Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #37  ## Metadata - Author: [[It Could Happen Here]] - Full Title: Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #37 - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/1dd7dba3-07d3-4df3-9ef3-0f3a27942293 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Federalization Requires Concrete Local Need** - The Trump administration framed small ICE protests as an existential "insurrection" to justify federalizing Guards and deploying forces. - The federal judge found that violence elsewhere or speculative threats do not legally permit federalizing another state's National Guard. Transcript: Garrison Davis On Thursday, October 2nd, right-wing influencer Nick Sorter, along with two other people. I know, know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't. It's stupid. It's really stupid. Along with two other people were arrested by the Portland Police Bureau in connection with a fight outside of the ICE building during a protest. Sorter was provoking reactions from protesters when he was then chased down the street by a woman in a bird costume. A bird costume? Quote, swinging a large stick covered with feathers. James Stout I think so, it's resulted by Big Bird. Garrison Davis According to court documents, the three people were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, though Sorter's charges have since been dropped. Sorter's arrest ignited a right-wing firestorm, the likes of which I have not seen since Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Robert Evans I'm glad people are finally waking up to the Antifa police department that rules Portland with an iron fist. For a long time. Garrison Davis Tim Poole posted on X the Everything app, I'm calling on the Trump administration to launch a legal challenge against Oregon following the arrest of Nick Sorter. And if necessary, deploy National Guard. Oregon's failed to uphold federal and state law, and we should not tolerate it. And like, yeah, there was like a fight and they detained people. Robert Evans And then the D.A. Didn't press charges against Sorter. And it's it's just it couldn't be more of a nothing burger as an actual story. Nothing. Nothing burger. Garrison Davis Yeah. Oh boy. But not according to the AG's office, who quickly responded on it to Tim Pool's request. And by Friday morning, the White House, the Attorney General and the Justice Department announced a quote unquote full investigation into the arrest and the conduct of the Portland Police Bureau. Conservative influencer Benny Johnson, who's been embedded with ICE this past week, posted on X the Everything app, quote, Important news! I spoke with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. She's been briefed on the attack and arrest of journalist Nick Sorter. Secretary Noem tells me DHS will surge ICE resources in Portland. Quote, Antifa is a terrorist group and will not control our streets. Unquote. Thank you, Secretary Noem. Benny Johnson later showed a video captioned, breaking. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has announced the Department of War will deploy to Portland and Chicago within 24 hours to crush left-wing violence, unquote. And here is the video with Kristi Noem talking about the quote-unquote Antifa-affiliated anti-ice protests. Speaker 7 Well, you've got a presence in Portland that is Antifa-affiliated. And so that is a situation where you have known professionals, targeted violence that want to tear down America and will apparently attack anyone, even journalists that are just trying To report the truth of what's happening on the streets. So we're not just going to be rolling out of Chicago here, but we're sending in the Department of War at the request that I made to Secretary Hagseth. They're going to be rolling in here within the next 24 hours. They'll be coming to Chicago, too. I put a request in today for them to come to chicago and we're going to not only have our officers that are out there with hsi and ice but we're also going to have backup from our military Because everybody deserves that and so what we saw happen to that journalist last night will not happen again okay yeah benny johnson showing a very professional journalism there James Stout By just saying, wow, a lot. Garrison Davis It's a pretty wild scene having like troops walk behind Christy Noem as this podcaster grills. Grills are on sending the military to cities. Yeah. In front of a bear cat. The reactions from the right after Nick Sorter's arrest were pretty wild, with journalists going on Fox News claiming that the Portland police are affiliated with Antifa, and popular Right-wing influencers on X, like Amuse, saying, quote, the Portland police are now colluding with Antifa prosecute federal officers protecting the ICE facility. When has that happened? Each time federal officers engage with Antifa, Portland police liaisons collect statements and videos from Antifa to facilitate state criminal charges against DHS. So somehow, in the year of our Lord 2025, the Portland Police Bureau is now Antifa, which is a truly state of affairs. After his release Friday morning, Nick Sorter posted on X, quote, you've proved what we've all been saying for years. You're corrupt and controlled by violent Antifa thugs who terrorize the streets, referring to the Portland police. I have been in direct contact with top officials at DHS. What's coming in Portland is unprecedented. All thanks to Portland police exposing themselves by arresting journalists. Great