, can you speak about the ability to move Biden versus the ability to move Trump for some folks? Look, I think both Trump and Biden are good politicians. That's all. you're in a political moment. They listen to people. If you think that Biden's people are not
Starting point is 00:08:55 concerned with the numbers that they are seeing, where young people who used to be supportive of a Democratic nominee are increasingly less supportive, if you think they're not paying attention to that, you'd be dead wrong. So I think we've got to continue the pressure. And in my view, the pressure right now is to say to President Biden, okay, you won your vote to get more military aid to Israel, but you don't have to release that until Israel does A, B, C, and D. And that is, most importantly, end this humanitarian disaster, which could lead to the starvation of huge numbers of people. Now, to a similar point, we've got an economy right now with some really strong indicators. Inflation is down from where it was. Real wages are up. Employments
Starting point is 00:09:42 at under 4% for the longest stretch in half a century. Stock markets at an all-time high, record job growth. But for a lot of people in this country, they're not feeling its effects. And while inflation is down, for example, prices are still up generally. So how do you approach this issue for folks who simply enough say, I'm paying more at the grocery store, this cereal was cheaper when Donald Trump was in office? The economy today is stronger than it was when Trump was in office for all of the reasons that you gave. You know, we take it for granted in my state of Vermont right now. You know what our major economic crisis is right now it is the labor shortage good problem to have yeah well it's
Starting point is 00:10:20 not i mean it really is impacting our economy we don't have enough workers and that is true in many parts of of the country but that is a much better problem to have than to have millions of people who are want to work and unable to find jobs uh what we have i think what people are dealing with and you know brian there are a lot of you know people's attitude are shaped by a lot of things. They are shaped by the pain that we went through with COVID. They're shaped by their fears that we have with regard to climate change. What kind of planet will we have for our kids and our grandchildren?
Starting point is 00:10:58 They're shaped by racism and bigotry. They're shaped by a lot of things. And I think right now, when people are looking at the economy, what they are perceiving, I think, correctly, is, yeah, the economy maybe, it's okay, but it's doing really well for the people on top. And that is a point that we don't make often enough. In fact, the 1% in America, the billionaire class,
Starting point is 00:11:24 have never ever had it so good. Not in the history of this country. More income and wealth inequality than we have ever had. Three people only more wealth on the bottom half of American society. Richest people getting much richer. So I think what the president has got to talk about is saying, all right, look, we've made some progress on the economy. We're rebuilding our infrastructure.
Starting point is 00:11:44 that's good, making some progress, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, and issue I've worked on, that's good. We offer giving, by the way, a lot of student debt. I don't know if you're aware of it, but we're talking about millions of young people whose lives have been transformed.
Starting point is 00:12:03 I talked to a woman, I was at Morgan State a couple of weeks ago, and she was a faculty member, $80,000 in debt, removed transformative, her life. All right. And that is true.
Starting point is 00:12:17 I talked to people in Vermont, same thing. We got to talk about that. But most importantly, we have got to demand that the president come up with an agenda that takes on powerful special interest, income and wealth inequality. And by the way, I don't know if you've had the occasion to talk to Lena Khan from the FTC. Have you had that occasion? No, I haven't spoken to her. It's a worthwhile discussion.
Starting point is 00:12:40 She is doing a tremendous job. Best FTC chair we have ever had. in breaking up monopolies and standing up for working people. So we have made some progress, but I do understand the reality that today, real inflation accounted for dollars are no better than they were 50 years ago, despite all of the increase in productivity that we've seen. Another issue that really has impacted people across this country is obviously the issue of abortion.
Starting point is 00:13:08 In a recent interview with time, Donald Trump came out and expressed support for allowing states to monitor women's pregnancies so that they can know if they've gotten an abortion after a ban was put in place. Can I get your reaction to that? I mean, what can I say? I mean, you know, what can you say monitoring women's pregnancies in the land of the free? I mean, it is, you know, unspeakable. And, you know, clearly what Trump and many of his Republican colleagues are about are at war with women's rights, trying to roll back the gains that women have struggled for for so many years but the idea that after women had won the constitutional right what we thought was the constitutional right
Starting point is 00:13:57 to be able to control their bodies you got a supreme court uh undermining overturning roe v wade and you got states all over this country in my view just humiliating women by taking away basic rights. So, you know, when we talk about one of the issues of this campaign, let's be clear. Biden has been very strong on trying to protect a woman's right to control her own body. And Trump and the Republicans have been absolutely disastrous. And I would hope people perceive and understand that as we go into the election. I think what's especially crazy, too, is that they're making this decision on the heels of, what was it, 10, 15 years ago, fearmongering about death panels and response.
