Remarks at a Meeting of the Make America Healthy Again Commission

Audience member. Mr. President, thank you.

The President. Thank you very much.

Audience member. Thank you.

The President. So nice. Thank you. That's very nice.

I thought we had somebody up that we'd have to throw out of the room. [Laughter] Then I realized she was very friendly—there was no foe. That was friend, right? [Laughter]

Thank you. That's very nice. Thank you very much.

We've had a very, very big week. You saw that. We got back from the Middle East, and we brought $5.1 trillion back with us. We had a tremendous—our country—let me tell you, our country is hot. Our country is hot and hot as it can be. It's amazing.

If you go back 6 months, it was cold as could be. It was an embarrassment, what was happening. And now I think we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. I don't even think it's close.

I was told that also in the Middle East. The three rulers, three very good men that were very nice to us, they said, "This is amazing, the transformation of the United States of America." They've never seen anything go so quickly, and it's literally over a period of 4 or 5 months but really since November 5. And I think we have the hottest country in the world right now. So we're doing well, and we'll keep it going.

And we're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to make a lot of people happy, a lot of people well. That's why we're here.

And I want to thank you all for being with us in the great White House. There's nothing like it. There's nothing like—every time I walk in, I say, "Man, this place is something special." You never get used to it. It really is. As we mark a historic milestone in our mission to make America healthy again.

You know, we started "Make America Great Again." Bobby, I'm not sure you can get away with that without having to make a major payment, because, you know, this was—[Laughter].

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. I copyrighted it.

The President. MAHA. He goes to MAHA. [Laughter]

But no, MAHA has become hot. Over the past few years, we've built an unstoppable coalition of moms and dads, doctors and young people, and citizens of all backgrounds who have come together to protect our children, very importantly, keep the dangerous chemicals out of our food supplies, get toxic substances out of our environment, and deliver the American people the facts as to, really, where we're going. And we want to have what we deserve, and we want to be healthy, and we want to have a lot of good things happen, and I think we're going to have that.

I think it's—this is just the beginning. We have some of the most brilliant people sitting on this panel and, likewise, in the audience. I recognize so many. Many of them are in the administration.

With us today is the man who fought harder than anyone I know to bring these issues to the center of American politics, our Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Bobby, thank you very much.

And we're also joined by Secretaries Brooke Rollins, Scott Turner, Linda McMahon, Doug Collins, Doug Burgum, Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

You're doing a very good job, Lori. [Laughter] You know, she's—considering she's a Democrat, you know. [Laughter] The unions say such—she's really good. I did it—you know, I took a lot of heat for doing it, and then they were all saying what a great job we did. Now they're very—everybody's happy with you. Great job.

Secretary of Labor Lori M. Chavez-Deremer. Thank you.

The President. Thank you very much.

As well as EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin; Budget Director Russ Vought; SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler. Kelly has been amazing. She runs small business, which is actually the biggest business there is, right? She had no idea how big. She's doing great.

FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary. Thank you, Marty. NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. Thank you very much, Jay. Thank you.

And let's see, who do we have here? CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. A tremendous guy, actually. Thank you very much, Mehmet.

A friend of mine, a really great Senator: Roger Marshall. Roger, thank you.

Governors Mike Braun, Jim Pillen, Patrick Morrisey. Representatives Vern Buchanan. Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. Newt, a very quiet man. [Laughter] A silent man. Nice to see you, Newt.

Four months ago, I created the Presidential Commission to Make America Healthy Again, and today, the Commission officially delivers its first report on childhood health. Here are just some of the alarming findings. And they really are alarming. Unbelievable. Terrible.

More than 40 percent of American children now have at least one chronic health condition. Since the 1970, rates of childhood cancer have soared, in many cases, by nearly 50 percent—five-oh—50 percent. Wow. In the 1960s, less than 5 percent of the children were obese. Now over 20 percent are obese.

