5
#000000
#FFFFFF
big pharma
In Leaked Video, Maine Voters Challenge Mills on Vetoes, Gun Control, and More
One voter told the Maine governor, who is running for US Senate, that she is wondering "why you would fight on behalf of us on the national level if you couldn't do it on the state level."
Mar 24, 2026
Most of the national news surrounding the Maine Democratic Senate primary has zeroed in on candidate Graham Platner's record—a tattoo he got while serving in the Marines and posts he wrote several years ago on Reddit.
But a video recording obtained by Drop Site News of a local Democratic group's Zoom meeting last week with Platner's main opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, brought to light discussions Maine voters are having not about the first-time candidate's controversies—which have done little to damage his campaign, according to numerous polls—but about the record of the governor who's run the state for the last six years.
For 30 minutes on March 19, members of the Hancock County Democrats grilled Mills about her history of vetoing significant pieces of legislation and opposing measures broadly supported by Mainers.
⚡️Leaked Video: Janet Mills Attack Ad Against Graham Platner Backfires With Maine Democrats
A Zoom recording with Gov. Janet Mills captures unfiltered voter reactions to the governor’s recent attack ad against her U.S. Senate primary opponent, Graham Platner.
Story by… pic.twitter.com/xF6bmqDsAf
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) March 23, 2026
A former Democratic state representative, Mark Worth, asked Mills early in the question-and-answer session about her "record on tribal sovereignty, labor, and gun safety bills, such as your veto of the red flag law"—an apparent reference to Mills' opposition to the red flag law that was passed by referendum in 2025, with 62% supporting the measure to make it easier for law enforcement to take away someone's firearm if they pose a threat to themself or others.
Mills instead supported the state's "yellow flag law," which requires police to take a person into custody and obtain an assessment by a mental health professional before a gun can be taken away.
Nearly two dozen states and the District of Columbia have red flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders, and they are supported by 77% of Americans, including a majority of gun owners and Republicans, according to an APM Research Lab/Guns & America/Call To Mind poll from 2019.
Mills responded to the question by defending gun control legislation that has passed in Maine during her tenure—including a ban on ghost guns and expanded background checks—but did not mention the broadly popular red flag law that she opposed.
She said that she had sought to find "common ground" between gun control advocates and gun owners—even though the referendum was supported by nearly two-thirds of voters, including many gun owners—one of whom was Platner, a combat veteran.
The governor has also been criticized for vetoing a bill that would have barred the state from seizing tribal lands, and has angered the state's labor movement several times, including when she vetoed an offshore wind development bill due to her opposition to an amendment requiring collective bargaining agreements, and another measure that would have allowed farmworkers to unionize.
At the meeting this month, a voter named Diana Morenda introduced herself as a "three-time cancer veteran" and asked about two other vetoes by the governor—those of LD 765, which aimed to prohibit "unsupported price increases" of prescription drugs, and LD 1117, which would have prohibited excessive rises in the price of generic prescription drugs.
With the vetoes, Morenda told Mills, she "essentially destroyed any chance that your constituents would have had to combat excessive pricing, kind of siding with Big Pharma."
"You can understand why I... and many others in Hancock County, we might be wondering out loud why you would fight on behalf of us on the national level if you couldn't do it on the state level," said Morenda.
Mills responded similarly as she had to the earlier question, naming other moves she's taken to increase access to prescription drugs and price transparency and telling the voter, "Whoever gave you those two numbers didn't give you the rest of the bills that we did pass."
The controversies surrounding Platner's campaign came up during the meeting, with Worth telling Mills her recent attack ad against Platner was "divisive and odious," and another voter accusing the governor of "using underhanded means" against her opponent.
The ad included several women looking at posts Platner wrote in 2013 disparaging sexual assault survivors. Platner has addressed his old online comments several times, saying his views have evolved since he wrote them.
One voter disclosed that he is a friend of Platner's before asking Mills: "Do you believe in a Maine and a country where a person can be redeemed? Where they can change and become a better version of themself?"
Mills deflected the question, claiming that her concern is not "whether he's reformed or thinks better," but electability.
"The issue is who can beat Susan Collins," said Mills, referring to the state's Republican senator.
The governor has persistently claimed that she has the greatest chance of beating Collins in November, contrary to several polls.
The voter addressed those claims in his question.
"You say electability is what you're looking for here," he said. "And if you truly do believe that and you've read the polls—which I imagine you have—that isn't the case."
Keep Reading
Show Less
As TrumpRx Scam Does Virtually Nothing, Big Pharma Jacks Up Prices on Cancer Drugs
"As they continue to hike prices, the pharmaceutical industry is also working overtime to block reforms that would lower them, and patients are paying the price."
Mar 23, 2026
A report released Monday found that Big Pharma has continued raising prices on dozens of cancer drugs, despite President Donald Trump's repeated false claims that he and his administration have slashed drug prices by a mathematically impossible 600%.
The analysis, conducted by Patients for Affordable Drugs, found that pharmaceutical companies increased prices on 64 oncology drugs in the first weeks of 2026, with the vast majority of price hikes coming in above the rate of inflation.
Patients for Affordable Drugs noted the heavy financial toll that paying for treatments takes on US cancer patients, and said the latest price increases would only exacerbate the crisis.
"Cancer drugs are among the most expensive drugs on the market, costing $74,000 more on average than non-cancer drugs," the group explained. "More than 42% of cancer patients in the US fully depleted their savings within two years of diagnosis to cover their care. More than half of Americans with cancer go into debt because of the cost of their care."