work, Portland. Unquote. A day later, on October 4th, a Trump-appointed federal judge granted the state of Oregon and the city of Portland a temporary restraining order blocking Trump and Hague's federalization And deployment of 200 Oregon National Guard against the wishes of Oregon Governor Tina Kotak. ([Time 0:04:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/602f486e-ab0b-4ff6-852d-fcb06a438cfe)) - **How 'Rebellion' Is Legally Defined** - The judge applied a strict legal definition of "rebellion," requiring armed, organized, avowed action against government, which Portland protests did not meet. - That legal framing blocks broad executive claims to use the Insurrection Act based on speculative unrest. Transcript: Robert Evans Calling the shots at FPS and ICE is like everything's under control. We have no need for additional people. Yeah. There's no real danger here. Like, this is not a leftist judge. This is not a judge with a political axe to grind. This is a judge that 30 years ago, you would have called a far right extremist. Garrison Davis I will quote a little bit from her ruling here. To accept the defendant's arguments, that's the federal government, would be to render meaningless the extraordinary requirements of 10 U.S 12406 by allowing the president to federalize One state's National Guard based on the events in a different state or mere speculation about future events. In other words, violence elsewhere cannot support troop deployments here, and concern about hypothetical future conduct does not demonstrate a present inability to execute the Laws using non-military federal law enforcement, unquote. On the Trump admin's argument that the president's authorized to federalize state National Guard in the case of rebellion or invasion, the judge concluded that the legal definition Of rebellion requires, quote, first, a rebellion must not only be violent but also armed. Second, a rebellion must be organized. Third, a rebellion must be open and avowed. Fourth, a rebellion must be against the government as a whole, often with the aim of overthrowing the government, rather than in opposition to a single law or issue. Here, the protests in Portland were not a rebellion and did not pose a danger of rebellion, especially in the days leading up to the federalization, unquote. ([Time 0:10:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/39fe657a-cfdc-4600-a8dc-1c5ee2d959f2)) - **Conflating Distant Threats With Local Protests** - Kristi Noem conflated alleged cartel bounties with local protest activity to paint protesters as murderous conspirators. - The hosts caution DHS claims should be treated skeptically until corroborated by evidence. Transcript: Garrison Davis And I'm just going to play her clip from Fox News here talking about the threats to ICE. Speaker 7 Our intelligence indicates that these people are organized, they're getting more and more people on their team as far as attacking officers, and they're making plans to ambush them And to kill them. We have specific officers and agents that have bounties that have been put out on their heads. It's been $2,000 to kidnap them, $10,000 to kill them. They've released their pictures, they've sent them between their networks and it's an extremely dangerous situation and unprecedented so we've put protective detail around those Individuals change some of our operations to keep our officers safe but make no mistake this isn't just about you know protesting free speech or that they don't like that people out Here are upholding the law of our country. They're actually going out there and saying, kill these people and we'll give you this much money to do it. It's ([Time 0:24:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5186b741-2f9d-4374-accb-eb7ae6ce27a4)) - **Rooftop Showmanship Overstates Protest Size** - Kristi Noem and Benny Johnson toured the Portland ICE facility rooftop and called a small group of ~20 protesters an "Army of Antifa." - The hosts describe the scene as surreal and wildly exaggerated compared to the actual crowd size. Transcript: Garrison Davis Christy Noem arrived in Portland, Oregon, along with her conservative podcaster sidekick, Benny Johnson, who has been live streaming ICE operations in Chicago with Noem. Benny posted on X, the Everything app, breaking. DHS secretary Christy Noem stares down Army of Antifa and a guy in a chicken suit from the rooftop of the ICE here in Portland. Finally, someone took that chicken guy down to size. I want to play the video that I think one of us should set the stage for what we're seeing. Secretary, do you have a message to the protesters, especially the man in the chicken outfit? Speaker 7 The man in the chicken outfit? I just see him now, goodness sakes. Welcome to the Lord, though! We can do better. Our goal is that people would peacefully protest, but that we would still be allowed to enforce the law in this country. So it's too bad they're uneducated and not that. Garrison Davis If you look at this protest, there's about, what, 20 people on the street corner adjacent to the ICE facility. Nearly as many journalists and photographers as there are protesters. And this is what Benny Johnson is describing as an army of Antifa. It's these 20 people holding signs across from like a police line on the edge of the ICE facility. At a later point, Benny zooms into another street corner, which similarly has about a dozen people over one block away from the ice facility. ([Time 0:25:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7453a700-8d3d-4248-a2d7-27cf5372b15b)) - **Out‑of‑State