A few decades ago, one in—one—think of this one. This is, to me, the one that gets me every time, and it seems to be getting worse. Just a few decades ago, 1 in 10,000 children had autism. Today, it's 1 in 31. Last time I heard the number, it was 1 in 34, right? Now it's 1 in 31.

There's something wrong, and we will not stop until we defeat the chronic disease epidemic in America. We're going to get it done.

For the first time ever, this report examines some of the root causes that many believe are making our children sicker and our population sicker, I guess. It just doesn't stop with the children. It's our population also. Such as the ultraprocessed foods, overmedicalization and overprescription, and widespread exposure to potentially toxic chemicals.

Unlike other administrations, we will not be silenced or intimidated by the corporate lobbyists or special interests. And I want this group to do what they have to do. We have to spell it out. In some cases, it won't be nice or it won't be pretty, but we have to do it.

When you hear 10,000—it was 1 in 10,000, and now it's 1 in 31 for autism, I think that's just a terrible thing. It has to be something on the outside. Has to be artificially induced. Has to be.

And we'll not allow our public health system to be captured by the very industries it's supposed to oversee. So we're demanding the answers. The public is demanding the answers, and that's why we're here.

Already, we're phasing out eight of the most common artificial food dyes. And we ended the most serious conflicts of interest at the FDA. We had a lot of conflicts over there.

Earlier this week, we approved a SNAP waiver request from Nebraska so they can stop taxpayer dollars from being used to make our children obese. I understand requests from three more States will be approved shortly, and more are expected to come in the following weeks.

Over the next 80 days, the Commission will build on its work in this report to develop a road map to bold and transformative public health reforms for our consideration. It's a consideration and will lay out the facts.

Let me say congratulations to the entire MAHA movement. This movement has become very hot. People are really—I tell you, they're going crazy over MAHA. They're going crazy. [Applause] Right? And I look forward to continuing the historic progress.

And I will say this. This whole group, this whole table, they're very—you know, I use a word that's—because it's a beautiful word, actually. The Democrats took it, and they used it—instead of the word "liberal," they used the word "progressive."

And normally, I'd say, "You're very progressive," meaning you're far—they're not progressive. You are progressive. They shouldn't be allowed to use that word. And I'm—[laughter].

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins. That's right. That's right.

The President. And so, therefore, I'm not going to use it to describe you. But you are far-forward thinkers. You're amazing thinkers. And we appreciate having you. It's just tremendous talent around this table, the most respected people—[applause]—anywhere in the world, actually.

And you know, I've been a fan of Bobby for years. He came up to see me 13, 14, 15 years ago, I remember, and he left. And I made a couple of the statements that he made, because I agreed with the same thing. And we both went through hell. Do you remember that?

Secretary Kennedy. I do remember.

The President. It was a massive—but you know what? We turned out to be right. It was sort of interesting. [Laughter]

But I've been a friend of Bobby, and he's been a foe too. You know, he's tried to stop a couple of my jobs. [Laughter] In one case, he did stop a job, and I was really angry. And then, about 4 months later, the—we went into, like, a depression, and I saved a hell of a lot of money by the fact that you stopped it from—[inaudible]. [Laughter]

Secretary Kennedy. You're welcome.

The President. So I never mind it. [Laughter] I always said, "Thank you very much for stopping that big job I was going to do." [Laughter]

But he's a fantastic guy. And, Bobby, we're with you all the way. And your beautiful wife is right sitting in the front row, and she's always been right there with you.

And you know, it was very interesting, when Bobby came—I really wanted Bobby to join, and he was doing very well as a candidate. Really well. He was being treated very unfairly by the other side, but he was doing so well that they treated you unfairly. They had no choice. [Laughter]

I think they said, in order to qualify, Newt, you had to have 80 percent of the vote. Okay? Do you remember that deal? You had to have 80 percent of the vote in order to qualify to run against Joe Biden.

Secretary Kennedy. Yes.

