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bernie sanders
Defending TrumpRx Scam, RFK Jr. Absurdly Claims Trump 'Has His Own Way of Calculating' Percentages
"You can't just redefine how you calculate percentages," said one mathematician in response to Kennedy's claims.
Apr 22, 2026
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday tried to defend President Donald Trump's mathematically absurd claims about prescription drug prices by saying the president has his own unique method of calculating percentages.
During a Senate Finance Committee hearing, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) grilled Kennedy about the president's repeated false claims that he has slashed the prices of prescription drugs by as much as 600%, which would mean that pharmaceutical companies are paying consumers to take their medications.
"President Trump has his own way of calculating," Kennedy replied. "There's two ways of calculating percentages. If you have a $600 drug, and you reduce it to $10, that's a 600% reduction."
RFK Jr: "President Trump has a different way of calculating percentages. If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that's a 600% reduction." pic.twitter.com/MjDNADqc8p
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 22, 2026
In fact, such a drop in price would represent a 98.3% reduction, less than one-sixth the size of the president's claims. A 600% reduction in the price of a $600 drug would mean that drug manufacturer paid consumers $3,000 every time they picked up their prescription.
Kit Yates, a mathematician at the University of Bath, marveled at Kennedy's attempts to create an alternate version of arithmetic.
"We've known for a while that the USA's current regime have been out for science, but I never thought they would try to mess with math!" Yates wrote in a social media post. "You can't just redefine how you calculate percentages."
In addition to exposing Kennedy's apparent ignorance of elementary mathematics, Warren shined a light on how the TrumpRx website misleads consumers into thinking they're being offered bargains on prescription drugs that are available elsewhere in generic varieties.
In once instance, Warren noted that TrumpRx is selling a brand-name heartburn medication for $200, whereas a generic version of the same drug is available at Costco for $16. Warren also highlighted a heart arrhythmia drug for sale on TrumpRx for $336, even though a generic version of the drug is available at Costco for $12.
Warren added that, in exchange for making select brand-name drugs available on the TrumpRx website, pharmaceutical companies have gotten exemptions from the president's 100% tariffs on imported patented medicines.
"Think about that: Big Pharma makes billions of dollars in tariff relief by listing their drugs on TrumpRx, and then they don't even lower the costs on many of these drugs," she said. "That is a great deal for Big Pharma."
Warren's analysis of TrumpRx's pricing scheme echoes a March report from the Center for American Progress (CAP), which found that the president's prescription drug website offered genuinely lower prices on “exactly one” of the 54 medications listed.
CAP also found that nearly one-third of the drugs available on the TrumpRx website have generic alternatives that were cheaper than what was being offered, and that the website made no mention of this.
Reuters reported in December that at least 350 branded medications are set for price hikes in 2026, including “vaccines against Covid, RSV, and shingles,” as well as the “blockbuster cancer treatment Ibrance.”
Later in the Senate Finance Committee hearing, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) ridiculed Kennedy for claiming that, under Trump's leadership, "the American people are now paying the lowest costs in the world rather than the highest for prescription drugs."
"That is an absurd statement," Sanders said. "Nobody in the world believes that."
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Khanna Asks Elon Musk If He's OK With Billionaire Tax After Latest Claims About AI and Mass Layoffs
"Start with the modest $3000 check Bernie Sanders and I have proposed for families under $150,000."
Apr 17, 2026
Rep. Ro Khanna put the world's richest man on the spot on Friday after Elon Musk acknowledged that artificial intelligence and robotics advancements in the future would lead to mass layoffs for human workers.
In a social media post, Musk, the tech billionaire and right-wing ally to President Donald Trump, acknowledged that AI would lead to disruption in the labor market, but claimed that a guaranteed universal income program could make up for it.
"Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI," Musk wrote. "AI/robotics will produce goods and services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation."
Khanna, however, responded to Musk's post by arguing that any universal income program should be at least partly funded by the billionaire tech CEOs who are becoming even richer thanks to AI.
"In that case, are you willing to pay a modest trillionaire and billionaire tax to pay for checks to working families?" Khanna asked. "We could start with the modest $3000 check Bernie Sanders and I have proposed for families under $150,000?"
Both Khanna and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for months have been talking about the potential threats AI poses to working people, especially if it replaces human labor.
During a roundtable discussion with Sanders and author Naomi Klein on Tuesday, Khanna likened AI to the technological advances made during the Industrial Revolution, which saw historic gains in productivity, but also in inequality.
"If you look at the Industrial Revolution, for 60 years, worker wages fell... even as Britain became wealthy," Khanna explained. "And so the question, in my view, for AI is, are we going to let a few billionaires, trillionaires, call the shots, or are we going to make sure that the technology is actually used in any way to enhance workers, to enhance total productivity?"
