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Donald Trump has called out a 'neurotic' businessman for taking a 'fat shot drug' while revealing his plans to slash the price of prescription drugs.
The president dug up a rather bizarre anecdote when he announced his administration's new plan to inflict price controls on American medications on Monday (May 12), that could see prescriptions drop by 80 percent while cranking up export restrictions and yet more tariffs on foreign drugmakers.
Trump said he was inspired to make the change after hearing about the low costs of weight loss drugs in the UK from a friend.
Although the purpose of his announcement from the Roosevelt Room of the White House was to reveal his grand plan to slash drugs prices, the internet has been sent into a frenzy over his cut-throat comments that called out his unnamed buddy for being overweight.
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"A friend of mine who's a business man, very, very, very top guy... Most of you would have heard of him. Highly neurotic, brilliant businessman, seriously overweight," Trump began. "And he takes the 'fat shot drug'."
"He called me up and he said, 'President,' he calls me, he used to call me Donald... So that's a nice respect. But he's a rough guy. Smart guy, very successful, very rich... [He said] 'President could I ask you a question? I'm in London and I just paid for this damn fat drug I take.' I said, 'It's not working.'"
The 78-year-old continued: "He said, 'I just paid $88 and in New York I pay 1,300 dollars. What the hell is going on?'"
Trump said the price discrepancy prompted him to confront a pharmaceutical company rep and accused companies of 'justifying this crap for years'.
He said he found out the US charges higher based on research and development costs, adding: "Well... other countries should pay research and development, too. It’s for their benefit ... so for the first time in many years, we'll slash the cost of prescription drugs, and we will bring fairness to America."
To this end, he signed an executive order that demands drug manufacturers charge US citizens the same price for drugs as the lowest-paying developed countries - or face punishment.
The Department of Commerce and the Office of the US Trade Representative have also been drafted in to investigate foreign countries 'that extort drug companies by blocking their products unless they accept the bottom line and very low dollar amounts for their product,' Trump continued.
He said this 'discriminatory' practice has been 'unfairly shifting the cost burden onto American patients' and, in true Trump tariff threatening style, said he would simply axe American imports of non-pharmaceutical products from abroad until those governments agree to pay higher prices, citing countries from the European Union as examples.
“The biggest thing we're going to do is we're going to tell those countries, like those represented by the European Union, that, you know, that game is up. Sorry.
"And if they want to get cute, then they don't have to sell cars into the United States anymore,” he added.
His comments came just before the POTUS jetted off to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, for his four-day trip where it is anticipated he will be receive a $400 million 'flying palace', a luxurious Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar's royal family, in a first-of-a-kind lavish present ever given to the US from a foreign government.