The President. And Bobby thought that was a little unfair, and that was about it. [Laughter]

And he came on board, and we got very lucky. But you really helped, and I want to thank you very much, really. We're with you all the way. Thank you very much.

So, Bobby, if you'd say—give them your thoughts, please.

Secretary Kennedy. Well, thank you very much, Mr. President.

And I do want to say something, because I get a lot of credit for steering this administration toward the MAHA movement. And—but I joined the campaign in August. I joined President Trump in August and became—you know, went from an independent to his campaign. And—but it was in June, and he made a speech specifically on this issue. It was a MAHA speech before MAHA existed. And that—I took note of that speech at the time and thought there's a potential here for common ground.

So I want to thank you for your vision, for your courage, for standing up. You know, President Trump is a populist President. He's a President—he's blamed for giving money to billionaires and all this stuff. We hear about that all the time, but he is on this side of the middle class, the working class, the poor in this country, people—[applause].

[At this point, Secretary Kennedy continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And I can say, again, my—I talked a little bit about when I met Rachel Carson as a boy. My uncle tried to do this, but he was killed and it never got done. And ever since then, we've been waiting for a President who would stand up and speak on behalf of a healthy American people and say, "With—there is no difference between good economic policy, good environmental policy, and good public health policy and good industrial policy." We can have all of them, but we need a united Cabinet, and we need to go forward as a single people.

I want to thank you for that, President Trump.

The President. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bobby. Thank you.

Secretary Kennedy. At its core, this report is a call to action for common sense. We've relied too much on conflicted research, ignored common sense or what would—some would call "mother's intuition."

It's common sense that ultraprocessed, nutrient-poor food contributes to chronic disease. It's common sense that excessive screen time and isolation lead to anxiety and depression, especially in children. It's common sense that exercise and healthy food should come before prescriptions and surgery.

It's common sense that not all calories are equal in nutritional value. It's common sense that overmedicating kids is dangerous. It's common sense that we can celebrate the innovations of modern life while also demanding fearless inquiry into ameliorating the negative effects of medication, agriculture, and environmental practices. It's common sense that research funded by corporations deserves more scrutiny than independent studies.

[Secretary Kennedy continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

President Trump, I'm honored to present you the MAHA report and work with this incredible Cabinet that you have brought together to make our children healthy again.

Secretary Rollins. Three things. First, on behalf of an extremely grateful nation and on behalf of a lot of extremely grateful MAHA moms who are out there, Secretary Kennedy and Mr. President, thank you.

[Secretary Rollins continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

And, sir, that has never happened before. Under Republican or Democrat administrations, we have never made that happen before. So I am so proud and so grateful——

Secretary Kennedy. And we have Governor Morrisey here——

Secretary Rollins. ——for your leadership.

Secretary Kennedy. ——who was the first one to apply, from West Virginia.

Secretary Rollins. Oh, Governor Morrisey. We will make sure you're at the top of the pile, sir. [Laughter] I—apologize.

Governor Sanders has been a leader. Governor Polis from Colorado. It has been remarkable how these Governors have stood up. That's the second thing.

The third and final thing, sir, is we all know that at the center of making America healthy again is making American agriculture great again. Without American agriculture—without American agriculture at the center of this discussion—we have the most robust, the safest, the best agriculture system in the world. And in partnership with the amazing Secretary Kennedy and all of these incredible patriots sitting around this table under the leadership of the extraordinary President Donald J. Trump, we will make America healthy again. And what an honor it is to be a part of that. And thank you, sir.

The President. Thank you.

Secretary Rollins. Thank you. I love you.

The President. Mr. Policy man, you want to say something? [Laughter]

Domestic Policy Council Director Vince Haley. Well——

The President. Big policy man here. [Laughter]

Director Haley. Well, so much has already been said. But in your remarks, Mr. President, you made clear——

Secretary Kennedy. This is Vince Haley, by the way. [Laughter]

Director Haley. In your remarks and in the report, it's very clear that there are no sacred cows when it comes to our children's health. We are showing the courage to turn over every stone; to figure out, to investigate what is behind the chronic childhood disease crisis. And that's what this report represents, sir.