Guard Massed Near Chicago** - Texas National Guard troops arrived in Illinois and were later activated into Title 10 under U.S. Northern Command for 60 days. - Illinois and Chicago officials publicly condemned the deployment as an unauthorized occupation and filed legal challenges. Transcript: Garrison Davis Sunday night, Governor Pritzker made a statement reading, quote, this evening, President Trump is ordering 400 members of the Texas National Guard for deployments to Illinois, Oregon, and other locations within the United States. We must now start calling this what it is, Trump's invasion. It started with federal agents. It will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state's military troops. There is no reason a president should send military troops into a sovereign state without their knowledge, consent, or cooperation. Unquote. The state of Illinois announced that they would be seeking their own TRO against Trump's military deployment. The Illinois Attorney General said in a statement, quote, the American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States Military, particularly for the reason that their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president's favor, unquote. And on Monday, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order establishing city property and unwilling private businesses as ice-free zones and discussed the deployment Of troops from out of state by warning, quote, the right wing in this country wants a rematch of the civil war, unquote. Yeah. Mia Wong And so we have it. We have a kind of breaking news update, which is so this is being recorded on Wednesday, October 8th. It's possible this will again change by the time this comes out. The most recent information we have is this is reported by CBS per a statement from U.S. Northern Command, which is part of the Defense Department. War Department, but yes. They're sending 500 troops. I'm just going to read the direct quote. Illinois, approximately 200 soldiers from various units of the Texas National Guard and approximately 300 soldiers from various units of the Illinois National Guard were activated Into a Title 10 status and have arrived in the greater Chicago area. The National Guard were mobilized for an initial period of 60 days and will be under the command and control of the commander of U.S. Northern Command. So that's where we are right now. ([Time 0:30:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/67742a70-0391-450e-a6a4-e41daf201868)) - **ICE Shooting In Chicago Raises Questions** - ICE agents shot Miramar Martinez in Chicago after claims of a vehicle confrontation; she drove to an auto shop and survived with multiple gunshot wounds. - Defense attorneys claim bodycam footage contradicts DHS's initial narrative about the shooting and alleged weapons use. Transcript: Mia Wong What we know for sure about this shooting is that on Saturday morning, an ICE agent shot a woman named Miramar Martinez, who appeared to have been part of a group that was following ICE Vehicles around the city. Martinez was shot and drove herself to a nearby auto repair shop where medics and police showed up. I'm going to read the Sun-Times' account from the shop manager who they spoke to of what happened when she got to the body shop quote the shop manager spoke with a 911 operator and said Send somebody quickly because this lady is bleeding profusely i mean it was instant puddles police and paramedics showed up a few minutes later he said as paramedics place a turn kit On martinez's leg and arm a bullet fell out of her arm and onto the shop floor, the manager said. Martinez, thankfully, does not seem to have been really, really severely injured. She is in stable medical condition. Now, DHS put out a press release almost immediately claiming that their agents were, quote, ambushed by domestic terrorists that rammed federal agents with their vehicles, and that, Quote, Nortina's woman they shot was, quote, armed with a semi-automatic weapon and has a history of doxing federal agents. Now, it is worth noting that best practice when looking at Department of Homeland Security statements, especially under the Trump administration, is to simply assume that they are Not telling the truth until any details they have mentioned are corroborated. What the exact situation was before the shooting is very unclear. Both Department of Homeland Security and federal prosecutors have claimed that a group of cars basically boxed in an ICE vehicle and there have been repeated claims that they were Ramming the ICE vehicle, and that's why the ICE agent opened fire. Garrison Davis That's the DHS's claims, yeah. Mia Wong Yeah, this is the DHS's claims, and these are the claims that are made in court documents. I want to read from the Sun-Times also Martinez's lawyer's description of what's going on, because it is significantly different from the government's account and it's also it's Also worth mentioning that there's already been some deviation between the court documents and the DHS statement for example the court the DHS statement mentions a semi-automatic Weapon and there's just simply no mention of that in like in any of the sort of charging documents the deadly weapon that she's being accused of doing an assault with, which is what she's Being charged with is the car. Yeah, so here's from the Sun-Times. So Parenti, who is her attorney, Parenti also offered to play an agent's body cam video that shows the shooting, noting prosecutors did not show