Robert F. Kennedy attempted Thursday to score a cheap political point against Senator Bernie Sanders by accusing the independent Vermont lawmaker of being bought out by the pharmaceutical industry—but he got his facts wrong.
“And by the way, Bernie, the problem of corruption is not just in the federal agencies. It’s in Congress too,” Kennedy said. “Almost all the members of this panel, including yourself, are accepting millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and protecting their interests.”
“Oh, no, no, no, no,” Sanders said, raising his hand to quiet the applause that erupted from the gallery. “I ran for president like you. I got millions and millions of contributions. They did not come from the executives; not one nickel of PAC money from the pharmaceutical industry. They came from the workers.”
Sanders’s financial support from the health care industry stemmed from everyday workers, galvanized by his campaign promises of Medicaid for all and large-scale pharmaceutical reform.
“In 2020 you were the single largest receiver of pharmaceutical money,” Kennedy again insisted.
“Because I had more contributions from workers all over this country. Workers, not a nickel from corporate PACs,” Sanders continued, before he was cut off again by Kennedy, reiterating his point.
“Bernie, you were the single largest acceptor of pharmaceutical dollars. $1.5 million,” Kennedy said.
“Yeah, out of $200 million,” Sanders said, before reminding Kennedy that he had deflected from answering a question as to whether, under the “Make America Healthy Again” banner and as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, he would “guarantee health care to every single American.”
But Kennedy never had to answer that. Instead, Senator Markwayne Mullin interjected that Sanders had gone over his allotted time and was “battering the witness.”
Quiver Quantitative, a financial technology startup that provides data on insider trading and campaign contributions, listed no corporate PAC donors for Sanders—let alone any within the folds of the pharmaceutical industry. The company noted, however, that they do not currently track donations by industry employees.
Kennedy, meanwhile, has seemingly made a business out of his extreme public health stances. A disclosure form filed for his nomination revealed that the outspoken vaccine critic pulled in roughly $10 million over the last year related to dividends from his vaccine lawsuits, anti-vax speaking fees, and leading Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit dedicated to spreading misinformation about vaccine efficacy.
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