Secretary Rollins. Well said.

The President. Thank you, Vince.

Secretary Rollins. Thank you, Vince.

The President. Thank you very much.

Bobby, are you wanting to have other people speak?

Secretary Kennedy. We've—have everybody speak.

The President. Oh, good. Most have already spoken. That's very good. But the fake news wasn't here. What's going on? [Laughter] I mean, right—

Oz, I want to thank you for your work. Would you have anything to say to the media?

Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Mehmet Oz. Thank you, sir. I think it's a moral failing if we don't address this, but it's definitely a financial failing as well. Fifty percent of children are on Medicaid or on the CHIP program. It is an obligation we all have to address this reality.

As you know, the cost of Medicaid has gone up 50 percent in 5 years.

The President. Right.

Administrator Oz. I thank you very much for having the bravery to commission this report—and Secretary Kennedy, Secretary Rollins, Lee Zeldin, everybody else on this panel for being able to affect what has not been done since this law for Medicare and Medicaid was written in 1965. God bless you.

The President. Thank you very much, Oz. Thank you.

And a man who's just so highly respected, Dr. Marty Makary, would you say a couple of words, please?

Commissioner of Food and Drugs Martin A. Makary. Thank you, Mr. President.

The United States is the best in the world when it comes to proton beam therapy, CAR–T sophisticated operations. But when it comes to the health of the population, it's been a 50-year failure. And we have got to change course, and it's not until you have had the courage to let us take on these giant issues—as Vince Haley said, without any sacred cows—that we've been able to change.

And I think this will transform our health care system from a reactionary system, where doctors are playing Whac-A-Mole, to a proactive system.

So thank you, Mr. President.

The President. Thank you very much. Thank you, Marty.

Highly respected man. Jay, please say a few words. Thank you.

National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya. Thank you, Mr. President. I said earlier already that it's shocking to me that—what this report says, which is that our kids will live less long, less healthy, more unhappy lives than we will as parents. We can't have that.

I'm so proud to be part of this moment, because that doesn't have to be the future. We can change things by doing excellent gold standard science, understanding the root causes of all these problems, reversing it.

And, Mr. President, this is a—an enormously important moment, because it's—from this moment forward, we will reverse course so our kids will live longer than us, will live more healthy than us, and will be happier than we have been. Thank you.

The President. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Jay. Good job too.

I have to say, we have the greatest farmers in the world, and we love our farmers, and we want to pay respect to our farmers, and we always will. And we won the farmers by a lot in the election, in all—every election, all three elections. And we won by a lot. And I will never forget that. And they are foremost in our thought.

And representing, I think, the farmers better than just about anybody can do is Senator Roger Marshall. Could you say a couple of words, Roger, please?

Senator Roger W. Marshall. Mr. President, we're not tired of winning yet. [Laughter] Congratulations. What a week you've had overseas, one win after another, "One Big Beautiful Bill" across the House floor this morning.

You're the best closer in the game, and this is one of the greatest days of my life, professionally speaking, as well.

[Senator Marshall continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And it does start with the farmer. It starts with soil health. And I just want you to know that our farmers are so committed to this as well, and so many of them are already doing great things. They're making the soil healthier. They're using less pesticides. They're doing all the right things. It's going to take a little bit more effort and time to get everybody with those practices, but the American farmer and rancher were the original environmentalists, the original conservationists, and they'll be right here, working beside us. And we appreciate your support of them as well.

The President. Thank you, Roger. Great. Thank you.

So I think I'll close by just saying that something happened a week ago that was very, very important—profound, but very important in so many ways. For years, I noticed that other countries paid much less for drugs and pharmaceuticals than we did.

