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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Thanks again for all your support in the membership drive that ended yesterday. It allows us to serve you and the whole community, so thanks for chipping in whatever you did. A program note for this morning, no Ask the Mayor today. We do that just about every Friday, as you probably know, but the mayor canceled late last night because of a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris. As I understand it, it got scheduled for during the show today. Being merely the mayor of New York City, compared to the Vice President of the United States, his office couldn't tweak the time. They did try. No Ask the Mayor today.

We begin today with Steve Bannon, Kyrsten Sinema, and Tom Malinowski, all in the crosshairs of Congress right now. Bannon, you probably know about. The right-wing firebrand former Trump advisor now officially held in contempt of Congress for refusing a subpoena to testify about January 6. Congress wants the justice department to prosecute him for that. Malinowski, maybe you didn't know about yet, so hello New Jersey, this is your Tom Malinowski. The house ethics committee has a report with some serious questions about the Garden State Democrat's stock trades. We'll get to that.

Then there's Kyrsten Sinema, the holdout Democratic senator from Arizona. One of the two, along with Joe Manchin of West Virginia, holding back President Biden's Build Back Better bill for child care, home health care for the elderly and severely disabled, more competitive prescription drug pricing, climate change protection and more. On the plus side, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal says he talked to Sinema yesterday and think she's ready to make a deal. On the downside for her, five US military veterans who were advisors to Senator Sinema have quit, sending her a scathing letter saying she's hanging her constituents out to dry. That is reported in the New York Times.

Joining me now is New York Times congressional reporter Luke Broadwater, who was covering that and, in fact, all three of the stories I mentioned. Luke, thanks for coming on today. Welcome to WNYC.

Luke Broadwater: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: I'll clue the listeners in on the fact that we asked you at close to midnight last night when we learned the mayor was canceling. Thanks for being a sport.

Luke Broadwater: Well, I'm happy to be the mayor's backup plan.

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles] Kyrsten Sinema? Was this your scoop about the five veterans who quit as her advisors?

Luke Broadwater: Yes, we had that first. I guess that's a scoop. I don't really like to talk about scoops. I don't care too much about who gets things first, but honestly, as a reporter, I care about getting important stories and doing them right, but yes we had this one first.

Brian Lehrer: Right. That's very upstanding. Let's talk about the content. They accused her of answering to big donors, rather than "Your own people," meaning the voters of Arizona. I gather that she gets more campaign funding from the pharmaceutical industry than most other members of Congress. Tell us about the prescription drug pricing provision of the bill that she is believed to be opposing, and then we'll get into other things that the veterans singled out.

Luke Broadwater: Sure. This is one of the hallmarks of the Biden plan, and frankly it's how they expected to pay for a good portion of this sweeping policy bill, domestic policy bill that President Biden wants. The issue here is whether or not the federal government can negotiate the price of prescription drugs. This is something that pharmaceutical companies do not want. It has the potential to cut into their profits very heavily. It could potentially save the federal government a lot of money and fund a lot of the other things that President Biden wants to do. Pre-K, universal Pre-K, Community College, free two years of community college funding, just the whole litany of things in his sweeping what was to be a $3.5 trillion policy bill.

Miss Sinema has privately opposed that measure, as have some of the house more centrist House Democrats. That looks like it's in serious trouble of making it into the final package. It's one of several things that both Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, the two more centrist Democrats in the Senate have held up in Joe Biden's plan. Frankly, there they are responsible for causing about half of the plan to likely be cut out. We're not exactly sure what will end up in it at the end of the day, but it does seem like it will be only about half of what progressives and mainstream Democrats and the President really wanted.

