Trump's Major Deal with Pfizer, GOP vs Dems on Crime, YouTube Settles with Trump: AM Update 10/1

0:02Megyn Kelly:Good morning, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. It's Wednesday, October 1st, 2025. This is your AM Update.

0:09Donald Trump:For many years, Americans have paid the highest prices anywhere in the world for prescription drugs. It's being changed as of today.

0:17Megyn Kelly:President Trump announces a new deal with a surprising partner, Pfizer, in an attempt to lower prescription drug prices. Though not everyone is ready to make nice with the controversial COVID vax manufacturer.

0:30Donald Trump:You say don't fund the police, but do fund programs that create safe spaces for two-spirit people.

0:36Megyn Kelly:Republicans and Democrats clash in a lively hearing on fighting crime. And YouTube agrees to a pricey settlement with President Trump over his 2021 suspension. All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM Update.

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2:02Megyn Kelly:President Trump on Tuesday announcing two new developments in the drive to lower prescription drug prices for Americans, a new direct-to-consumer website for discounted medicines, and a multi-pronged deal with Pfizer, slashing prices on most of its products. More on the sudden coziness with the much-criticized Pfizer in just a moment, but first, the details of the announcement. The new website, TrumpRx, set to launch in early 2026, it will allow consumers to pay cash for prescription drugs from the government website. Pfizer agreeing to sell some of its products on-site at the discounted rates, including an arthritis drug at a 40 % cut, a migraine medication for 50 % less, and an osteoporosis drug reduced by 85%.

2:49Megyn Kelly:In terms of the broader Pfizer deal, most of its products will be offered to Medicaid at most favored nation prices, meaning Americans pay no more than the lowest price paid by other developed countries. And the company will invest$70 billion in U.S. manufacturing and research. Pfizer is the first drug company to agree to all of the demands set out by the Trump administration in a July letter aimed at lowering prices. At the time, many analysts said it was unlikely to happen. Mr. Trump from The Oval.

3:20Donald Trump:For many years, Americans have paid the highest prices anywhere in the world for prescription drugs. A major reason is that the American consumers have been subsidizing research and development costs for the entire planet. They put all of that on us, and yet they were the beneficiaries. So it's being changed as of today. The United States had just 4 % of the world's population and consumers. only 13 percent of all prescription drugs yet pharmaceutical companies make 75 percent of their profits from the United States.

3:52Megyn Kelly:Now, Pfizer describes the deal as a voluntary agreement to help American consumers, but it raises an obvious question. Why would a drug giant suddenly slash prices in its most profitable market? Well, Pfizer has secured a three-year grace period from President Trump's tariffs on pharmaceuticals. Starting today, the U.S. is imposing a 100 % tariff on branded and patented pharma products unless the drug company is currently building a manufacturing plant within the United States. President Trump saying deals with other drug companies are in the works, specifically mentioning Eli Lilly, one of the largest drug companies in the world.

4:32Megyn Kelly:Pfizer's willingness to be the first to step forward is of note given the negative reputation the company has among many conservatives, including some top-ranking White House officials, surrounding its lack of transparency on the potential harmful side effects of its COVID vaccine. For years, Pfizer has been hammered for how it marketed its COVID shot, downplaying serious side effects like myocarditis, especially among young males, and failing to be upfront with the public as the risks later emerged. White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro, on the Patrick Bet David podcast in 2023, saying the dishonesty surrounding COVID from Pfizer hampered the early pandemic response.

5:14Donald Trump:If he had simply owned up to the fact that that thing came from the lab, we could have pressured the Chinese to give us the genome sequence, which would have allowed us to design an effective vaccine rather than the crap we wound up getting. And again, Trump got lied to about that, not just by Fauci, but by Pfizer, the drug company. In what way? They didn't disclose the side effects of that. And they weren't clear with him. They made him think that it was a true vaccine when it's not.