But I don't mean 2 percent less or 10 percent, which would be good, but—I don't mean 20 or 25 or 30 percent. I mean, sometimes, we paid 10 times more, 12 times more, 13 times more than other countries, where people from our country would be seen going into Mexico and seen going into other countries, leaving on trips and bringing their drugs home because they'd get—in London, they'd be able to buy a drug for one-tenth the price of what it cost in New York City.

And I watched this, and I watched it during my term, and I didn't like it. I didn't like it. And it's a very complex system. But you know, we're smart also—maybe much smarter than they are. And at some point, we had to figure out—and I heard it was "the middleman." Nobody told me who the middleman was. Nobody knew who the middleman was. Nobody ever heard. [Laughter] All I heard is "the middleman." I said, "They've got to be the richest people in the world, whoever they are."

I don't—we don't even know if there is a middleman. All I know is that the drugs were 10 times higher and sometimes more than that. And I really got into it over the last year, and I figured the whole system out.

And for various and sundry reasons, the United States of America was being screwed, and we were being taken advantage of and being laughed at for years and years. And I said, "It's not going to happen anymore."

And I brought a great gentleman, the head of Eli Lilly, in, who's great. He really is. He's great. He's done a fantastic job. And others, also, of the companies, and I'd have it out with them. I had debates with them, actually. And pretty much, it was a debate that was impossible to lose. You had to be a real bad debater to lose that debate, because they couldn't justify it.

They tried to say, "Well, you know, we pay for research and development, and the United States has agreed to pay for a hundred percent." I said: "Why? Why are we paying?" And by the way, that wasn't even the number, because it's still way too high, if you took all the research and development.

But you have other countries that are a lot more vicious than us in terms of their representatives. And they'd set a price for a drug, and they'd say, "Tell the United States to pay for the rest." We were subsidizing the whole world. And I said, "We're not going to do that anymore."

We've been a laughingstock for so many years. The last 4 years, we've been a laughingstock. I said it: We were a laughingstock. And now we're the most respected, and we're the hottest country in the world. We're going to remain that way. We're going to do that with drug costs too.

And so I said, "I'm going to do something that's a very unpopular thing to do with a small number of people," mainly the people that own the drug companies and others. And I'm not even blaming them. They were able to get away with it. But it was really other nations that took advantage of us, because the drug companies were under their thumb.

And they would say, "This is what I'm going to pay." And the European Union was right at the top of the list, let me tell you. "We're going to pay $20 for this, and we're not going to pay any more," and America would pay $240 for the same thing that they're paying $20. They said, "Tell America to pay for the rest."

So, for years, they went along aimlessly, and they did it. And I started making changes.

And I'll never forget, the end of my first term—which was very successful. We had the best stock market ever. We had the best economy ever of any President. We went up 88 percent in the stock market, as an example, and I think 116 percent in one of the other indices. And we had—we were doing well, but I never—this whole thing with the drug costs, it always bothered me. And I started really studying it, and it's very complicated stuff.

And I said: "You know what? We are paying so much more." And I demanded favored nations. We're the biggest buyer. We're the best buyer. We're the most solid buyer. We're the one that paid for all of the research and development. And I said, "We're going to do something that's earth-shattering."

So, at the end of my first term, I was so proud, because it's the first time in 28 years that any President reduced drug prices during the course of 4 years. And you know what that number was? One-fourth of 1 percent, but it was down. One-fourth. Think of it. A quarter of 1 percent. Very little. Essentially, they remained the same.

But I wanted to get it down, and I was so proud. I thought I was the greatest guy in the world. [Laughter] I took it down one-quarter of a percent. And I had news conferences. I was bragging, "I'm the only one that did it—28 years."

And then I said, "That's not very much," because we were still paying so much more. And I decided I've got to break the system. And it's the most powerful lobby in the world, the drug company. Most powerful. They are the most powerful. And I'm not saying "bad," "good." I'm not saying anything, but they have tremendous power over the Senate, over the House, over the Governors, over everybody. And they spend more money—billions and billions of dollars.

