Hey everybody. Happy Monday, and thanks for being here.
Our top story today: Remember those deals Trump announced with the pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices? The Rose Garden ceremonies with the CEOs and claims that prices would be coming down 600 percent? Well, the contracts just came out, and they were secret for a reason. Turns out the deals with the drug companies were really just deals for the drug companies. And the man who signed them, RFK Jr., is about to headline an anti-corporate health summit, paid for by corporations. I’ll break it all down.
We’ll also get into Pete Hegseth running out of Republican friends, Trump’s big Greenland deal that gave us what we already had, what Trump says about the midterms when the cameras are off, and the President deciding Ukraine is to blame for six-dollar diesel.
And today is a very special day. 3 years ago, I posted my first ever article on Substack. Back then, I had no idea what to expect and NEVER dreamed we would end up here. And by pure coincidence, today also happens to be the 100th episode of The Kinzinger Report.
Thank you for being a part of this community and thank you for trusting me in a very busy and loud news environment. I am so glad you’re here and, guess what? The best is yet to come.
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Ok, let’s get to it.
1. Trump's Secret Drug Deals Exposed
Over the past year, Trump has signed agreements with more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies to bring American drug prices in line with what other rich countries pay. He held the signing ceremonies at the White House. And then the administration locked the contracts away. RFK Jr. signed these deals himself, and has refused requests to make them public.
But Public Citizen has pried two of the contracts loose through a public records lawsuit, and the Washington Post published what’s inside. Here’s what the companies got. Protection from Trump’s tariffs on drugs. Incentives to raise their prices in other countries. Broad confidentiality clauses, where the government promised to treat everything as exempt from public records law. And in one case, the company’s two biggest sellers were carved out of the discount entirely.
And about those numbers Trump keeps bragging about. The contracts show key terms were still unresolved on the day the CEOs stood next to him at the White House and promoted the deal. A separate analysis found the savings could be 80 percent lower than the White House claims once the side deals are counted. So once again, this White House is announcing deals before they’re final. And once again, they’re lying about what the deals actually do, just so they can claim victory and Trump can have his press conference.
And remember, the guy who signed these deals is also the guy who built a movement promising to take on corporate power in health care. That movement, Make America Healthy Again, is holding its big summit in Washington next week. Politico looked into who’s paying for the event. The list reads like everything the movement was built to fight. And, of course, plenty of companies that happen to be waiting on an approval from Kennedy’s department.
In exchange, they get a private dinner with health department officials. And almost 90 percent of the money in the movement’s political PAC came from just ten donors, half of them with ties to the drug industry.
So let’s put these two stories together. The contracts that were supposed to take on the drug companies protect the drug companies. The movement that was supposed to fight corporate influence runs on corporate money. And the people this administration promised to fight for got left out of the deal entirely.
2. Hegseth Runs Out of Friends
Even in an administration full of clowns, Pete Hegseth has always stood out, especially to those of us who know a thing or two about the military. But through all the firings and leaks and testosterone tests, Republicans in Congress have stood by him.
As the midterms approach, that’s starting to change. Last week, Hegseth almost became the first defense secretary in 150 years to face an impeachment vote. Mike Johnson had to send the House home to save him from the humiliation.
Seven Republicans have now voted to end his war in Iran. A Republican senator called him out as one of Trump’s worst aides. And the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee says he’s tired of the churn, and it’s easy to see why. Since Hegseth took the reins at the Pentagon, eighty generals and admirals have been fired or blocked from promotion.
The DOD is a ghost town: the Army has no confirmed secretary and no confirmed chief of staff in the middle of a war. And the leaders who remain have lost confidence in Hegseth’s leadership.
All of this was predictable: Hegseth was never qualified to be Secretary of Defense. And so instead of focusing on real wars, like the one in Iran, he’s spent his energy prosecuting a culture war at the Pentagon. In the process, he’s drained the Pentagon of the leadership it needs now more than ever.
3. Trump Backs Down on Greenland
On Friday, Trump announced what he called a permanent security agreement with Denmark and Greenland. Here’s how he described it.
“Permanently and conclusively addressed.” An “infinite life” agreement. Marco Rubio also praised the deal, saying it completely settles Trump’s concerns. Big talk. So what’s actually in the deal?
The United States gets permanent basing and overflight rights, and Greenland promises not to let China or Russia build bases on the island. The prohibition on our adversaries is a nice bonus, but this is roughly the deal we got in 1951.
If you’ve been following this story, you’ll notice something missing from the agreement: Greenland itself. Since taking office, Trump has said he wanted to own Greenland. That’s why he threatened Denmark with tariffs and got into a scuffle with our NATO allies. It’s why Greenlanders took to the streets and made it clear they had no interest in American ownership. Here’s how they took Friday’s news.
“Nothing has changed.” That about sums it up. Greenland is still Danish, and the US gets a little more of the access it already had.
