{"id":37730,"date":"2025-10-19T07:30:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T11:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=37730"},"modified":"2025-10-19T07:31:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T11:31:06","slug":"effed-up-flashback-donald-trump-and-pfizer-albert-bourla-join-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=37730","title":{"rendered":"

EFFED UP FLASHBACK: Donald Trump and Pfizer’s Albert Bourla Join Hands in September 2025<\/b><\/h2>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump and Pfizer Albert Bourla Join Hands: \u201cHistoric Agreement\u201d. From Warp Speed to TrumpRx: The Pharma State Marches On<\/h1>\n

By Michael Bryant
\nGlobal Research<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n

At a press conference in the Oval Office last week,\u00a0President Donald Trump<\/strong>\u00a0and Pfizer Chairman and CEO\u00a0Albert Bourla<\/strong>\u00a0joined hands<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and proudly made a joint announcement. The news they released is now being billed as an \u201chistoric agreement<\/u><\/a>\u201d that will \u201censure U.S. patients pay lower prices for their prescription medicines while strengthening America\u2019s role as the global leader in biopharmaceutical innovation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Also present at the big reveal in the White House were\u00a0Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Their September 30th meeting sent shock waves throughout the MAGA-MAHA health freedom universe. Many of the movement\u2019s supporters\u00a0expressed<\/u><\/a>\u00a0disappointment that President Trump would meet with Pfizer head Bourla, who is one of the primary architects of the\u00a0insidious<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0life-threatening<\/u><\/a>\u00a0covid injections. They were outraged, too, that the President struck a deal with a company whose\u00a0portfolio of corporate crimes<\/u><\/a>\u00a0rivals that of the most corrupt and heavily fined companies in history.<\/p>\n

While these appropriate moans and groans of disgust over what appears to be a colossal betrayal were echoing far and wide, more seasoned observers who are armed with historical details were not as caught off guard by the deal-making done by the two chief administrators.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s lay some of that history on the table. For starters, this wasn\u2019t the first meeting between President Trump and Pfizer CEO Bourla. Back on December 4, 2024, then President-elect Donald Trump and HHS nominee RFK Jr. held a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Bourla and Eli Lilly CEO\u00a0Dave Ricks<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Steve Ubl<\/strong>, CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). It was\u00a0reported<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that at this dinner the discussion focused on \u201chow the public and private sectors can collaborate on finding cures for cancer and other issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such public-private partnerships are known to be Trojan horses that are wheeled in to siphon off public assets for the benefit of private investors. As we shall see, this latest Faustian bargain between Pfizer Inc. and Trump Inc. is another in a long line of bipartisan policies that will likely do just that.<\/p>\n

The Face of the Deal<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The deal announced last Tuesday is being sold to the public as a pact to lower drug prices for Medicaid patients using a new TrumpRx.gov website that is allied with Pfizer.<\/p>\n

One newspaper reporter who covers national politics writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the\u00a0agreement<\/a>, each state\u2019s Medicaid program will have access to Pfizer products offered at the lowest paid price by other countries. According to the White House, the agreement will ensure that foreign countries can \u2018no longer use price controls to free ride on American innovation.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The article by reporter Lauren Irwin of the Deseret News continues:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will require Pfizer to offer medications \u2018at a deep discount off the list price\u2019 when selling directly to American patients, the White House said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cPfizer will be selling medications directly to American consumers on a new website called \u2018TrumpRx.\u2019 The site will be operated by the federal government.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Critics of the arrangement suggest that the practical realities of how these cuts will manifest differ markedly from how the cuts are being touted.<\/p>\n

For example, NPR says that,\u00a0according<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to one government official, TrumpRx\u2019s lower prices will be accessible only for patients\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>using their health insurance. Also, because these discounted medicines are based on high list prices, the drugs might still\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>be affordable to Medicare patients, the official said.<\/p>\n

Ameet Sarpatwari, an assistant professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School who specializes in pharmaceutical policy,\u00a0told NPR<\/u><\/a>,<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers with health insurance could very well pay less at the pharmacy counter. As a result, the average consumer likely will not benefit from the Trump administration\u2019s deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pfizer has already discounted its drugs for Medicaid patients. Thus, the low prices stipulated in the deal may not make that much difference to seniors. And, since most people have health insurance plans that come with lower out-of-pocket costs, the number of people who buy Pfizer\u2019s drugs directly at discounted rates on the TrumpRx website may be negligible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an environment where you can pretend to make significant changes that actually don\u2019t meaningfully improve the prices that Americans will pay for their drugs,\u201d Sarpatwari said.<\/p>\n