Starting point is 00:14:39 to the ACA. And they said, you couldn't possibly allow government to get between a woman and her doctor because they'll decide, you know, who lives or dies. And now you have government in between a woman and her doctor deciding who can get life-saving medical treatment and who can't, just because, you know, theocrats want to kind of impose their religious will onto people who don't want it. I mean, that's absolutely right. And above and beyond that, look, it is not Donald Trump's decision or some, you know, politician's decision to determine what is best for a woman and her family. That's a decision between her and a doctor,
Starting point is 00:15:14 in my view, end of discussion. You know, Trump does seem to get away with being a moderate on this issue or perceived as being a moderate on this issue because of his background is this New York playboy who probably himself paid for abortions. Despite his support of the most draconian abortion bans
Starting point is 00:15:29 in the history of this country, what do you say to people who give him a pass or write off his extremism on this issue? What I say is that Donald Trump has boasted about appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade and set back women's rights in a very, in the most significant way that we have seen in modern history. So anybody, A, who believes anything that Trump says, I would question anything he says, but B, clearly, this is a man who boasts about overturning Roe v. White.
Starting point is 00:16:02 Yeah. Similarly, he skates by on the issue of earned benefits, despite the fact that when he was president, His own budgets literally cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. What would happen to those programs that Americans have paid into for their entire lives if Trump again takes office? Well, it's not just him. It is his Republican colleagues here in the House and the Senate. What they are floating are a number of ideas to cut benefits. And their argument is that the Social Security Trust Fund faces.
Starting point is 00:16:39 insolvency. Well, there is a way to deal with it, which is the proper way. Right now is, I'm sure you know, Brian, if you make $160, more or less, I think, $165,000 a year, okay? You can't. I make $16 million here. Guess what? We both pay the same amount of money into the Social Security Trust fund. That's absurd. So at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, the tax system that funds Social Security is totally regressive. You lift that cap. You can expand the benefits that many seniors get. A lot of seniors in this country are struggling, trying to get by in $15,000, $30,000 a year, which is really hard. But if you lift that cap, you can extend the solvency
Starting point is 00:17:30 of Social Security for 75 years and the overwhelming majority of the American people will not pay a nickel more in Texas. That's what we've got to do. On the issue of seniors, just as a quick aside, there's a guy named Eric Hovedy, and he's running against Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin in the Senate. He said that if you're in a nursing home, you only have five or six months life expectancy and that nobody in a nursing home is at a point to vote. That was a direct quote from him, which I thought maybe Senator Sanders, we can chalk up to like a gaff. But then I found out that the bank that he leads was named as a co-defendant in a California lawsuit that accused.
Starting point is 00:18:08 is a senior living facility, partly owned by Havdi's bank of elder abuse, negligence, and wrongful death. So do you think a guy like that is going to protect earned benefits for seniors who he's just decided to put on death row by Fiat? I mean, you know, some of the things, I mean, one of the things I think that concerns the American people is the growing extremism of the Republican Party. I mean, there used to be years back kind of a center-right party. There were strong disagreements, people left and the right, but they have become a right-wing extremist party.
Starting point is 00:18:45 So when you have a candidate for the United States, Senate, what, implying that seniors in nursing home shouldn't be able to vote? Or what was his point? Is that his point? Just that they're basically like waiting to die, that they've only got a couple months left to live if they're in a nursing home anyway and they're not at a point to vote, is what he said. I mean, that is, you know, and these are probably the same mentality as young people are not a at a point of vote. People of color are not at a point to vote. Yeah. I mean, this is what we mean. You started this discussion off by mentioning that this is the most consequential election in our history. And I know people say, oh, I've heard it again.
Starting point is 00:19:22 I've heard it before. You say this every election. Well, this is what we're talking about. We are talking about a party. And I don't want to say it's true of every Republican because it's not. But you are talking about a party which increasingly does not believe. in democracy, the right of all people, whether you're elderly, whether you're 18, whether you're black, whether you're white, whether you're Latino, to fully participate in the political policy. This is a party which has a number of people who look to Putin as an example of what unquote democracy is about. So when we talk about this coming election, and while many people are not enthusiastic about Joe Biden, Joe Biden does believe in democracy.