the video that he claims disputes the Government's version of the shooting. Parenti said the video shows an agent turning a federal vehicle left into Martinez's vehicle, after which the agent says, quote, do something, bitch. The agent then exits the vehicle and shoots Martinez. The attorney said Martinez had, quote, seven holes in her from the shooting and that agents were in such a hurry to take her into custody at the hospital that they had to return later when Martinez began bleeding from her wounds yeah yeah so this is a significantly different portrayal of the shooting we do not have access to this body cam footage yet it has not been released To the public there there is a video that we do have that does not show the shooting that shows some of the stuff leading up to the shooting from that sort of auto repair shop that she went To. It is still very unclear what exactly happened here, other than the fact that I shot this woman. That's the only thing that we 100% know. Garrison Davis She does have a concealed carry license and had a handgun in the car with her. Yeah. The lawyers have claimed she never brandished the weapon and it was in the passenger seat. And there's no evidence that she did brandish the weapon. No. No. Mia Wong No. Garrison Davis Nor is ICE even claiming that. Like ICE isn't even claiming that she brandished a weapon. ([Time 0:35:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b4e122ec-3b93-4135-9a2c-605b1e05fce3)) - **Avoid Spreading Unverified Hospital Arrest Claims** - Be cautious when sharing unverified reports about ICE detaining patients in hospitals, because false claims can scare people away from life‑saving care. - Prioritize accuracy over alarm to avoid discouraging emergency visits that could cost lives. Transcript: James Stout Jesus Christ. Yeah. So this person, they weren't coming up on the detainee locator, right? They hadn't apparently been allocated an A number, which is what you'd normally use to look someone up on the ICE detainee locator. And I guess the argument there was that they weren't booked in until they left the hospital. So this person basically disappeared for more than a month. The judge has granted that petitioner an attentive restraining order in that instance. But I have been receiving a lot of messages about a Chicago older person who was detained by ICE at a hospital. And I have seen a number of reports that suggest that that's because ICE were detaining people in the hospital. To my knowledge, the only person they detained in the hospital was the older person. They were not detaining patients at the hospital. They were there because they had brought somebody to the hospital in order for that person to be a patient because that person was in their detention, in their care, and needed medical Assistance. I have seen outlets, I don't, should I name them? Like Democracy Now! Got this wrong and said that they were arresting people. So like Democracy Now! Is one example, right? I have seen outlets reporting this as ICE were in the hospital detaining people. Nothing I have seen leads me to believe that. And lots of things I have seen lead me not to believe that. It doesn't mean it's great for the people who are brought into hospital by ice. I'm sure it fucking sucks. I'm sure it has a chilling effect on other people going to hospital to know that they are there. But so does reporting that suggests that you can be picked up in the hospital if you're an inpatient or if you're in the emergency room. That stops people accessing medical care. That actively puts people in danger we need to be really really fucking careful when sharing this shit yeah that includes people who are journalists or claiming to be journalists people Robert Evans Are so upset rightly so with what ice is doing that there there can be this attitude and i've encountered it before of like well by under-cautioning people, that's the biggest risk. And it's like not when we're talking about whether or not people go to the hospital for life-saving care. Like, I'm sorry, it's just not. Like, these are not equivalent risks. More people are going to be in a position where they would be scared off from going to the hospital and not in any danger from ICE going to it than might possibly be in danger going to the Hospital. Like you were just endangering people by trying to get them to believe it is not safe for them to go receive life-saving emergency medical care at this stage. Now, is it possible that's going to change? Good God, I'm certainly not going to say no, right? I'm certainly not going to say no. 100%. Yeah. But that's not where we are right now. Just over-cautioning people is not a net good in this instance. Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes it is, but not here, because again, if people don't go to the hospital on time, they die. James Stout Yeah, yeah. And I'm aware of cases where people with genuinely life-threatening medical emergencies have had to be persuaded to go to the hospital by people, right? Because they had seen this. ([Time 0:54:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4014ab6e-15be-45af-816d-985f5db320e6)) - **Roadless Protections Limit Wildfire Risk** - Rescinding the Roadless Rule would open nearly 59 million acres to roads and logging, increasing human ignition sources and wildfire risk. - Research and commentators argue road access correlates with higher fire incidence and ecosystem change. Transcript: James Stout I want to talk about the roadless rule today. So September saw the end of the comment period. It was a very short comment period on the Trump administration's proposal to rescind the roadless rule. The roadless rule, if you're not familiar, protects over 58.8 million acres of national forest land from road building, logging and other industrial activity. According to the Centre for Western Priorities, 99% of the comments submitted, of which there were more than 180,000, were opposed to rescinding the rule. The Reddus Rule has previously had broad bipartisan support. It was not a particularly controversial thing. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced a proposal early in the summer saying it would increase logging and decrease wildfire risk. Research suggests that the opposite is true. Cutting roads into forests provides more ignition opportunities, right? By allowing people to go into those forests, you allow those people to do things which lead to fires happening right their cars overheat they smoke cigarettes they fucking shoot steel Robert Evans Targets in the middle of the summer i mean we just had a guy brought in for the palisade fires and he was like a 29 year old uber driver who had was having clearly a bad mental health day called In after he set a fire but kind of made weird denials about it and like fled to florida and it kind of just looks like he was listening to a song where there were people lighting fires and Decided to light a fire and it got way out of control way too quickly. And it wasn't even the same night. Like it took like a week because like they put out the initial fire but it kept burning through thick underbrush which eventually got re-hobbed. That's my understanding based on the articles that I've read. But like yeah it's it's it's i mean in that case it's just a guy who's not super well yeah sure and like the other thing that cutting roads will do is it will change the foliage right you'll James Stout Cut down the big trees and you'll have smaller shrubs and those are easier to burn the big trees right uh theerness Society has some data on this. I think they found that forests with roads were four times more likely to have fires. I will link to that Wilderness Society data. The roadness rule was passed under the Clinton admin. And it's being rescinded as part of a March executive order, which sought to increase U.S. Timber production. I want to note that there will not be guys with chainsaws rolling into your favorite national forest like next week or next month, right? ([Time 0:58:37](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5df2d8be-3748-45dc-8a27-940547bdce86)) - **Tariffs Range From Real Orders To Flagrant Claims** - The administration issued concrete lumber and furniture tariffs with set dates while other tariff threats remain nebulous. - Tariff policy varies in seriousness from tweet threats to enforceable executive orders with differing economic impacts. Transcript: Mia Wong Okay, lightning round. We have two pivot points here. We're going to go for the timber pivot instead of the movie pivot. Okay. So lightning round. Trump is imposing a 10% tariff on softwood lumber, a 25% tariff on upholstered furniture, and 25% tariff on kitchen cabinets and vanities. IKEA is thieving. IKEA is losing their minds. James Stout The entire chaise longue industry is collapsing in Canada as we speak. Mia Wong Yeah. So this is going to be in effect October 14th. Get them now. And then also these tariffs are scheduled to increase at the beginning of next year. The upholstered furniture tariffs are increasing to 30% and the kitchen cabinet and vanity tariffs are increasing to 50% at the beginning of next year. James Stout Oh, yeah. The idea that there's a vanity tariff is very funny to me. Like, not as a noun, but just as a concept. Yeah. Mia Wong These are nominally lumber industry tariffs. I think there's some kind of housing development brain inside of trump's head rattling around as to why there's suddenly tariffs on vanities and upholtered furniture who knows baffling The canadian government has been attempting to lift the tariffs it has not worked negotiations once again failed today which is october 8th okay bouncing from that to something that's Also very important, well, actually, significantly more important. So one of the issues with the current government shutdown is the threat to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, which is normally called WIC. WIC funding is extraordinarily important because it feeds several million people. And, okay, this story is very, very weird because we haven't gotten any direct thing about how this would work outside of the press secretary saying it. But the press secretary is saying that Trump is going to fund this program with the money from one of the tariff programs. Yeah. Now, it is worth noting that this is just very unconstitutional, exceptionally unconstitutional, is a violation of the part of the separation of powers where they say that Congress Is the thing that levies taxes and decides where the money goes. But it's also, it's not clear if this is even happening or how it could even remotely happen, but it is being reported. WIC has been a program that Trump has been using to push his narrative about the government shutdown. James Stout Yeah, I think 40% of children are on WIC right now. This is an extremely important program. It's one of those things where like again there was complete bipartisan support apart from complete lunatics until like you would never have heard like a fuck wick statement um it's Done a done a lot of good