Brian Lehrer: I want as we go along to compare what Sinema's objections are to what Manchin's objections are because I think they're not the same by and large. Two big swaths of things apparently going to have to get out of the bill, to get to yes with both of them. Let me linger on the prescription drug Medicare thing for a minute. We've talked about it on this show. It's in the news, for people who pay close attention to the news, but I think a lot of people don't know what this is and what this means. For example, I'm in Blue Cross Blue Shield, right? Private insurance, I get my health insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Blue Cross Blue Shield can negotiate price with the pharmaceutical companies for how much I and other members of Blue Cross Blue Shield actually get charged for prescription drugs, therefore how much Blue Cross Blue Shield has to pay them in order to cover me. Medicare can't do that. All the private plans can. Medicare, the biggest insurance plan in the United States, I guess, government insurance for most people over 65, Medicare cannot negotiate price with pharmaceutical companies. They can just say to Medicare, to the government, to the taxpayer, "We want you to pay $100 per pill when Blue Cross and Blue Shield is negotiating $50 per pill." Do I have that right? Am I overstating this?

Luke Broadwater: Yes, that's correct. There have been some studies on this because the one branch of the federal government which is allowed to negotiate is the Veterans Affairs, and they end up paying some magnitudes lower on the dollar for prescription drugs than Medicare does. There's a good example of a slice of the federal government that does this already and pays much cheaper prices. This has been a policy idea honestly for well over a decade, maybe two decades, to do this reform, but Congress has just never been able to get it done.

If you talk to people like Senator Sanders, Senator Warren, they blame the lobbying industry that there's just the pharmaceutical industry just has too much influence over too many senators. Despite there being a lot of public support for this, despite the President being on board for it, they just cannot get the votes to make it happen. Even senator Manchin is in favor of this. It really is only a few holdouts among the democratic party that are blocking this reform from happening. The pharmaceutical industry is flooding the airwaves with ads about this. Right now they are claiming that it would gut seniors' health care, that it would cause seniors to go without certain medications.

If you talk to the CEOs of these companies, they say, basically, they would have to stop investing in research and development because their profits will be cut so much. These are the threats and some would say scare tactics that the pharmaceutical industry is using to try to prevent this reform from taking place.

Brian Lehrer: I did see one of the pharmaceutical industry's TV commercials about that, where they were emphasizing that the government would tell you which medications you could take if this goes through. It's not how I've understood it previously, it's just that Medicare could negotiate for a price on the medications that are covered. Is that just a lie by the pharmaceutical industry? Am I going too deep into this? I'm testing your knowledge.

Luke Broadwater: I think you're right. I think that is misinformation. Obviously we haven't seen the final bill yet, but there's nothing that I've seen any of the legislation that would say the federal government would dictate to doctors or patients which medications they could take. I think that is not factual. You see what the pharmaceutical industry is trying to do, they're trying to kill this proposal. It's a long-standing tactic to whip up fear among seniors, hopeful that they will then call their representatives and tell them to oppose the bill. That's what they're trying to do.

Brian Lehrer: You're saying it looks like misinformation we should probably--

Luke Broadwater: I think that that is false. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Luke Broadwater, congressional correspondent for the New York Times, fact checking the Pharma ad that you may see on TV any day. Tell us more about these five veterans, US military veterans who were advisors to Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who resigned yesterday and sent her a scathing letter saying she was selling out her constituents, who are they and what else was in the letter?

Luke Broadwater: Sure. Well, as you may know, Senator Sinema, being one of the few holdouts to the Biden agenda, has come under withering criticism from many people who used to support her. She has been protested at airports, there was a high profile incident where some protesters followed her into the bathroom at Arizona State University. Many former supporters who campaign for her have withdrawn their support now, and this is the latest example. These are five veterans who served on an advisory council to Miss Sinema, giving her advice about how she should approach veterans' affairs and different legislation concerning veterans.

They all said that they were talking amongst themselves, and they have become disgusted with her for a couple of reasons. One, they say she's basically stop meeting with them or taking their advice. Then two, her policy positions they find to be a departure from what she promised on the campaign trail. These are veterans who are more progressive, more liberal leaning, they want to see the plans President Biden has put forward go into law and they cannot understand why senator Sinema is a holdout in a state where she has a lot of democratic voters who support her.

