It is no great secret that millions of Americans feel that Congress is more interested in protecting large corporations than looking out for ordinary people.

That is never clearer than when we talk about our broken health care system, and the outrageous price of prescription drugs in this country.

The truth is, if you ask most Americans – Democrats, Republicans, independents, progressives, conservatives – they will agree: we are getting ripped off, big time, by the pharmaceutical industry.

As a nation, we spend almost twice as much per capita as any other country on health care – over $13,000 for every man, woman and child. Even for those with insurance, costs are so high that medical bills are often the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States.

And one of the major reasons for the high cost of health care in America is that we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

You tell me: why does Merck charge diabetes patients in the United States $6,900 for Januvia when the exact same product can be purchased in Canada for $900 and just $200 in France?

Why does Johnson & Johnson charge Americans with arthritis $79,000 for Stelara when it can be purchased for just $16,000 in the United Kingdom? And why does Bristol Myers Squibb charge patients in our country $7,100 for Eliquis when the same product can be purchased for just $900 in Canada and just $650 in France?

On and on it goes. Almost every prescription drug costs far more in the United States than it does in other countries. 

The good news is that we are beginning to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry. Medicare, for the first time ever, is negotiating the price of some drugs, including Januvia, Stelara and Eliquis. 

The bad news is that the pharmaceutical industry is doing everything it can to stop these negotiations, and prevent Congress from making prescription drugs affordable for all Americans – not just those on Medicare.

The giant pharmaceutical and health insurance lobbies have spent huge amounts of money over the past decades to ensure that their profits come before the health of the American people.

Over the past 25 years, the drug companies have spent $8.5 billion on lobbying. Today, they have some 1,800 well-paid lobbyists in Washington, D.C. – including former leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties. Unbelievably, that is more than three lobbyists for every member of Congress.

During that same period, they have provided over $700 million in campaign contributions. And they are equal opportunity contributors. They contribute heavily to both Republican and Democratic candidates. 

The result of congressional inaction is that these large corporations have driven up the prices of prescription drugs to the point that one out of four Americans cannot afford the medicine their doctors prescribe.

Meanwhile, while millions of Americans suffer – and some die – because they can’t afford the prescription drugs they need, 10 of the top pharmaceutical companies in the country made over $110 billion in profits in 2022 and paid their CEOs outrageously high compensation packages.

As the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), one of my top priorities is to substantially reduce the price of prescription drugs in America. One of the ways to do that is to hold the chief executives of some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in our country accountable for their actions.

That is why I have invited Robert Davis, the CEO of Merck; Joaquin Duato, the CEO of Johnson & Johnson; and Chris Boerner, the CEO of Bristol Myers Squibb, to a hearing to discuss what they are doing to lower drug prices in America. 

Why did we ask these CEOs to come before us? Because the American people deserve answers to some pretty simple questions.

For example: Why is it that the median price of new prescription drugs in America is now over $220,000 – including many new cancer drugs? How does it happen that while millions of Americans cannot afford the prescription drugs they need, when major drug companies in America spend more on stock buybacks and dividends than they do on research and development?

Why is there an enormous lack of transparency in how your companies set drug prices?

These very straightforward questions are on the minds of millions of Americans. These are questions that the CEOs of major pharmaceutical companies have a responsibility to answer. 

And let’s be clear: these are not struggling companies forced to charge high prices to survive. Believe me, they are not going broke. In 2022, Johnson & Johnson made nearly $18 billion in profits, paid its CEO over $27 million in compensation and spent over $17 billion on stock buybacks and dividends. 

That same year, Merck made $14.5 billion in profit, handed out over $7 billion in dividends to their wealthy stockholders and paid its CEO over $52 million in compensation. 

And Bristol Myers Squibb made $6.3 billion in profits last year, while recently spending over $12 billion on stock buybacks and dividends and giving its CEO over $41 million in compensation. 

I am proud of what the committee has already accomplished.

Last year, the CEO of Moderna committed during a HELP Committee hearing that his company would set up a patient assistance program so that no one in America would have to pay for their vaccine out of pocket. In a separate HELP Committee hearing last May, the CEO of Eli Lilly committed that his company would not raise prices on existing insulin products.

The committee’s efforts are paying off, but much more needs to be done.