Sanders flagged Amazon founder Jeff Bezos seeking to raise $100 billion to automate US factories with AI-powered robots as a particularly dangerous threat to the livelihoods of blue-collar workers.
"It means there will no longer be manufacturing jobs in the United States or in warehouses,” Sanders said of Bezos' plan. “He wants to get rid of the 600,000 Amazon workers and replace them with robots. Elon Musk is converting Tesla partially to a robotics company. He wants to produce a million robots a year… What do you think a robot is there for? It’s to replace a union worker.”
Sanders on Friday continued banging the drum about billionaires' plans for AI, and he slammed members of the Democratic Party who are reportedly wary of criticizing the industry publicly for fear of its enormous campaign war chest that it's planning to deploy during the upcoming midterm elections.
"With the AI industry planning to spend $300 million this election cycle," Sanders wrote on social media, "Democrats are being pressured by consultants to avoid 'antagonizing' them. Unacceptable. Democrats must get super PACS out of their primaries. Citizens United must be overturned. We must have the courage to take on the AI Oligarchs."
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'Cowardly Bullshit': Handful of Dems Join Senate GOP to Block Ban on US Bombs, Bulldozers to Israel
"The fact that 40 of 47 Democratic senators voted to withhold military hardware from Israel is a new high water mark in holding Israel accountable," said one observer, who called the final vote "still troubling."
Apr 15, 2026
US senators on Wednesday voted down a pair of resolutions aimed at blocking US bomb and bulldozer sales to Israel as it continues its genocidal war on Gaza and devastating bombardment and mass displacement in Lebanon.
Upper chamber lawmakers voted 59-40 against advancing SJ Res. 32, a joint resolution introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) "providing for congressional disapproval of the proposed foreign military sale to the government of Israel of certain defense articles and services."
At issue are $295 million worth of Caterpillar D9 series bulldozers, spare parts, and related services. Israel often uses the bulldozers to destroy homes and other civilian structures in Gaza, the illegally occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Lebanon.
Absolutely historic vote today where 40 US Senators voted to block the sale of Caterpillar D-9 bulldozers to Israel, citing civilian harm Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.Though the measure was defeated (as expected), the tide is turning. Just last year, this number was 27.
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— Mai El-Sadany (@maitelsadany.bsky.social) April 15, 2026 at 4:21 PM
In 2003, American human rights activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a Caterpillar D9 while attempting to stop the demolition of a home in Rafah, Gaza.
Entire villages and hamlets have been razed using the dozers as Israel ethnically cleanses the occupied territories to make way for Jewish-only settler colonies.
The SJ Res. 32 roll call was followed by a 63-36 vote against advancing SJ Res. 138, which was introduced by Sanders and Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.). The measure rejects the proposed sale of 12,000 BLU–110A/B general purpose, 1,000-pound bomb bodies and associated items and services.
Experts point to Israel's use of 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated Gaza—and the Israeli military's loosened rules of engagement effectively allowing unlimited civilian casualties in strikes targeting a single Hamas militant of any rank—as a major reason why so many Gazans are being killed and injured.
Sanders said on social media after the votes, "Today, more than 80% of the Democratic caucus stood with the American people and voted to block US military aid to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his horrific, illegal wars."
"We are making progress," the senator continued. "When we started this effort there were just 11 votes, now there are 40."
Today, more than 80% of the Democratic caucus stood with the American people and voted to block U.S. military aid to Netanyahu and his horrific, illegal wars.
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— Senator Bernie Sanders (@sanders.senate.gov) April 15, 2026 at 5:05 PM
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said following Wednesday's votes:
A vote to approve arms sales to Israel at this time would be seen as a message of approval for [President Donald] Trump and Netanyahu’s disastrous war against Iran. I will not send that message.
Why would we send American military weapons that could prolong, escalate, or worsen this horrible situation in the Middle East? I say no more. The Senate should express its opposition to Trump and Netanyahu’s needless war in Iran and seek to stop it in any way it can.
There is no military solution to this crisis. We must solve this at the negotiating table. We must stop these arms sales and end this war now.
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy (CIP) and a former adviser to Sanders, slammed Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) who voted to block the resolutions, for their "cowardly bullshit."
Duss noted that just last September, Coons said that "if there is no change in direction from the Israeli administration, for the first time I would seriously consider" voting to block arms transfers to Israel.
"Israeli behavior has only gotten worse since then," Duss said.
Wednesday's votes followed numerous previous failed attempts to limit US arms transfers to Israel since it launched its genocidal retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, which has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing.
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at CIP, said on X that "the fact that 40 of 47 Democratic senators voted to withhold military hardware from Israel is a new high water mark in holding Israel accountable for violating US and international law."
"It is still troubling that a few Democrats and all Republicans voted to supply the arms," he added.
The Biden and Trump administrations have lavished Israel with more than $21 billion in armed aid since October 2023, despite the International Criminal Court's issuance of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
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