They look at Joe Manchin and they say, "Maybe I understand why he's a holdout in West Virginia, where Donald Trump won by 40 points and his voters are much more conservative but Miss Sinema won on the backs of a lot of progressive votes and a lot of progressive organizations that knocked doors for her." They do not understand what she's doing and they think, particularly with the prescription drug issue, that she is hurting Veterans Health, because of her opposition to the prescription drug plan and the affordability of prescription drugs for seniors.

Brian Lehrer: You raise an interesting question. With Joe Manchin, you can figure out why he's taking the positions that he is, he represents a fossil fuel producing state so he's digging in on the fossil fuel industry's interests. There are other things too there that we could talk about with respect to Joe Manchin, but for Sinema in Arizona, it makes less obvious political sense. In fact, here's a clip of Senator Bernie Sanders from earlier this month scratching his head here for about 45 seconds about Kyrsten Sinema.

Senator Bernie Sanders: As I understand that I'm not privy to everything here. In some cases, you guys know that I do, but I don't think that-- I think Senator Sinema position has been that she doesn't "negotiate publicly." I don't know what that means, but we don't know where she's coming from. What I have heard, and I don't know if this is accurate, this is a problem, I have heard that she is opposed to having Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry and lowering prescription drug prices. I have heard that she is opposed to asking the wealthy and large corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. That is what I have heard, maybe I'm wrong. I think to answer your question, yes, I would love to see her, in the same sense as Senator Manchin, tell us what you want.

Brian Lehrer: Tell us what you want. Now, this conversation we've been having so far, Luke, about her opposition to Medicare being able to negotiate prescription drug prices. Did she ever say that out loud?

Luke Broadwater: No, that's the amazing thing about these two senators and their different approaches. Joe Manchin does negotiate behind closed doors, but he is in some ways much more open with the press. He will stand there and take questions for a long time in the halls of the Capitol. He will answer reporters' questions sometimes in a confusing or changing way, but he will take the question. Whereas senator Sinema has not done press conferences about what she wants to see in the bill. She will not take questions in the halls of Congress and her staff won't even comment on her policy positions.

You'll hear something that she said in a meeting and you'll have it from multiple sources. You'll bring it to them and say, "I heard she told all her colleagues she's against raising this tax on the wealthy. What do you have to say?" They will declined to comment. We're left to guess what Senator Sinema is thinking through leaks from meetings, through comments she's made to other people, but she herself has not commented. It makes it very difficult to understand what she's thinking or what she's doing because of this strategy. I know most of the reporters on Capitol Hill find it frustrating.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, listeners, your calls welcome. Mostly on Kyrsten Sinema and the Democrats' fraught bill back better negotiations. Also in Steve Bannon held in contempt of Congress or Tom Malinowski, congressman from New Jersey facing an ethics committee accusatory report on not reporting stock trades or anything related for New York Times congressional correspondent Luke Broadwater. 646-435-7280. John in Fair Haven wants to push back on this idea that the government wouldn't be saying what drugs you could take if Medicare gets to negotiate prescription drug prices. We'll hear an opposing point of view on that from what we thought was the fact. John, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

John: Good morning, Brian. I would respectfully disagree with your guest's comment that it was false, the pharma ads about restrictions the government might place on medicines you can get. It may well be overstated but I think if the government becomes, in effect, like a health insurer that we many of us have now, there'll be a formulary. Invariably, I don't have any private system now, my own included, that doesn't put restrictions on what drugs you can get. They'll have tiers of drugs. More typically the more recently produced ones aren't covered or are covered at some enormous price.

I would fully anticipate that if Medicare begins to pay for prescription drugs, they'd also introduce a formulary, and that would mean there will be some drugs that just won't be available or will be available at an enormous price to the patient. I don't think it's completely accurate to say that's false. It may be overstated what the pharma industry is saying but I think it is probably true at root.

Brian Lehrer: John, thank you. We need probably to do a separate segment on this with somebody who's really a pharmaceutical industry analyst and medical expert. Would it be accurate to say at least, Luke, that in the bill Medicare would not be allowed to introduce those kinds of formulary tiers?