5:50Megyn Kelly:It's mRNA technology. President Trump on Monday praising Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, saying he did a, quote, fantastic job with COVID and a lot of things. Outkick writer Ian Miller, posting to X, quote, Albert Bourla once posted that Pfizer's vaccine was 100 % effective in stopping COVID transmission, which was demonstrably false, and helped pave the way for vaccine passports and mandates. I do not think he did a fantastic job. Founder of Americans for Health Freedom, Dr. Mary Talley-Boden, posting to X, quote, what an effing slap in the face to all of the people injured and killed by Pfizer. really heartless and disrespectful.

6:35Megyn Kelly:Hundreds of smaller accounts posting similar reactions. Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a leading expert in vaccine safety and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, along with now NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, is now chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He says the lack of transparency by Pfizer continues to this day. Dr. Kulldorff, posting Monday on X, quote, in a randomized trial of their COVID vaccine, Pfizer found birth defects in eight babies to 156 vaccinated pregnant mothers and in two babies to 159 unvaccinated mothers. When asked at the advisory committee meeting, Pfizer did not explain.

7:20Megyn Kelly:HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. yesterday not offering direct praise of Pfizer, but championing President Trump's work to lower drug costs, something Democrats have been arguing in favor of for years. However, here is how the secretary described Pfizer and other vaccine companies in a 2020 episode of Mike Tyson's Hot Boxing podcast.

7:43Donald Trump:The thing that people have to understand is that the four companies that make all 72 of those vaccines, which is Pfizer, Plaxom, Merck, and Sanofi, all of those companies are convicted felons. And not only that, they're serial felons. Their business model is committing felonies. These companies in the last 10 years collectively have paid$35 billion in penalties, damages, fines for falsifying science, defrauding regulators, lying to doctors, and for killing hundreds of thousands of people. It requires kind of a cognitive dissonance to believe that these companies that are lying and cheating on every other pharmaceutical product, every other medical device that they create, are somehow found Jesus with vaccines and aren't lying to us.

8:38Megyn Kelly:Coming up, Republican and Democratic differences on crime-fighting strategies come to a head in a Senate Judiciary Committee. And YouTube becomes yet another big tech company to agree to a settlement with President Trump over its decision in 2021 to suspend his account.

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10:01Megyn Kelly:GOP and Dem senators sparring yesterday at a Judiciary Committee hearing titled, quote, Blue City Chaos and Tragedy, How the Trump Administration is Addressing the Human Cost of Soft on Crime Policies. The hearing comes as President Trump surges federal agents across the most crime-plagued U.S. cities and has spent weeks politely suggesting Democrat governors like J.B. Pritzker of Illinois request National Guard assistance in their states. The GOP pointing to the success of President Trump's D.C. crime crackdown as a model to rapidly clean up city streets. In a matter of weeks, the D.C. murder rate reduced by 53 percent, robberies dropping 57 percent, carjacking falling by 75 percent.

10:44Megyn Kelly:That's according to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Democrats often arguing that red states actually suffer from the most violent crime, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a Republican, putting those statistics into context.

10:58Donald Trump:Democrats missed a key data point when they assert that the most violent cities are in red states. Almost all of those cities are run by Democrat mayors. Axial reports that of the 20 cities with more than 100 ,000 residents and the highest murder rate, 19 have a Democrat mayor. President Trump is willing to work with these mayors, but they keep turning down the offer for help, despite the fact that President Trump's efforts are working in places like D.C. and Memphis.

11:32Megyn Kelly:Democrat Senator from New Jersey, Cory Booker, in his typical dramatic fashion, accusing Republicans of deepening political divides for pointing out that Democrat cities often experience much higher crime rates.