Starting point is 00:20:08 Trump, in many ways, does that. You know, there's this insidious scheme to that exact point that's happening right now where Republicans are looking to refuse to fund our election infrastructure. They're looking to zero it out as a line item in the congressional budget for 2024. Last year, there was $55 million allocated. What we actually need to be able to properly fund our election infrastructure is $400 million. Is there anything that you can say about the likelihood of our election infrastructure being properly funded in the upcoming budget so that we don't have our whole system fail so that
Starting point is 00:20:42 our election administration can go off properly so that the purveyors of disinformation don't have a predicate to point to a bungled election and say, look, we told you it was rigged, now we just got to take it over ourselves and do it the right way, which of course is going to include, you know, banning drop boxes, voter suppression, reduced polling places on minority majority precincts and on and on. Right. I think you hit the nail right on the head, and that's what Republicans do. If you don't fund something, and running elections in 50 states in this country is not easy. And the one thing that you didn't mention in your list of things that Republicans are attempting to do is intimidate local election officials.
Starting point is 00:21:27 You know, I know in Vermont, you know, you have energy all over the country. of people who just volunteer, you know, they volunteer to come and to count the ballots and often, you know, Democrats and Republicans sitting around, they're getting along. And what these people are doing now, some of the right-wing extremists are literally intimidating people, making, you know, outrageous charges against them. So the people say, who needs this? I'm a volunteer. You know, what do I need to be insulted or attacked?
Starting point is 00:21:57 You know, so I think the point to be made. made is democracy will not disappear in this country by fiat, by, oh, hey, guess what? No more elections. That's not the way it will happen. It'll happen because voter officials are intimidated. People are not able to vote or make it harder for people to vote, where people are videoed as they walk into a polling booth. We got you, you know, if you're voting, you know, and people say, hey, it's not worth
Starting point is 00:22:29 Why will I vote? If they're going to be, I'm going to be videoted, I'm going to be harassed. So you've got a whole litany of activities on the part of the right, which are basically trying to undermine American democracy. And is there a proper effort to make sure that our elections are funded to the degree that they need to be in this upcoming budget? Absolutely. Some of us all. If you believe in democracy, you want to make sure that there is the infrastructure available to make sure that every eligible voter in America can cast his or her vote without fear. in a way that is convenient. You know, some of us believe that it is a good idea to see large voter turnouts, to encourage young people and, you know, everybody to participate. It's called democracy. There are other people who are moving in exactly the other direction. I want to go back to the Senate for just a moment.
Starting point is 00:23:18 The Republican Party's candidates right now include in Wisconsin, that California multimillionaire banker, who I just referred to before, Eric Covdy, in Pennsylvania, they're running Dave McCormick from Connecticut, who is doing the whole, I grew up poor shtick, and yet the guy grew up in what's referred to as the president's mansion. In Montana, they're running a Minnesota guy who grew up in a multimillion dollar lakehouse.
Starting point is 00:23:39 What's at stake in the Senate if this slate of Republican candidates is elected? Well, I hope everybody knows, and I'm not sure that they do, that in the Senate, we have, the Democratic caucus has said the slimmest of slim majorities. It's 51 to 49.
Starting point is 00:23:55 And if we were to lose that, majority. If the Republicans were able to gain control over the House and win the presidency, it would be an incredible disaster, in my view, for working people, for environmental policy, for women's rights, etc. So right now you have a number of elections in battleground states where Democrats are fighting hard to get reelected. Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, John Tester and Montana,
Starting point is 00:24:32 bought Casey in Pennsylvania, among others, and they need all the help that they can get. The other point, I'm sorry, I wanted to say, Brian, the other point I should have picked up on your point, you're talking about, you know, very wealthy people running for office.
Starting point is 00:24:48 And all of that speaks to something else that the Republican Party has managed to do. And that is it's not only overthrowing Roe v. Wade, they overthrew Citizens United. So right now, and I hope everybody understands it. We are living in a very corrupt political system where any billionaire who wants to a super PAC can spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to elect or defeat candidates that they want.
Starting point is 00:25:17 And when you're talking about billionaires running for office, they don't even need a super PAC. Right. They're just buying the election themselves. Right. But I would hope that most of us understand that democracy is not about big money buying elections. It's one person, one vote. And if you're a working class person, you have a right to run for election. And you don't have to hustle money from billionaires and so forth and so on.
Starting point is 00:25:38 So we need fundamental campaign finance reform, in my view. It is public funding of elections rather than billionaire funding of elections. Well said. That's in the Senate. Moving over to the House. And I know this isn't your jurisdiction, but just this past week, Marjorie Taylor Green's efforts to oust Mike Johnson, a speaker for the crime of allocating foreign aid kind of blew up in her face with this effort to push the motion to vacate seeming to fail. Democrats have come out and said that we're not going to allow you to descend the House into chaos again. Do you think this signals some fatigue, even among Republicans, at the interminable stream of BS by extremists like Marjorie Taylor Green?