I look forward to the hearing on Feb. 8, with the CEOs of Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb, to discuss how they will substantially lower the price of prescription drugs in America.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM SEN. BERNIE SANDERS 

American servicemembers are dead, Iran’s proxies killed them, and President Joe Biden’s weak policies are to blame.

Iranian-backed militants operating out of Syria or Iraq finally hit their mark over the weekend, using drones to kill three U.S. servicemembers in Jordan while wounding 25 more. The American military presence, some 350 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel, are on the Jordanian border to prevent a resurgence of the deadly and virulent ISIS Sunni Islamist terror network while safeguarding Syrian refugees. And the attacks on U.S. forces in the region continue.

With Biden’s ‘proportional response’ against the Iranian proxy Houthi rebels in Yemen having failed to deter them, or their sponsor Iran, one might be excused for asking a basic question: What’s the plan?

Biden’s policies in the region represent a restoration of Obama’s policies—namely, the appeasement of Iran’s theocratic regime in the hopes that the mullahs might be dissuaded from deploying nuclear missiles. Iran serving as a regional counterbalance to a robust Israel was also a concern of Obama’s—something that seems particularly antiquarian in the wake of Hamas’ (another Iranian proxy) Oct. 7 Bronze Age barbarities. A more pedestrian, election year, concern is to keep the flow of Middle Eastern oil uninterrupted to shield Bidenflation-weary consumers from further energy price hikes.

Strategist Edward Luttwak succinctly summarized Obama’s Law, ‘Iran can attack at will but must never be attacked.’

All Americans should expect or at least hope that the Biden administration is fully cognizant of its regional objectives and the risks for U.S. forces operating there. A major factor in ensuring the ongoing safety of American servicemembers should be the robust use of war games.

War games are employed by military planners for two main reasons: to better understand the situation and anticipate what the enemy might do.

In the leadup to the Imperial Japanese Navy’s disastrous attempt to seize Midway, senior Japanese officers war gamed the attack. It ended in failure several times, but senior officers insisted that Japan’s aircraft carriers be refloated. One month after the Japan’s tabletop exercises, the Battle of Midway ended with the sinking of all four of the Japanese aircraft carriers committed to the operation at the cost of one U.S. Navy carrier.

In March 1987, the Kuwaiti government sought protection for its oil tankers that were being targeted by Iran in an expansion of the Iran-Iraq War being played out with attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf. America agreed to reflag some tankers, requiring the ships to include an American captain, and at least half of the crew had to be American as well, before the U.S. Navy would escort the ships in the hostile waters off the coast of Iran.

The convoy effort was code-named Operation Earnest Will. Just before it started in July 1987, two week-long war games were conducted in the basement of the Pentagon. The war games explored two contingencies, with the Green team offering a more robust military-centric response and the Blue team a more State Department-oriented ‘proportional response’ strategy. I participated in the Green team as a young Reagan appointee. By the end of the exercise, the Green team’s more aggressive reaction to Iranian attacks resulted in 50 American dead, wounded, or captured. The Blue team’s more tentative path allowed Iran to control the pace of escalation with the result being 1,500 American casualties.

When an Iranian mine nearly sunk the USS Samuel B. Roberts, a destroyer, in April 1988, the U.S. swung into action. Four days later, on April 14, the U.S. Navy unleashed its largest surface engagement since World War II, codenamed Operation Praying Mantis. The Navy sank an Iranian frigate, a gunboat, and various other vessels as well as destroyed two militarized offshore oil platforms. The Iranians suffered 56 dead. Two U.S. helicopter crew were lost to unknown causes.

The successful U.S. naval operation was one of the factors that brought Iran to the peace table and ended the Iran-Iraq War.

That the Reagan administration followed the Green team operational concept, with the resultant modest loss of American life, as compared to taking the timid Blue team path, is highly relevant to today’s situation.

There are three possibilities regarding the Biden team’s use of war gaming to anticipate Iran’s attacks by proxy. First, it’s possible no war gaming was conducted or was improperly conducted. Second, it’s possible that war games were conducted but not communicated up the chain of command as the results were understood to be unwelcome. And third, it’s possible that the war games were conducted, the results communicated, and then subsequently ignored, with the predicable loss of American servicemembers seen as a collateral price that had to be paid in furtherance of ‘Obama’s Law.’