Frankly, it\u2019s still unclear how much consumers will benefit from the Trump-Bourla bargain or how much money taxpayers will save. Neither the White House nor Pfizer has provided any further details about the deal since their Oval Office presentation.<\/p>\n

In fact, a Pfizer\u00a0press release<\/u><\/a>\u00a0admits, \u201cSpecific terms of the agreement remain confidential.\u201d<\/p>\n

A little conjecturing could lead to the conclusion that, based on the way biopharmaceutical stocks soared after the announcement, the deal is being\u00a0seen<\/u><\/a>, at least by Wall Street, \u201cas a possible template for the rest of the pharmaceutical industry.\u201d Notably, not only Pfizer stock but also shares of Eli Lilly, Thermo Fisher, Merck & Co. and Amgen logged double-digit gains in the week after the announcement. Moreover, Trump has indicated he will be \u201cmaking deals with all of them<\/u><\/a>\u201c\u2014\u201dthem\u201d meaning the large pharma and biopharma companies.<\/p>\n

Pfizer is notorious for not disclosing information that the government and consumers need to know. Then, once that information comes to light, it has been found to be appalling\u2014and criminal.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Most recently, Pfizer\u00a0hid<\/a>\u00a0the many thousands of deaths that were attributed to its so-called covid vaccines. It also\u00a0withheld<\/a>\u00a0other pertinent information related to those vaccines. And notably\u00a0millions of pages of documents<\/a>\u00a0related to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines were being concealed from the public by the FDA until\u00a0a successful lawsuit from the\u00a0Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency<\/a>\u00a0(PHMPT) forced their release.<\/p>\n

In addition, Pfizer has been called out for concealing covid-shot\u00a0contracts<\/u><\/a>\u00a0with countries all over the world\u2014and for\u00a0demanding those countries put up their national assets<\/u><\/a>\u00a0as collateral.<\/p>\n

As for Pfizer\u2019s latest ploy, watchdog group\u00a0Public Citizen<\/u><\/a>\u00a0has sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the appropriate federal agencies for the purpose of obtaining a copy of the text of the Trump-Pfizer deal. Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen\u2019s Global Access to Medicines Program, said in a statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much for \u2018radical transparency.\u2019 Trump is substituting secret deal making for health policy. The Trump-Pfizer announcement has raised more questions than it answered. The deal\u2019s secrecy makes it impossible to determine its effectiveness in lowering some drug prices, and that may be intentional. Prescription drug corporations are experts at gaming pricing rules. Secret deals with Big Pharma are a bad way to make health policy, and Trump says he is planning more of them. The White House must publish the text of the Pfizer deal, so Americans know what they are getting.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, this deal hasn\u2019t been a good look for an administration that once hung its hat on a commitment to \u201cradical transparency<\/u><\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Men in Suits<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cI was honored to have Albert [Bourla here]. . . . He\u2019s done a fantastic job with . . . COVID. He did a fantastic job with a lot of things. He\u2019s a leader. And Pfizer is right at the top.\u201d\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a09\/30\/2025<\/p>\n

Now that we\u2019ve been reminded of Trump\u2019s over-the-top statement about Bourla, it\u2019s worth remembering that Donald J. Trump is the Godfather of\u00a0Operation Warp Speed<\/u><\/a>, which was officially announced on May 15, 2020, and which developed, manufactured and distributed the very first mRNA \u201cinjections.\u201d\u00a0Some say<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that the President should have received a Nobel Peace Prize for that effort.\u00a0Others say<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Operation Warp Speed, a partnership between HHS and the Department of Defense, was a covert bioweapons program that slaughtered and maimed millions of Americans.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also worth\u00a0remembering<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that Albert Bourla, the man Trump praises, is known to have called people who pushed back on the covid vaccine narrative \u201ccriminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s\u00a0also\u00a0<\/em>worth remembering that on May 30, 2023, RFK Jr.\u00a0pointed out<\/a>\u00a0in an \u201cX\u201d post that \u201cDonald Trump owns stock in Pfizer and J&J, who bought fancy tickets to his inauguration and placed pharma shills high in his administration. That\u2019s how Washington works. It is not the exception, but the rule. It is a form of legalized bribery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four months earlier, RFK Jr. had posted an even more explicit criticism of Pfizer,\u00a0observing<\/u><\/a>\u00a0on January 26, 2023:<\/p>\n