Starting point is 00:26:16 I hope so, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. You know, it's people, I mean, Republicans in the House have expressed massive dissatisfaction with a lot of what's going on. They understand that they have not been able to govern past legislation by and large. But I fear very much that people like Representative Green and others have a whole lot of influence in the Republican Party. it should not be underestimated. Now, you've introduced the 32-hour workweek act. You are in a body that on both sides is quite corporate, quite friendly to corporations. Is there any hope for something like this to gain traction?
Starting point is 00:27:02 There is. Look, you're quite right. Both parties are heavily influenced by big money in corporate interests. That's the reality of American politics. And we are trying very hard to change that. We're trying to convert the Democratic Party into a working-class party. a multi-racial party, a multi-generational party where young people, working people, have influence rather than just wealthy campaign contributors.
Starting point is 00:27:27 That's a hard fight. But what is interesting is on issue after interest, issue after issue, you see the degree to which Congress lives in a bubble separated from what the American people want, whether it is funding the war in Gaza for Israel, or whether it's something like a 32-hour work week. Here is the reason that I introduced that legislation, which is quite popular in around the country. And the reason is that the current Fair Labor Standards Act law requiring a 40-hour work week and time and a half after that. You know when that was established, Brian?
Starting point is 00:28:06 What year? 1994. Yeah. Not exactly current. You think the world has changed a little bit? Yeah. change, that worker productivity has changed. So what has happened over that period of time
Starting point is 00:28:22 is there has been a massive transfer of wealth from working people to the top 1%. And the reason for that is that we're seeing great work of productivity, but real inflation accounted for wages have not gone up in 50 years. So all that I am saying is we are living in an economy where workers are producing much more the benefit of those that increased
Starting point is 00:28:46 productivity should go to workers, not just the CEOs and the 1%. And one way you do it is to understand that in America, our people are working some of the longest hours of any people in the industrialized world. And people are often exhausted. They're working 50, 60 hours a week. You know, they can't get away from their cell phones or, you know, if you're working in a factory, you could be working 50, 60 hours. And all that we are saying is it is time. It is time after all of those years off, all of that increase in worker productivity to lower the work week to 32 hours, which, by the way, is something that other countries are
Starting point is 00:29:25 leading us in moving towards. Well, I know a lot of people who would very much enjoy that. Let's finish off with this. On this same issue of companies kind of exploiting or gouging Americans while they're not doing the same thing to the rest of the world, you've launched an investigation into Novo Nordis, which manufactures Ozempic, for example. Can you speak on the extreme price differential between what? they charge in the U.S. versus what they charge abroad and what can be done about it.
Starting point is 00:29:49 And this is an issue more like that, that impact that touches the entire pharmaceutical industry, the entire health care industry in this country. It's a huge issue. We have spent a lot of time with some success. By the way, I'm very happy to say that as a result of a lot of factors, including the work done by my committee, the health education labor committee, the price for asthma inhalers is at the counter, at the drugstore counter, is going to go down. down very significantly to $35 a month, a very significant reduction.
Starting point is 00:30:21 But we have much, much more work to do. The bottom line here is whether it is OZMPIC or other drugs, we in the United States pay far, far, far more than the people in countries around the world. In Canada, for example, and I live near the Canadian border, they pay $155 a month for OZembek, our people are being asked to pay close to $1,000. And in certain European countries, it's even less than it is in Canada. And the reason for that is simply that in our country, by and large, the drug companies, whether it's snowfall notice or others,
Starting point is 00:31:03 can charge any price that they want. And we're beginning to change that. We're beginning to bring forth negotiations between Medicare and the drug companies, et cetera. But right now, you have in this country a whole, lot of people with diabetes uh who need uh this very important drug uh people who are obese who need this important drug and they cannot afford it and furthermore you can see medicare and medicaid spending far far far far more money uh than is conceivable as well as states in terms of Medicaid. So we have got to demand that Novo Nortus and Eli Lilly and others treat us the way
Starting point is 00:31:48 they treat other countries and not continue to rip up the American people and federal government and state government. All right. Well, obviously, I would mention that that work really only seems to be moving forward as long as we have Democrats in office. So, you know, that's just a kind of a mention for that we head toward this November election. Senator Sanders, thank you so much for the work that you do and for taking the time today. Well, Brian, thank you for the work you're doing. Thank you. Thanks again to Senator Sanders. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show,
Starting point is 00:32:26 please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen.com to learn more.

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