U.S. President Donald Trump attends a maternal health event in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 11, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
President Donald Trump joked about his "friend" he insulted who is using one of the popular weight-loss drugs Trump refers to as the "fat drug" or the "fat shot."
Speaking at an event for mothers, Trump bragged about bringing the cost of drugs down through his TrumpRx program. According to Trump, the same box in London is $87 and in New York, he said, it's $1370. It's a story that Trump has told for about a year, though the numbers change.
"He could be a famous guy," Trump said about his friend. "He's begging me not to release this name. He's a very highly neurotic, very sort of a fat slob, but he's a brilliant man. We know many of those people. He's a brilliant guy, actually."
"But, said, uh, President, what's going on here? He didn't need the money. He's rich as hell, but he just couldn't understand why he had to pay so little in London," rambled Trump. "He went to London, and he couldn't understand it. He said this is crazy and [it] actually motivated me in a certain way, because he was very smart. He actually, he did a study, he actually sent his people and he traced this medicine. And he found out it was the box here is the same box as he had in New York. He made the same plant and it costs, you know, 10 times more here than it did in London, and that there were worse stories than that. And I said that's it, it's over, we're going to do it. That got me really motivated."
Trump repeated that his friend was desperate not to have his name released publicly.
"He's begging me not to release his name because he is a well-known person, and I so destroyed his reputation in terms of his physicality," said Trump. "Just as I said, you know, you've had a big impact on medicine because you got — you got to be better than any normal person could have."
Trump told Americans that Medicare would eventually cover the weight loss drug. The Trump administration announced in early November that it had struck a deal with leading GLP-1 pharmaceutical manufacturers, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. He claimed that Americans would soon be able to obtain the GLP-1 medications at a lower rate for all Americans. It hasn't happened yet, however.
There were already talks about getting lower prices for those on Medicare, but AARP explained that the drug price negotiation program won't become available until 2027.
Last week, CBS News reported that Trump pledged to make drugs cheaper, but thus far many have actually increased.