Luke Broadwater: I think the issue here is the ads that I saw, and I have to go back and fact check them, made it seem that seniors would not be able to get the drugs that they were already getting. I believe that to be a scare tactic. I don't think that that is accurate based on what I've seen in the legislation. There may be some point he's making about ,as they negotiate on different drugs, there might be some decisions made about which are more expensive than others and what people have more access to. My understanding of the legislation is there would not be some deep cut to the drugs that people are already using, already getting and would not be able to get any more.

Brian Lehrer: How different do you think Sinema's and Joe Manchin's demands are if they're eventually going to make a deal? If Sinema is all into protecting Big Pharma, and Manchin is all into protecting big coal, those would be two very different things. I read one article saying that Manchin mostly wants the climate provisions taken out of the Bill Back Better package, and he's okay focusing on the social safety net aspects, childcare, eldercare, and other things. Sinema is more concerned about pharma and the tax rates. How different or similar can you report that their issues are?

Luke Broadwater: Well, they're different in some key ways. As you mentioned, Senator Sinema is okay with the climate change reforms, whereas Senator Manchin as opposed to the biggest ones in the Biden agenda. Senator Manchin is okay with raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations to pay for the plan, whereas senator Sinema has opposed any tax increases, even $1 more or a cent more, on corporations and the wealthy. Line by line, they have different objections. Again, Senator Sinema's opposed to the negotiation of pharmaceutical drugs, whereas Senator Manchin is okay with that. He's opposed to Medicare expanding to dental, vision, and hearing, whereas I hear that she's okay with that.

In the senate nowadays, since it's 50/50 and Democrats need every single vote. Every Democrat if they want to be can be their own king or queen of the Senate. While most have chosen not to do this, they've chosen to get in line with the Biden agenda even though they may have personal reservations about this policy or that policy, these two have decided that they will bend the agenda to their will by being holdouts. Eventually, in a closed-door room, there may be a meeting of the minds and everyone will agree on something, but we're just not there yet.

Brain Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with New York Times congressional correspondent, Luke Broadwater. Lot more to do, stay with us.

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Brain Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with congressional reporter Luke Broadwater from the New York Times talking about Kyrsten Sinema as a barrier to President Biden's Build Back Better agenda and other things that we'll get to. People keep calling in about this issue of Medicare being able to negotiate price with pharmaceutical companies which they cannot do now, which would be in the bill and which Sinema is blocking. We had one caller on before raising questions about whether that is really a good idea. Here's another caller, Kate on Staten Island, one of several who were calling in who've had experience with the VA, the Veterans Administration, which is allowed to negotiate price. Kate, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in. What do you know?

Kate: I am a nurse practitioner. I spent 36 years working in the Department of Veterans Affairs as it is known. I am here to say that what drives a lot of people to the VA is the fact that their private insurance is not paying for their medications, or they are overwhelmed with medical bills and especially pharmaceutical bills. That drives a lot of people to care at the Department of Veterans Affairs in all levels, outpatient care, home-based primary care, all kinds of care. That has been my observation in 36 years of providing primary care within the Department of Veterans Affairs. I retired this year.

Veterans who were not covered for expensive diagnosis such as Hepatitis B are very, very extremely happy with the care that they have received from particularly the GI service, the VA. Those drugs and those medications are in excess of $70,000 for what is potentially a cure for the illness. Those patients receive excellent care at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Likewise, a lot of Medicare recipients are on fixed incomes and I think it is absolutely disgraceful that people are being fed this line from big pharma. I would have to say, in 36 years of dealing with patients and their medications, and I was prescribing medication for 36 years, I did not find the evidence of any complaints about medications to any serious degree.