\u201cPfizer is a craven venal homicidal morally bankrupt criminal enterprise that has captured and corrupted its regulators.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cui Bono?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When boardroom deals are made Bin DC, there is the superficial face of the deal sold to the public, and then there are the hard realities of what that transaction entails.<\/p>\n

And, as they say, \u201cthe devil is in the details.\u201d But how are we to parse this latest Beltway bargain, whose details are being concealed? The secrecy surrounding it is an obvious clue that we might be watching a shakedown, particularly given the track record of the parties involved.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s yet another tried-and-true way to gain accurate insights on an event that is light on details: Follow the money.<\/p>\n

To do just that, we can look at Substack writer Jon Fleetwood\u2019s October 1st<\/sup>\u00a0article, which takes a peek at how the Pfizer\u2019s tariff exemption will impact its business profile. Fleetwood\u00a0wrote<\/u><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cPfizer, a World Economic Forum partner, secured a three-year exemption from Section 232 tariffs, conditional on more U.S.-based manufacturing. This removes one of the biggest threats to the company\u2019s global operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pharmaceutical sector has warned that Section 232 tariffs could add 5\u201315% costs on imported raw materials, active ingredients, and finished drug products.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Pfizer, with $60 billion in annual revenues and roughly 40% of its products tied to global supply chains, that protection translates to billions in avoided costs over the next three years.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven at the conservative end\u2014assuming tariffs at 5% on just $20 billion of imports\u2014Pfizer would be shielded from at least $1 billion per year in penalties. At the higher estimates, the exemption could be worth $2\u20133 billion annually.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy removing tariff exposure, the Trump Administration handed Pfizer a guaranteed multibillion-dollar cushion while boosting its investor security and market valuation overnight.<\/strong>\u201d [Emphasis added.]<\/p>\n

To the delight of its shareholders,\u00a0Pfizer stock<\/u><\/a>\u00a0jumped nearly 15% immediately following the deal\u2019s announcement. And just who might those\u00a0shareholders<\/u><\/a>\u00a0be?<\/p>\n

Institutional investors hold 67.74% of Pfizer\u2019s total shares outstanding. The top institutional shareholders as of the end of 2024 were Vanguard Group,\u00a0BlackRock Inc.<\/u><\/a>\u00a0(authors of the covid bailout plan\u2014aka \u201cGoing Direct\u201d), and State Street Corp.<\/p>\n

Specifically, Vanguard Group held more than 518 million shares of Pfizer as of December 31, 2024. BlackRock owned 432.5 million Pfizer shares as of the end of 2024. And State Street held more than 290 million shares of Pfizer as of the end of 2024.<\/p>\n

The three top individual\/insider shareholders in Pfizer are Albert Bourla, former Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten and Chief Legal Officer Douglas Lanker. Bourla held 316,799 shares of Pfizer as of the company\u2019s 2024 proxy statement.<\/p>\n

As for Bourla\u2019s promise,<\/p>\n

\u201cWe [Pfizer] are ready to invest . . . $70 billion in the next few years from Pfizer in manufacturing and research in America alone . . . [for]\u00a0CANCER TREATMENTS . . .<\/strong>\u00a0[and for]\u00a0BETTER VACCINES,<\/strong>\u201d we must keep in mind that this announcement comes on the heels of a massive 8.4 million-person\u00a0South Korean study<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that shows COVID-19 mRNA vaccines like Pfizer\u2019s were tied to a wave of cancers one year after the vaccines were injected. [Emphasis added.]<\/p>\n

In any case, the thought of Pfizer being installed as a primary manufacturing hub for pharmaceutical products in the US is not exactly a comforting one. Not to mention that Pfizer\u2019s \u201cgenerosity\u201d is a bit overstated: The company was already planning to spend $70 billion toward US manufacturing,\u00a0points out<\/u><\/a>\u00a0BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan David Seigerman.<\/p>\n

Given that Pfizer currently\u00a0manufactures<\/u><\/a>\u00a0its mRNA COVID vaccine, Comirnaty, at facilities in Andover, Massachusetts, and Kalamazoo, Michigan, and given that Pfizer just released its\u00a0updated 2025\u20132026 formulas in August<\/u><\/a>, there is every reason to believe this $70 billion investment did indeed already include continued and expanded mRNA vaccine production on American soil.<\/p>\n

Of note, the Pfizer-Trump deal aligns with other\u00a0biopharma investments<\/u><\/a>\u00a0whose deals were struck earlier in the year:<\/p>\n