11:45Donald Trump:Dear God, we continue in this nation to deepen partisan divide and to undermine the truth that we share common cause, common purpose, and even common sense. And now I'm sitting in a hearing that somehow wants to pit red against blue as if they're not Republicans and Democrats who live in every county and every state. And all of us want the same thing, which is lower crime in our communities. This committee right now is having a hearing that is not about finding common ground and working to find solutions, but driving a false divide based upon a false pretext that somehow places that vote for one party over another are more dangerous, and that's just not true.

12:29Megyn Kelly:Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois attempting to score points against the Trump administration's pardon of January 6th rioters with D.C. police union head Greg Pemberton. Here's how that went.

12:40Donald Trump:So what was your reaction when President Donald Trump gave a full and unconditional pardon to 1 ,500 individuals who had been prosecuted for violence against police officers? Well, it's frustrating to see that. But what I point to is since that day, since January 7th, 2021 through today, we've had 1 ,537 officers injured where someone has assaulted a police officer. And 95 percent of those cases have been no papered by the U.S. Attorney's Office. So, yes, it's frustrating to have officers who are assaulted. But the vast majority of those people that assaulted officers that day were arrested and charged and many of them convicted.

13:19Donald Trump:And should they be full and unconditionally pardoned? My frustration, Senator, is that no one seems to care about police officers who were assaulted after that day or before that day. It seems like people only care about police officers who were assaulted on that day in the calendar. Police officers are assaulted all the time. No one seems to care about it. And that's our frustration.

13:38Megyn Kelly:Senator Josh Hawley, Republican from Missouri, challenging former Biden Deputy Director of Gun Violence Prevention Gregory Jackson Jr. about a report he authored for the Community Justice Action Fund on defunding the police.

13:53Donald Trump:This is so typical of what the Democrats do now. After your policies have transparently failed and led to the deaths of millions of Americans, now you say you've never heard of defunding the police. Your own report recommends it on page after page after page. Instead of funding the police, here's what we ought to invest in. we do need to invest in programs that acknowledge the need for safe space initiatives yes led by lesbian gay bisexual two-spirit trans and gender non-conforming people what's two-spirit well look i don't know exactly you guys are pulling some some interesting quotes this is from your report what is two-spirit you say don't fund the police but do fund programs that create safe spaces for two-spirit people what is what what is i just want to know i don't know what that is i have no idea what that is.

14:40Donald Trump:Well, honestly, I'm not completely aware of the language or the spirit of how that was written.

14:48Megyn Kelly:YouTube agreeing on Monday to settle President Trump's 2021 lawsuit over his account's suspension for a cool 24.5 mil. Trump alleging in his lawsuit that YouTube, which is a private company, violated the First Amendment, which doesn't apply to private companies when it prevented him from posting new videos on the platform in the aftermath of the Capitol riot on January 6th, 2021. The streaming platform, now the third big tech company to settle with the president since the beginning of his second administration. In total, Mr. Trump racking up nearly 60 million bucks from Meta, X, and now YouTube.

15:26Megyn Kelly:The lawsuits each filed after President Trump left the White House in 2021. The Wall Street Journal reporting 22 million of this settlement will go to the Trust for the National Mall to build the new White House ballroom, which is expected to cost$200 million. YouTube originally justifying the ban, saying Mr. Trump's account violated policies against inciting violence in the aftermath of the January 6th rioting. YouTube reinstating the channel in March of 2023. The platform releasing a statement at the time, quote, we carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence while balancing the chance for voters to hear equally from major national candidates in the run-up to an election.

16:08Megyn Kelly:The settlement coming after a federal judge in April ruled that YouTube's parent company, Google, had illegally monopolized online advertising technology. Mr. Trump's DOJ is now seeking to force Google to sell off part of its online advertising business. President Trump celebrating news of the settlement, sharing a meme on social media depicting a sheepish-looking tech executive handing over a large check for$24.5 million on the White House lawn. And that'll do it for your AM Update. I'm Megan Kelly. Join me back here for The Megan Kelly Show, live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111 at noon east, on youtube.com slash megankelly, and on all podcast platforms.