Trump may live-tweet first 2020 Democratic debates: report

President Trump has reportedly made plans to live-tweet the first two Democratic primary debates scheduled for next week against the advice of his closest aides. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that sources close to the president predict Trump will be active on Twitter throughout the two nights comprising the first Democratic primary debates of the 2020 election season. The plans come reportedly despite advice from his top aides to let the Democrats attack each other in the media and onstage while remaining outside of the fray. A spokesperson for the Trump campaign declined to comment to the Journal on the report. The topics and specific attacks to which the president responds on Twitter could provide insight for Democrats as to which issues the president sees as sensitive ahead of the general election.

Twenty of the announced Democratic 2020 contenders successfully made the threshold recognized by NBC News for the first debates, set for June 26 and 27, with four candidates not making the cut. The field is one of the largest primary fields in modern history and is currently dominated by former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who are both scheduled to be onstage for the second night of the events. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), another top target of the president who is surging in some recent polling, will appear on the first night. Trump has repeatedly attacked several of the top Democratic contenders on Twitter since they announced their bids for the White House earlier this year and is set to officially launch his campaign at a rally in Orlando, Fla., this week. The massive campaign rally is set to be attended by as many as 100,000 people in total, many of whom will be relegated outside to watch the event in massive screens outside Orlando's Amway Center.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/449036-trump-may-live-tweet-first-2020-democratic-debates-report

Drugmakers' lawsuit ramps up fight with Trump

The pharmaceutical and advertising industries are taking their fight with the Trump administration over drug price disclosures to court. Three drug companies — Amgen, Merck and Eli Lilly — and the nation’s largest advertising group last week announced they were suing the Trump administration over its new policy of requiring prescription drug manufacturers to disclose list prices in TV ads.

The plaintiffs argue that the rule violates their First Amendment rights, and the lawsuit seeks to overturn the administration’s latest effort to bring transparency to the medication pricing system.

The plaintiffs argue that the rule violates their First Amendment rights, and the lawsuit seeks to overturn the administration’s latest effort to bring transparency to the medication pricing system. The rule is set to take effect July 9, and the industry groups are asking for it to be put on hold before that time. A win for the drug industry would be a setback for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and could rob President Trump of an important accomplishment in the fight over drug prices. The rule is one of Trump’s most high-profile initiatives on drug pricing, which he has said is a priority for his administration. An industry loss, meanwhile, could lay bare some unsavory pricing practices. Trump has made lowering drug prices a top priority for the administration. But even if the rule survives the legal challenge, questions remain over how effective it will be at actually lowering drug prices.

Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan, said the lawsuit wasn’t surprising but that the final rule is not the biggest threat to the drug industry right now. “In the list of nasty things you can do to drug companies, this doesn’t make the cut,” Bagley said. “It goes to the fecklessness of the [rule] to begin with. It’s not designed to drive down drug spending, it’s made to give the impression that the Trump administration cares about drug spending.” Under the new policy, which was announced by HHS Secretary Alex Azar last month, drug manufacturers will have to state the list price of a 30-day supply of any drug that is covered through Medicare and Medicaid and costs at least $35 a month. According to HHS, the idea behind the rule is to make patients better informed so they can talk about the affordability of medicines with their doctors. At the time, Azar said there’s no reason patients should be kept in the dark about the full prices of the products they’re being sold. “Patients have a right to know, and if you’re ashamed of your drug prices, change your drug prices. It’s that simple,” Azar said last month when the administration announced the final rule.

The drug and advertising industries have been foreshadowing the lawsuit ever since the rule was first proposed. Drugmakers questioned the federal government’s legal standing for requiring the price disclosures. Drug companies also argued that list prices don’t reflect what patients actually pay for the drug, because those figures don’t reflect the discounts negotiated between insurers and middlemen, or patient assistance programs.

PhRMA, the nation’s top drug lobby, wants its members to disclose pricing on separate websites. One major drug maker, Johnson & Johnson, though, has aired commercials for a blood thinner, Xarelto, that discloses the list price. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA), which is joining with the drug companies in the lawsuit, filed comments on the proposed rule arguing that forcing pricing disclosures in TV ads is likely to mislead consumers and could violate First Amendment protections. Their lawsuit includes similar language. The final rule will mislead patients “about their out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs in a manner that even HHS admits may ‘confuse’ and ‘intimidate’ patients,” the ANA complaint said.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/448989-drugmakers-lawsuit-ramps-up-fight-with-trump

Roger Stone, fighting federal indictment, to visit Staten Island for event to raise funds for his defense

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – Roger Stone says he intends to have his day in court, and hopes voters in the only borough of NYC that swung for President Donald Trump will help finance his legal defense. A fundraiser, organized by local political commentator Frank Morano, will take place Saturday night at a catering hall, Annnadale Terrace, from 5 to 8 p.m.

“I intend to put up an extraordinarily vigorous legal defense, but that is very, very expensive,” Stone said in an interview with the Advance. A career political adviser, Stone hopes to raise $2 million to defend against a federal indictment that alleges he took steps to interfere with investigations into the Russian government’s role in the 2016 presidential election.

He faces seven counts in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia – one for obstructing an official proceeding, five for making false statements in Congressional testimony, and one for tampering with a government witness. In the Tuesday interview, Stone referred to himself as a political “warrior,” who has always operated within the rule of law, and said he is confident he will be vindicated in the trial scheduled to start Nov. 5. That "warrior” mindset goes back almost 50 years to a time when Stone worked on the 1972 reelection campaign of President Richard Nixon, whose portrait is tattooed on Stone’s upper back, at the age of 19. “Getting elected to public office is a precise, multi-million dollar, highly scientific process,” Stone said. “I’m a competitor. Nobody runs to lose. That said, you play within the rules that are written and I have always done so.” In addition to working for Nixon and President Trump, Stone also assisted on the presidential campaigns for Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole.

THE INDICTMENT Stone’s indictment came down in January, before the final report from the investigation led by Robert Mueller into Russian election meddling was published. The government witness that Stone is alleged to have tampered with is identified in the indictment only as a radio host who testified to the House Permanent Select Committee that he acted as a “go-between” for Stone and Wikileaks, the anti-secrecy group that released material stolen from Democratic groups, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign, ahead of the 2016 election. Stone identified that individual as radio host Randy Credico in a 2017 Facebook post.

Alleged evidence for witness tampering in the indictment includes text messages in which Stone is accused of urging the witness not to testify, going as far as threatening to take away the witness’ dog. Stone’s alleged false statements to Congress occurred in September 2017, and include claims that he did not communicate with the radio host via text or share information he obtained from the host with members of the Trump campaign. Stone’s political zeal and strategies, most often in favor of Republican candidates, has earned him the ire of opposing political operatives, and numerous profiles painting him as a man void of a moral compass. Even the Nixon Foundation, a private group dedicated to memorializing the late president who resigned following the Watergate scandal, has worked to distance itself from Stone. Following the unsealing of the federal indictment against him, the foundation posted on Twitter an assertion that Stone played a minimal role with the former president. “Mr. Stone, during his time as a student at George Washington University, was a junior scheduler on the Nixon reelection committee. Mr. Stone was not a campaign aide or adviser. Nowhere in the Presidential Daily Diaries from 1972 to 1974 does the name ‘Roger Stone’ appear,” a tweet from the foundation read.

https://www.silive.com/news/2019/06/roger-stone-fighting-mueller-indictment-to-visit-staten-island-for-event-to-raise-funds-for-his-defense.html?outputType=amp