In fact, that was one of the things that veterans were happiest with. Their co-payments were sometimes zero for service-connected conditions and sometimes for some medications were eight or $9 a month, even when this medicine cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. I'm here to say that's how it really works when you can negotiate prices. Not this big pharma cartoon of what they're trying to tell us about. If you want to see something that's more reality-based, just look a Dopesick on Hulu or Netflix. I'm here to say that 95% of it is very true. As a person [inaudible 00:25:54]

Brain Lehrer: Just to make very sure that I'm understanding you and everybody's understanding you, though I think you're making yourself very clear. The VA, as huge a government-funded medical system as it is, does not have a formulary that allows certain drugs to be covered and certain drugs not to be covered, or not to be covered as well as the private insurers do?

Kate: No, that's not what I said. I did not even mention formulary. Anywhere on Earth, in this country or any other country, you are going to have scrutiny as the VA does about what drugs are effective, what drugs are indicated. You have more review as a VA provider with a national network. I might say that we have had computerized record systems throughout the country that are all connected for more than 20-25 years so there's a lot of data on this. You would be looking at, if you came to the VA and you had medications, they would be looking at what it is that you have and what prescriptions or equivalent or what prescriptions are available. Then there's always mechanisms for special drug requests. These are scrutinized by licensed pharmacists, not by somebody who calls themselves a claims representative and has absolutely no medical background. I am here to say [crosstalk]

Brain Leher: It's similar to current Medicare?

Kate: No. In terms of current Medicare, in terms of Medicare part D prescription plans, no, because the VA is able to negotiate prices nationally. That's true of medications. It's also true of some things even such as home oxygen. The VA pays a lot less for the same oxygen setup in the home that Medicare paid many more times, which that is a rip off of the government.

Brian Lehrer: Cheaper for taxpayers.

Katie: Why are we subsidizing the pharmaceutical industry to this extent?

Brain Leher: I hear you. Cheaper for the taxpayers but not restrictive in the way that pharma is claiming that Medicare would be. Kate, we so appreciate your call. Listeners, we promise we will do a separate segment on this with guests who are experts in it. Kate certainly has a lot of expertise with her background that she was describing. Kate, we really, really appreciate your experience and your expertise and filling us in. As we continue with Luke Broadwater, congressional correspondent for the New York Times. Before we get off Kyrsten Sinema, Congressman Richard Neal, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee which writes the tax bills.

She's standing so far against tax increases on the wealthy, as we heard from Senator Sanders. Congressman Neal said he spoke to Sinema yesterday and came away saying, "She is ready to make a deal, but a deal is not imminent." I came away from that article going, "What does that mean?" Can you translate that to plain English for us? "Ready to make a deal, but a deal is not imminent."

Luke Broadwater: This is the frustration of covering Congress these days. Especially when it involves Senator Sinema, everything is through like lights and mirrors and smoke and you have to read the smoke that's coming up from a closed-door room. There is talk that Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin are getting closer to making a deal with the Biden administration about a final bill. It sounds like some people are leaving some of the talks more encouraged. There is a lot of pressure I think to get this done this year and have it not spill over into 2022 in an election year where things could get even weirder. They want to get a deal.

As you can see, the President is agreeing to cut lots of things out of the bill as he talked to these two senators. We're seeing key provisions of the climate change reform drop out. We're seeing community college funding drop out. We're seeing paid leave be shrunk tremendously. Last night President Biden detailed a number of these cuts to his own plan at a CNN town hall. We're going to be looking at something that's probably half of what Democrats initially wanted and probably a fourth of what Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders wanted. It's being shrunk and the centrists are getting their way at the end of the day. They're going to have the final stamp on this bill it seems, because their votes are so badly needed to get to that 50 Democratic senators.

Brian Lehrer: Roseanne in Fairfield you're on WNYC. That's Fairfield, New Jersey, right? Hi, Roseanne.

Roseanne: Yes. I just want to say as a moderate voter who voted for Joe Biden, I certainly respect him and I would vote for him again, but a little disappointed because I was hoping we would pass that first infrastructure bill that we need so badly in the east, I'm sure in the whole country, where there's crumbling roads and bridges. Then do what he had said initially. Hope to pass the other one, which I certainly agree is needed. Although New Jersey, we have two-year college and we're able to do that and I believe in that but I don't know if we have to do that nationwide.