Look, I’m glad it ended this way. A stronger security deal with an ally is a good thing. But if this was the end result, why all the drama? Why did Trump spend 20 months threatening NATO and damaging our standing across Europe and the world, only to back down? The answer is simple: he couldn’t get what he wanted and had to settle. It really makes you wonder. Maybe he isn’t such a master negotiator after all.
4. Trump Knows He's Losing
In public, the President stands by every decision that he has made. The Iran War, the mass deportation campaign, the tariffs. All of it is a smashing success. And any outlets or polls that report otherwise are fake news.
On Saturday, he even posted a list of 25 accomplishments.
There’s a lot to unpack here, from lies about ending “eight raging wars” to gaslighting about “the historic tariffs to bring back American manufacturing.” But I’m left wondering: Why would the greatest president ever have to convince the public of his success? Why would he have to prove anything?
Trump’s denial of obvious failures and fraudulent claims of success aren’t surprising. His long-time mentor and fixer, Roy Cohn, taught him a combative, win-at-all-costs playbook. The core rule? “Attack, attack, attack; admit nothing, deny everything; and claim victory no matter what happens.”
Now that playbook seems to be falling apart, at least in private. According to the Washington Post, four people from his inner circle describe a president who has gone quiet and serious when presented with his abysmal polling. He listens. He doesn’t argue. And he’s cautiously admitted to advisers that some of his decisions have created a tough midterm environment for Republican candidates.
From any other president, that admission isn’t that shocking. Political calculations happen, whether we like it or not. But this is a man who has never admitted a mistake in his life. If Donald Trump is telling people in private that this is partly his fault, that tells you how bad things really are. He’s losing. And the Republicans are sinking with him.
5. Trump Blames Ukraine for His Gas Prices
Diesel is up about two and a half dollars from a year ago. Trump’s solution? Scapegoat Ukraine.
While golfing in Ireland last week, Trump said that Zelensky has to stop knocking out diesel fuel refineries in Russia because “the world is hurting.” And he repeated that threat on a phone call with Zelensky yesterday ahead of their meeting at the UN tomorrow.
That’s the message from one president golfing on his private course to another fighting a war for his country’s very existence. What a coward.
But let’s take apart Trump’s blatant lie. Independent estimates say Ukraine’s refinery strikes have cut Russia’s refining by at least a fifth. Ukraine says it’s more like 40 percent. That’s one of its greatest strategic accomplishments during the war. And it shouldn’t have a widespread impact on the domestic or global oil market. The United States doesn’t buy Russian diesel. And we use sanctions to pressure other countries not to buy it either.
The reason diesel is expensive is that Trump’s war with Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz back in February. That’s the chokepoint for a fifth of the world’s oil. And Trump knows it, which is why he keeps trying to tell us it’s open or about to open. And it’s why our goals for the war have seemingly shifted from stopping Iran’s nuclear program to just getting the strait open again.
I was in Ukraine two weeks ago. I saw what they’re fighting with, and what they’re fighting against. They’re hitting the one thing Putin can’t replace: his fuel. And our president is asking them to stop for a midterm election that he’s bound to lose. That’s a favor to Moscow, paid for by the American public.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
The Trump administration is preparing sweeping sanctions against the International Criminal Court, according to documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. The measures would ban most transactions with the ICC after a six to seven month grace period, cutting the court off from U.S. dollars and much of the global financial system. The State Department wouldn’t preview the decision, but the formal announcement could come as soon as this week. And it doesn’t come as a surprise. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has vowed to dismantle the court “brick by brick,” calling its pursuit of officials from nonmember states a dangerous precedent and a threat to American sovereignty. That precedent didn’t bother Rubio in 2022. As a senator, he co-sponsored a resolution calling on the ICC to investigate Russian war crimes in Ukraine, despite the fact that Russia is not an ICC member either. The U.S. has already sanctioned individual court officials, including its president, deputy prosecutors, and several judges, in retaliation for arrest warrants against Israeli officials over the war in Gaza. These new sanctions would target the institution itself.
Hundreds of demonstrators locked arms to form a human chain around the Kennedy Center on Friday evening, protesting President Trump’s efforts to close and remake the institution. The rally came two days after photojournalists captured images through Air Force One’s windows showing Trump reviewing a poster board with an apparent construction rendering titled: “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.” The photo circulated online ahead of the rally, appearing to boost turnout. And it has already been incorporated into a pending lawsuit over the center’s fate. Center officials said this week’s closure was temporary and driven by safety concerns after a large chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling. But the shutdown caps a disastrous year and a half under Trump’s stewardship, marked by plummeting ticket sales and a talent exodus. A federal judge recently ordered Trump’s name removed from the building, which Congress named to honor President Kennedy after his assassination. Organizers said a typical Kennedy Center protest draws 60 to 100 people, but Friday’s crowd was the largest yet.