And I said: "I don't care. I've got to do what—I have to do what's right." And I declared a favored nations—most favored nations, where the United States, from now on, is going to pay the exact same price as the lowest price anywhere in the world. In other words, if you take—[applause].

Secretary Rollins. That's amazing.

The President. Right? In other words, if you take the country that's paying—and let's say in the—a certain part of—you know, there may be some country out there that pays a little bit less for very good reasons because of the fact—a thing called poverty or whatever. But we take the lowest countries—say, European Union countries as a whole—that would be fine—or take individual countries within the European Union or take various countries that nobody's even heard about, we pay the lowest. And what that's going to mean—and I'd like to put somebody to police it, because it should start immediately. It shouldn't start in 2 years, 3 years, 5 years. They'll say, "Yes, it kicks in"—they always say "kicks in," Marty—"it kicks in, sir, in 4 years." You know, and then, 4 years, they get it changed.

It should mean—so remember, I told you I was happy with one-quarter of 1 percent? It could mean anywhere from 70-percent to 89-percent reduction in drugs and pharmaceuticals. That's a little different, right?

And I've actually had some Congressmen call me, and they say, "Sir, look—can we talk about this?" I said, "No." [Laughter] They wanted to talk, because, you know, that's—there's tremendous power against them, and I understand that. And every one of them was covered. Senators were.

I see Roger smiling, and Roger probably was too, but you know what? He wants to do the right thing. Right? He wants to do the right thing. And we're doing the right thing. We were taken advantage of.

No—and forget the drug company—we were taken advantage of by other countries that insisted, with the drug companies, that they were going to pay x dollars, "and we're not paying any more, and you're not doing business here." And they were nasty about it. These people were almost sort of afraid of them.

And we are going to now get a reduction in drug costs of up to 89 percent, in some cases, but 50 percent would be a low—a bad number. So think of that. Fifty percent versus one-quarter of 1 percent. Think of that. 85, 89, 91, 72 percent. It's going to be massive numbers. It's going to be incredible for Medicaid, incredible for all forms of health care.

Medicare is going to be—it's going to have a huge impact. So big that nobody can calculate it. I mean, this thing could drop by 25, 30 percent. The drugs are, Oz, a very big part of it, right? So very big part.

So it will affect everything. It will affect your whole life. The amount of money you're going to be saving is going to be incalculable.

Nobody can believe I had the courage to do it. I don't think it's courage. I think it would have been courage not to do it. I tell you what, not to do it would have taken far more courage, because I was tired of it.

And I was listening to these guys, and they are—you know, they make a lot of money every year—millions and millions of dollars a year. And I agree, because at the beginning, because of the complexity, you'd walk out of a room, you'd hear them talking, and you know, they'd almost convince you that it's a great system, it's a wonderful system, even though we were paying 10 times more.

That's why they make $30 million a year, because they were good. But not any longer. [Laughter]

And one of them just threw up his hands after I was just pounding on him. And he said: "I can't do it anymore. It's the hardest thing I have to do, is trying to justify this damn thing. I can't do it anymore." One of the biggest companies: "I just can't do it anymore. You're right."

And as soon as he said that, that was, like, incredible, because I understood exactly. He couldn't do it. He said it's the hardest thing he had to do, is trying to justify why we're paying $200 for something and somebody else is paying $12 that is a neighboring country.

Take Canada. I mean, people go up to Canada to shop because their prices are so much less. And it's not going to happen anymore.

So we're going to take the lowest country anywhere in the world, and that's what we're going to be paying, and we'll be saving from 50 to 89 percent. And these are big—these are tremendous numbers. There's not going to be anything where we're paying 10 times more than somebody else.

And one thing that is very important, and it's got to be implemented. It's done. I've done the order. It's done. But we have to get somebody that's got a lot of strength and a lot of power, because you have to implement it. Because these countries are going to go down fighting. They don't want this to happen, because they're going to go up.