I believe in climate and everything else, but a little disappointed. I think on some of the progressives, I don't like that term but anyway,, I think they got a little bit too aggressive. Really he won I think because of us moderate voters. Now, I'm 78 years old and we've been waiting for this infrastructure bill, as you know how much we need it in the east.

Brian Lehrer: [unintelligible 00:32:31]

Roseanne: In New Jersey too, and New York. A little disappointed, I was afraid we're not going to get anything once again.

Brian Lehrer: Now, Roseanne, the progressives' position is, without tying the two bills together, then people like Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema, once the infrastructure bill which they want too is passed, then they won't have an incentive to come to yes at all on the Build Back Better provisions. It's a strategic play to make sure anything gets done. Is that so objectionable?

Roseanne: No, I certainly understand. I'm just a little disappointed because I was just hoping we finally could get, that I'm older and we've waited so many years for that first one. I'm just so afraid that we'll get nothing. That's what we need first of all. Certainly, I'm a former teacher, I'm a retired teacher and I believe that we should do whatever we can for the children and families and so forth. That's all I have to say. As someone said on TV, we voted for him, most of the moderates did vote for him and I'm disappointed with him anyway. As Congressman Clyburn said, that whole thing about defunding police which we never, ever said, that he never did. Then Republicans just hatching onto that. I'm an independent.

Brian Lehrer: I hear you. They're twisting that certainly in the case of Biden. Let's come back to that one another day. Roseanne, keep calling us and thank you very much for your call today. Before we run out of time, Luke, I want to touch on your coverage of the four members of the house, three Republicans and one Democrat. The Democrat from our core listening area, Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, drawing accusatory reports from the bipartisan House Ethics Committee. In Malinowski's case, this has to do with failure to disclose stock trades. Can you give us some specifics?

Luke Broadwater: Yes. The congressional investigators who probe ethics complaints have cited these four lawmakers for doing things outside of the ethical rules. Representative Malinowski, the complaint against him which he admitted to, is that he failed to file the proper disclosures on hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock trades over a two-year period. He admitted to this. He did file his annual reports disclosing the stocks. There is no allegation in the report that he improperly enriched himself or took corrupt actions. It is merely that you're supposed to report your stock trades every 45 days if you're making stock trades and disclose that so that in real-time people can know what the congressman is invested in, and he wasn't doing it. He admitted to the committee that he got too busy, he feels really bad about it.

Brian Lehrer: Got too busy. Malinowski's defense is, "I was so busy I forgot to report my stock trades to the House Ethics Committee." Really?

Luke Broadwater: Yes. His exact quote to the investigators was something like this, "This isn't a good excuse, but I was--," he didn't want to have a staffer do it and so he said he was going to do it himself and he just didn't do it. He said, "I have an overwhelmingly busy job. This was one of the things I needed to do, but I didn't put enough pressure on myself to do it and I was simply careless." He admitted to it, he copped to it. He's going to be up for a tough reelection, I'm sure. I'm sure this will be used against him in the campaign.

Brian Lehrer: There's an old Steve Martin routine about all the things in history that people could have gotten away with if only they had said, "I forgot."

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Luke Broadwater: I will say of the four reports yesterday, his is the only that doesn't allege-- His is a reporting issue more so than a corruption issue, if that makes sense.

Brian: They're not accusing him of doing this for corrupt purposes, like failing to report that he bought pharmaceutical industry stocks as he announced his opposition to Medicare prescription drug negotiations. Something like that?

Luke Broadwater: Exactly.

Brian Lehrer: It's not something like that.

Luke Broadwater: Exactly. One of the other allegations in this report is that one of the congressmen used insider knowledge and then his wife bought stock in a company and made a huge return off of it, but nothing like that is alleged against Mr. Malinowski.

Brian Lehrer: Luke Broadwater, congressional correspondent for the New York Times. Thanks for filling us in on so many things.

Luke Broadwater: Thanks for having me.

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