Moderna has decided to NOT raise the price of their COVID vaccine after Bernie Sanders threatened to haul the CEO in for a Senate hearing. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Moderna has decided not to raise the price of their covid vaccine after Bernie Sanders threatened to haul the CEO in for a Senate hearing. Boy, this happened quick. Right. You know. Okay. You got a company that developed a vaccine, actually, taxpayers paid for.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Billions of dollars. Taxpayers helped them develop it. Taxpayers gave them billions of dollars to, in the first phase where there was an emergency need for it, they made billions. And then after that, after they couldn’t get, count on that money, vaccine cost $26, for the consumer they tried to raise it to $130. What was it 400%?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. 400% increase. And so, of course, always has to be Bernie Sanders.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Comes out and he says, okay, listen, Moderna. And he points out everything you just said, you know, we gave you the money. You know, you’re using also publicly available research. We threw all the resources at you to do this. And we’re thankful for it, by the way. You did good. But now you’re trying to screw us again. So how about you, Mr. CEO of Moderna, I want you to come into this senate. Now I’m gonna sit you down and you’re gonna tell your story.
Mike Papantonio: It was Mrs. Mrs.
Farron Cousins: Oh, Mrs. Mrs. Moderna.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: You come in and you tell your story to the entire country about why you’re raising the prices 400%. And a couple days later, they said, you know what, uh, we’re gonna keep it 20 bucks.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Everybody just do what you’re gonna do. But that is the kind of pressure that you could see somebody like Pete Buttigieg putting on the airline industry or the train industry.
Mike Papantonio: Of course.
Farron Cousins: But nothing. But Bernie Sanders is still the, the leader out there with taking on these corporations.
Mike Papantonio: That, that’s called, it’s called leadership. You’re in an office where you can use that kinda leadership. And he, he beat them back like a wild dog, I’m telling you. And so that’s, that’s all that had to happen. No, Mrs. Moderna, you’re not gonna raise it from $26 to $130, because you’ve already made billions of dollars on the backs of taxpayers. They’ve already paid you a lot of money. I love that kinda leadership.
Farron Cousins: It, it does. And Bernie wasn’t threatening legislation against them.
Mike Papantonio: No.
Farron Cousins: He wasn’t threatening, you know, price gouging charges. He just said, why don’t you come tell everybody why you’re doing this. And that was enough to scare ’em.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Yeah.