War gaming is a serious tool of both statecraft and war. Ignoring the results of war gaming is perilous. Ignoring the results because they don’t comport with your ideology amounts to criminal malpractice.

Nikki Haley says she’s staying in the presidential race at least until Super Tuesday, though most of the media now deem the primary over and done with.

While Donald Trump’s media detractors have found new lines of attack, they can’t deny that his big wins in Iowa and New Hampshire have practically given him a headlock on the nomination.

But the biggest roadblock in her path is her own home state.

AS TRUMP EASILY BEATS HALEY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, SHE VOWS TO STAY IN THE RACE

How is it that a former two-term governor is trailing Trump by 20 to 30 points?

The Trump juggernaut seems close to unstoppable. This Saturday’s Democratic primary in South Carolina (bold prediction: Joe Biden will win) will draw any potential party-switchers away from the GOP contest. 

And the Republican Party, transformed by Trump, is much more conservative in her state than when Haley left office in 2017.

Even Haley, Trump’s former U.N. ambassador, isn’t predicting victory. She says she simply needs to do better than the 43 percent she won in New Hampshire’s open primary. That’s a tall order.

But there’s an even deeper reality hurting Haley, according to some digging in South Carolina by two veteran New York Times reporters. All this came out during her years as governor, but is new to a national audience.

There’s a reason, says the piece, that the governor, Henry McMaster, who had been her lieutenant governor, has endorsed Trump. And the House backbencher who she picked for senator, Tim Scott, has endorsed Trump. And the congresswoman whose career was threatened in 2022 until Haley endorsed her, Nancy Mace, has endorsed Trump.

Haley said last week that South Carolina lawmakers had ‘no love for me’ because she tried to make state government more transparent and vetoed pork-barrel projects.

Longtime GOP consultant Chip Feikel told the paper ‘she was good on economic development but not great on cultivating relationships. She forgot who helped her get here.’

NEW HAMPSHIRE SHOWDOWN: WHY TRUMP IS CONNECTING WITH VOTERS AND HALEY AND DESANTIS HAVE NOT

Perhaps the classic case involved former governor Mark Sanford, whose tenure was ruined by the ‘Appalachian Trail’ extramarital affair, who agreed to her request for a $400,000 ad blitz to salvage her campaign. 

‘And then she cut me off,’ Sanford told Politico. ‘This is systematic with Nikki: She cuts off people who have contributed to her success. It’s almost like there’s some weird psychological thing where she needs to pretend it’s self-made.’

Ouch.

There’s another way to look at this: ‘Haley and her supporters attribute the hard feelings she left in her wake to jealousy, sexism and the sense that a young woman of color had simply not waited her turn.’

But clearly, the accumulation of complaints reflects a pattern of burning bridges and alienating allies, even if it also depicts her as a fighter.

While Haley has sharpened her rhetoric against the former president, regularly calling him ‘unhinged,’ she is still pulling her punches.

On Sunday’s ‘Meet the Press,’ when host Kristen Welker asked whether the $83-million verdict in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case was ‘disqualifying,’ Haley answered in process terms:

‘I absolutely trust the jury. And I think that they made their decision based on the evidence. I just don’t think that should take him off the ballot.’ 

On the third try, Welker asked: ‘Why give him a pass on this issue, where a jury has found him liable for sexual abuse?’

‘I’m not giving him a pass on anything,’ Haley said before pivoting to Trump’s supposed decline as a 77-year-old. Everyone supports juries. What she did not do was address the substance of the accusations, which Trump continues to vehemently deny.

Welker moved on: ‘He has mocked your birth name. He has suggested you’re not eligible to be president because your parents weren’t born here. Of course, you are eligible. You were born here…What do you make of him bringing back this birther playbook against you? Do you think it will work in South Carolina and win over voters there?’

‘I mean, honestly, Kristen, I laugh every time I see one of his tweets, every time I see him throw a temper tantrum, because I know Donald Trump very well. When he feels insecure, he starts to rail. He starts to rant.’ She completely ducked the question.

Welker, again: ‘Would you go so far as to call those attacks racist, Ambassador?’

‘I think that’s for everybody else to decide.’

Haley has obviously made a calculated decision not to criticize Trump too harshly on personal matters. She undoubtedly believes that could turn off MAGA voters who might defect to her. But with less than a month to go before her home state primary, the try-not-to-offend-anyone strategy isn’t working.

SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE’S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF ON THE DAY’S HOTTEST STORIES

This is outrageous and unacceptable. The feds must step up efforts to trace those making these reckless calls and make sure they get significant jail time. 

EXCLUSIVE – The Republican National Committee (RNC) appears to be coming quickly out of the gate when it comes to 2024 fundraising.

The RNC reports hauling in $12 million in January, which it highlights was over $2 million higher than any monthly fundraising total during 2023. 

The national party committee, which shared its figures first with Fox News on Tuesday, also noted that its digital grassroots and major donor fundraising hauls were higher in January than any other month over the past year.

The RNC also spotlighted that it is also on track to have a strong fundraising month in February, ‘dispelling mainstream media narratives and proving that we will have the necessary resources to strengthen our infrastructure and investments to win in the fall.’

The national party committee faced a slew of stories last autumn – after its cash on hand dropped to just over $9 million – that questioned the RNC’s fundraising and overall finances.

But longtime RNC chair Ronna McDaniel emphasized in a statement that ‘we’re 10 months out from Election Day, and the RNC is not only raising the necessary resources, but we’re continuing our strategic investments in battlegrounds across the country to take back the Senate and White House, and grow our majority in the House in the fall.’

‘While Democrats have no ground game nor any issues to run on, Republicans are firing on all cylinders to get-out-the-vote and grow our Party to Beat Biden,’ McDaniel argued.

The RNC didn’t share its latest cash on hand figures, as the filing of its fundraising report wasn’t due until the end of business on Wednesday.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC), which has yet to release its January fundraising, enjoys a joint fundraising agreement with President Biden’s re-election campaign. And the DNC outpaced the RNC for much of the past year. But Republicans note that even with an incumbent president in the White House, the DNC is barely outraising the RNC in direct fundraising cycle-to-date. 

The RNC, touting its strategic investments, notes that it has hired political and election integrity directors and support staff in 15 battleground states, including important House and Senate states such as New York, California, and Montana. It also highlights that its invested in recent years in community centers in states including California, New York and Texas.

And the RNC also spotlights its Bank Your Vote Initiative – an early in-person voting and ballot harvesting push to improve the GOP’s vote totals heading into Election Day in November.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday called for ‘Squad’ member Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., to be expelled from Congress, have her citizenship revoked, and deported from the country over a speech she gave which critics alleged Omar put the interests of Somalis over Americans. 

The clip of Omar’s Jan. 27 speech, which went viral this week, appeared to show the Somali-born congresswoman assuring her constituents that she would use her influence to ensure the breakaway Republic of Somaliland would not enter a sea-access deal with Ethiopia. 

A translation of the clip DeSantis re-shared shows Omar telling the crowd: ‘The U.S. is a country where one of your daughters is in Congress to represent your interest.’ 

‘For as long as I am in the U.S. Congress, Somalia will never be in danger, its waters will not be stolen by Ethiopia or others … Sleep in comfort, knowing I am here to protect the interests of Somalia from inside the U.S. system.’ 

The clip ignited a firestorm of angry responses from critics who accused the Democratic lawmaker of prioritizing her loyalty to her country of birth rather than the U.S. 

‘Expel from Congress, denaturalize and deport!’ DeSantis tweeted on Tuesday. 

Omar left her homeland with her family near the start of the Somali Civil War in 1991 and spent four years at a Kenyan refugee camp before immigrating to the U.S. in 1995. 

Omar has criticized the translation of her remarks from Saturday, calling them ‘not only slanted but completely off.’ 

‘[B]ut I wouldn’t expect more from these propagandists. I pray for them and for their sanity,’ she tweeted. 

‘No nation state can survive if its states start to get involved in land lease negotiations with other countries without the consent of the federal government. Somalis in Somalia and in the diaspora are united in that effort and I stand in solidarity with them. No amount of harassment and lies will ever change that.’ 

Later Tuesday, Omar appeared to throw shade at DeSantis. While not directly addressing his tweet attacking her, she ridiculed his unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign. 

‘Moving from 2024 failure and preparing for 2028 failure,’ she tweeted in response to an article suggesting the Republican governor had his eyes set on the next election. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Omar’s campaign for further comment.