Tom Traver

The Big Pharma Grift: How Trump Pocketed Millions While Seniors With Cancer Paid the Price What kind of person would force seniors to pay more for cancer treatment in order to enrich himself? It turns out, Trump would — and did. A new analysis by Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee shows how President Donald Trump dramatically increased his holdings in major pharmaceutical companies last year as his corrupt regime and Republican allies advanced policies that benefited the industry at the direct expense of seniors and other patients. The JEC analysis estimates that Trump's stock holdings in the pharmaceutical sector jumped from as much as $1.7 million in 2024 to as much as $56.2 million by the end of 2025. He held as much as $39.1 million in the same Big Pharma companies that directly benefited from carveouts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act he signed last summer — provisions that expanded exemptions from Medicare drug price negotiations established under the Inflation Reduction Act. Those carveouts shield or delay negotiations on high-cost treatments, including Merck's blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda. In 2025, Merck reported $18.8 billion in U.S. revenues for Keytruda, helping the company net $22.5 billion in profits — a 16% increase from the prior year. The committee found Trump also made major purchases of stock in Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie, Pfizer, Amgen, and others, each of which had at least one drug that gained from the exemptions. Purchases of up to $2.55 million in shares of benefiting companies occurred on dates before he signed the law, including up to $950,000 on the day the Senate passed it. "Trump and congressional Republicans intentionally force seniors to pay more for cancer treatment so that Big Pharma can rake in more money that Trump can personally profit from," said Sen. Maggie Hassan, the JEC's ranking member. "It's outrageous and yet typical from this president, who makes the American people foot the bill again and again for his own gains." The JEC estimates the changes will cost some Medicare seniors thousands more out of pocket — roughly $5,200 more for Keytruda, $9,000 more for Adcetris, and far higher amounts for other affected drugs — while adding around $9 billion to the deficit. Companies whose drugs benefited reported at least $54 billion in relevant U.S. sales in 2025, up 13% from the year before. The pattern is clear on the numbers the Democrats have laid out from Trump's own financial disclosures and the law he signed: this is a gut-wrenching collision of corruption and cruelty. By using the power of the presidency to systematically gut Medicare price negotiations, Trump didn't just hand Big Pharma a multi-billion dollar protective shield — he personally bought into the scheme, loading his own portfolio with the very stocks set to skyrocket. This is a calculated, multi-million dollar betrayal that turns a profit directly off the suffering of seniors with cancer. While vulnerable grandparents are forced to scramble for thousands of dollars more out-of-pocket just to afford life-saving treatments like Keytruda, Trump's personal wealth swells on the back of their illness. It is a profound moral failure and an undeniable conflict of interest: a president legalizing the extortion of sick Americans to line his own pockets.