for a lot of people who need a lot of help i did see a statement from the wick council that basically asserted that like look we'd be excited if if you would keep us Keep wick funded but using tariff money is not a sustainable or like reliable approach to do this just just fund it by playing for government programs in the u4 way yeah so the the other Mia Wong Major tariff news that we have is basically for the last couple of weeks, Trump has been threatening to impose 100% tariffs on pharmaceuticals. This was originally supposed to go into effect on October 1st, and then Trump started cutting a bunch of deals with drug manufacturers to exchange sort of lower price agreements. And also, and this is the major significant element, as we've seen with a whole bunch of companies that have made deals with Trump, pledges of large scale investments in U.S. Manufacturing and production. These tariffs have sort of been staved off. And the administration is now saying that they won't do it because they don't need to because they have reached agreements for drug companies. Pfizer was the first major company to sign a deal. This has been part of an initiative called TrumpRx, which is supposedly coming in 2026. Man. Yeah. And the plan is to have direct-to drug sales by forcing these companies to give the U.S. Most favored nation status, which, like, basically the thrust of this is giving specifically this TrumpRx thing the prices that these drug companies charge to undeveloped countries. However, comma, and this is extremely important and not being reported very much, TrumpRx, assuming this program comes into being, you can't use insurance on it. You can only buy drugs off there. You would only be able to buy drugs off there without insurance. So it probably doesn't lower your drug costs at all if you have really any kind of insurance. James Stout It certainly lowers the cost your insurance company has to pay, right? Like if you're insured badly. Yeah, right. Mia Wong And so the actual good that this could even potentially do, I think, is very, very limited. Yeah. But that's that's sort of what's going on. This is the part of the initiative. If you see people talking about how he's lowering drug prices, it's specifically for this weird Trump Rx thing, which, again, you can't use insurance to use. About, and I kind of want to set a spectrum of how real a tariff is, because there's a whole bunch of different kinds of tariffs that Trump announces and then nothing happens on. So for example, you can have a kind of tariff where he announces it on social media, but there's no date, right? So the 100% tariff on foreign-made movies, this is the second time he's talked about it. There's never been a date attached to it. It seems to be something that he tweets about and then forgets about. It never happens. On the more real end, there are tariffs like the one that is currently being proposed as 25% tariff on heavy trucks. That's supposed to go into effect on November 1st, but there is no executive order. So that one we can't treat as real as, for example, the lumber tariffs, which have an executive order. Although also, again, you have to wait for these to actually go into effect, which would be category sort of three and four. Is there an executive order and has the date of executive order doing the thing passed? ([Time 1:05:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f0ee1885-7d86-4b56-ab32-faa4740732ad)) - **Drug Tariffs Prompt Deals, But Limits Persist** - Threats of 100% pharmaceutical tariffs pressured drugmakers into deals and U.S. manufacturing pledges, delaying tariff implementation. - The proposed TrumpRx plan would offer lower direct prices but operate outside insurance, limiting practical benefits for insured patients. Transcript: Mia Wong This was originally supposed to go into effect on October 1st, and then Trump started cutting a bunch of deals with drug manufacturers to exchange sort of lower price agreements. And also, and this is the major significant element, as we've seen with a whole bunch of companies that have made deals with Trump, pledges of large scale investments in U.S. Manufacturing and production. These tariffs have sort of been staved off. And the administration is now saying that they won't do it because they don't need to because they have reached agreements for drug companies. Pfizer was the first major company to sign a deal. This has been part of an initiative called TrumpRx, which is supposedly coming in 2026. Man. Yeah. And the plan is to have direct-to drug sales by forcing these companies to give the U.S. Most favored nation status, which, like, basically the thrust of this is giving specifically this TrumpRx thing the prices that these drug companies charge to undeveloped countries. However, comma, and this is extremely important and not being reported very much, TrumpRx, assuming this program comes into being, you can't use insurance on it. You can only buy drugs off there. You would only be able to buy drugs off there without insurance. So it probably doesn't lower your drug costs at all if you have really any kind of insurance. James Stout It certainly lowers the cost your insurance company has to pay, right? Like if you're insured badly. Yeah, right. Mia Wong And so the actual good that this could even potentially do, I think, is very, very limited. Yeah. But that's that's sort of what's going on. This is the part of the initiative. ([Time 1:09:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/84ddb077-d3f7-46f8-a8be-2ba10f829e9f))