‘Is it True?!’ Bernie Sanders Brawls With FDA Nominee About Wild Trump Claim on Drug Prices

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) brawled with the Trump administration’s nominee for Food and Drug Administration chief by quoting Donald Trump on drug prices and asking if the president was “telling the truth.”

Dr. Heidi Overton, who has served as deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy since 2025, was on Capitol Hill on Thursday for her Senate confirmation hearing.

“President Trump has claimed in his State of the Union address that he took prescription drugs from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest,” Sanders began. “Wow! The American people are so excited to know now that we pay the lowest prices in the world for prescription drugs. What do you think? Is the president telling the truth? Do we pay the lowest prices in the world for prescription drugs? Or do we pay the highest prices in the world?”

“Senator, lowering drug costs is something that we share, and there has been immense progress, especially on individual products. Right now 89% of branded drugs have signed agreements to lower their prices and make that available directly-” Overton said before Sanders interrupted.

“Do we pay the lowest prices? The President said it. He’s your boss. You just told us, you know, you’re going to stand up to him. So, he just said, we pay the lowest prices in the world for prescription drugs. It’s true or it’s not true? Is it true?” Sanders asked.

“Senator, we have seen —”

“Is it true that we pay the lowest prices in the world for prescription drugs as President Trump has said?” Sanders asked forcefully.

“So, Senator, the results that we have seen for the American people from the most favored nation policies have dropped prices, and right now CPI says that for the first time in 60 years, prescription drug prices have gone down by 3%,” Overton managed.

“Yeah, which may have something to do with the legislation that we passed several years ago,” Sanders said.

Sanders was almost certainly referring to the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 signed by President Joe Biden, with its provision for Medicare-negotiated prescription drug pricing going into effect this year.

Trump has negotiated lower prices on some prescription drugs now touted on TrumpRx.gov, but Americans are not “paying the lowest prices in the world” in the general sense as Trump claimed.

The latest numbers by the RAND Corporation found that France and Japan have some of the lowest-priced prescription drugs among developed countries.

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.

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