Now, there are many more people involved in the world than there are here. So, they'll go up a little bit, maybe 15, 20 percent, and we're going to go down 60, 70, or 80 percent. But they will fight the drug companies. The drug companies are very worried that they're going to fight, and that's okay. If they fight, we'll just say: "That's okay. We are not going to let you sell any more cars into the United States," or "We're not going to let you sell any more wine or liquor or alcohol," or something that's actually much—much more important to them than the drugs. And we're going to be able to force that issue, if we need to.

They should do it. We're basically equalizing. They should do it. And you know, the drug companies should do just as well. This shouldn't be a hit on their stock. I don't think it will be.

It's basically—it's going to be the same amount of money, but it's going to be redistributed, and it's going to be redistributed so they're going to pay a little bit more, and we're going to pay a lot less. A little bit more, because there's so many more. It's a—you know, it's a bigger—it's a bigger number.

And so, Bobby, I'd like to ask you and Dr. Oz and Marty, perhaps, and Jay and maybe, representing the world's politicians, I can ask Roger, who's so great with this whole subject: If you would be very, very tough and very, very, very powerful, in a sense. It's not easy. You know, you're going to have to get this done.

The drug companies are going to say, "Well, they won't do it," and maybe they won't. And if they don't do it, we're going to not do business with that country or those countries. But we're going to have to be very tough until it's totally stabilized and equalized.

And, Oz, I mean, I see your eyes are gleaming because you've been talking about this for a long time, but you've never had anyone willing to do it. But I'm willing to do it. And I think it's going to go down as one of the most important things we've ever done, because drug costs are going down.

Think of it. They're not—every year, for 21 years, the costs have gone up, and now they're going down maybe by 85, 80—I'm telling you, 89 percent in two instances—89-percent cut. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.

So I'd like to ask Oz, in particular, because you and I know each other. He's a very tough hombre, this one. He's tough as hell. [Laughter] And so, if you can lead the group, you—and it's not going to be easy. You're going to have to get in, and you're going to have to fight. If you do it, you can have—within a period of weeks, you can have drug costs that drop like a rock. Okay?

So you, as a group, I have great confidence. And if you don't do it, I am firing every single one of you. [Laughter] Right?

Good luck, guys. All right? Can you handle it?

Administrator Oz. There—the companies are all coming in, and we've heard some very interesting—sorry. The companies are all coming in. We've had some very promising interactions. [Laughter]

The President. Good.

Administrator Oz. So——

The President. Okay. Good.

Administrator Oz. Give me a little time——

The President. Well, you're going to be the ones——

Administrator Oz. ——to be a tough hombre. [Laughter]

The President. You'll do a great job. I have no doubt about it. Thank you very much.

Any help, I will be there to help you. Okay?

Administrator Oz. Well, you're a part—you mentioned something that has not been discussed. In the past, people have talked about drug prices in a silo and in isolation. But when you start going to the countries where they give discounts to because they're getting beating up—beaten up there and you support these companies, they see a huge upside potential, and even greater than the numbers you mentioned.

The President. Right. That's right.

Administrator Oz. They should be able to charge more than what they would historically have been tolerant of, if they have the support of the U.S. Government and you. And Secretary Kennedy is aware of all these discussions.

The President. Well, they were artificially low and artificially high. We were artificially high; they were artificially low. We're not going to let that—and I think you're going to be able to handle it pretty easily.

But speed is very important, because we can do this immediately. This doesn't take 2 years, 2 years. It doesn't take a month.

So do the best you can. Thank you very much. [Laughter]

Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bobby.

Are we concluded, Bobby?

Secretary Kennedy. Yes.

The President. Go ahead. Why don't you finish it off.

Secretary Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. President. Let's all give a hand for President Trump for his leadership of this.

The President. Thank you.

Secretary Kennedy. Thank you.