President Trump speaks beside Assistant to the President for the Domestic Policy Council Joe Grogan, a former lobbyist for Gilead Sciences, at the White House, on April 4, 2019, in Washington, D.C. Grogan pushed Trump to ditch his support for a House bill to lower drug prices while Gilead-linked groups advertised and lobbied against it.
Credit: Chip Somodevillalla / Getty

In 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump told voters that lowering drug prices would be a top priority of his domestic agenda. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) introduced a bill to lower drug costs, Trump greeted it with enthusiasm. But in October, Trump executed an about-face, abandoning negotiations on the House bill, claiming it would “harm seniors,” and threatening to veto the bill if it passed the Senate.

The House bill — H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act — would increase the power of the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prices. But Trump’s top healthcare adviser, former Gilead Sciences lobbyist Joe Grogan, strenuously lobbied […]