Making matters worse, the group added, is that Big Pharma is heavily lobbying Congress to pass legislation that would further delay small molecule drugs, including "widely used, high-cost cancer treatments," from becoming eligible for Medicare price negotiations.
Merith Basey, CEO of Patients for Affordable Drugs, stressed that the latest price increases were unacceptable given that "cancer is a leading cause of death among American seniors, and the treatments patients rely on are already among the most expensive."
"Yet as they continue to hike prices, the pharmaceutical industry is also working overtime to block reforms that would lower them," added Basey, "and patients are paying the price."
While the Patients for Affordable Drugs report focuses on cancer drugs, a December report from Reuters found 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.”
The total projected number of drugs seeing price increases in 2026 is significantly higher than in 2025, when 3 Axis Advisors estimated that pharmaceutical companies raised prices on 250 medications. The median price increase for drugs in 2026 is projected at 4%, roughly the same as in 2025.
All of these price increases have come despite Trump's false claims that he has lowered the prices of drugs to the point where pharmaceutical companies would actually be paying patients to take them.
An analysis released last week by the Center for American Progress (CAP) found that the president's TrumpRx initiative, which was created to purportedly offer Americans cheaper prescription drugs, offered genuinely lower prices on "exactly one" of the 54 medications listed on its website.
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.
Keep Reading
Show Less
Congressional Report Warns TrumpRx May Lead 'Families to Pay More to Big Pharma'
"The president should work with Democrats and Republicans to actually lower prescription drug costs for families," said Sen. Maggie Hassan, "rather than helping Big Pharma line its pockets."
Feb 13, 2026
Democratic members of the congressional Joint Economic Committee on Friday released a report warning that US families could end up spending thousands of dollars more on prescription drugs because of a website recently unveiled by President Donald Trump.
Launched last week with pharmaceutical companies, TrumpRx.gov is marketed as an aggregator to help patients save on prescription drugs by using manufacturer coupons or buying directly from manufacturers.
However, as the new report highlights, "many of the brand-name drugs listed on TrumpRx have significantly cheaper generic alternatives, which are excluded from TrumpRx. This means that TrumpRx steers families to pay more to Big Pharma when they could be getting the same medication at a much lower price."
"No matter what the president says, the bottom line is that TrumpRx directs families to buy expensive brand-name drugs when generic versions are available elsewhere at a fraction of the cost."
The report provides a chart comparing TrumpRx and generic prices, both for one prescription fill and the full annual cost. It also notes the difference. In some cases, the president's option is $10-50 more a year. However, there are also examples in which families could save hundreds or thousands of dollars with generic drugs.
For example, Colestid, a medication that lowers cholesterol, would cost $2,771.21 a year through TrumpRx, compared with $856.70 for the generic option, a difference of $1,914.51. The antidepressant Pristiq is $2,401.20 on the president's website, versus just $320.88 for the generic, a potential yearly savings of $2,080.32.
The biggest difference featured in the document is for Tikosyn, which helps patients maintain a normal heart rhythm. The TrumpRx annual cost is $4,032, whereas the generic is only $192.68, a difference of $3,839.32.
The report also stresses how extra costs from the president's site could stack up for households in which multiple people need medication:
- For example, if in one family a parent gets treatment for high cholesterol and their child gets treated for seizures, over the course of 2026 this family would pay $2,142 more if they use TrumpRx versus generic drug alternatives.
- For another family where one adult gets treatment for depression while the other receives treatment for menopause symptoms, over the course of 2026 this family would pay $2,493 more if they use TrumpRx versus generic drug alternatives.
"No matter what the president says, the bottom line is that TrumpRx directs families to buy expensive brand-name drugs when generic versions are available elsewhere at a fraction of the cost," said Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee and the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care.
"The president should work with Democrats and Republicans to actually lower prescription drug costs for families," Hassan argued, "rather than helping Big Pharma line its pockets."
While the Trump White House responded defensively to the Democratic report, with spokesperson Kush Desai claiming to MS NOW that "product listings on TrumpRx.gov are in no way an endorsement for use of any prescription drug over another" and accusing Democrats of "resorting to idiotic or simply ignorant lines of attack instead of simply giving the president credit where it's due," the panel members aren't alone is highlighting such cost differences.
The added cost for US families also isn't lawmakers' only concern about TrumpRx. Last month, shortly before the site's launch, Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.) Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and Peter Welch (Vt.) sent a letter to the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General raising concerns about the new direct-to-consumer (DTC) platform.
"There appear to be possible conflicts of interest involved in the potential relationship between TrumpRx and an online dispensing company, BlinkRx, on whose board the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., has sat since February 2025," they wrote. "Moreover, legitimate concerns about inappropriate prescribing, conflicts of interest, and inadequate care have been raised about the exact types of DTC platforms to which TrumpRx would route patients."
The trio also expressed alarm about high prices, noting that "pharmaceutical manufacturers who will reportedly be participating in TrumpRx have spent billions of dollars in combined advertising expenses for drugs sold on existing DTC platforms."
"The pharmaceutical industry's outrageous DTC advertisements fuel demand for specific medications, which balloon healthcare expenses," the senators wrote. "We are concerned that DTC advertising, including in relation to TrumpRx, will steer customers to prescriptions that may be reimbursed by federal health programs, creating the potential for unnecessary or wasteful spending."
Keep Reading
Show Less
Most Popular