Thread by @emeriticus

Don Jr. told people not to boycott Bud Light because they give to the GOP. Trump sided with Disney against DeSantis; Disney gave a Trump PAC $10.5 million. Trump killed a vaccine safety commission; Pfizer was the biggest health donor to his inauguration and he owns Pfizer stock.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Trump sided with Disney, in part, because he's a bitter liberal who hates DeSantis. But there's money here, too.

Disney gave $10.5 million to Trump's America First Action PAC in the 2020 election cycle--more than it gave to then-candidate Joe Biden during the same period.

By siding with Disney against DeSantis, Trump is defending a corporation that has given to him generously in the past. Maybe he thinks Disney will remember the favor as he runs for president again. Who knows. But he's on the wrong side of the issue for purely selfish reasons.

But the vaccine stuff is where we see how compromised Trump is and what a poison pill he has become.

University of Chicago Professors Casey Mulligan and Tomas Philipson, key members of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers, revealed how the former president worked with corporations to aggressively develop and promote vaccines during the pandemic. thechicagothinker.com/exclusive-from…

It is an astonishing piece because the damning details are portrayed as the good fruits of "Chicago economics-style thinking"—which is to say it was a triumph of the neoliberal ideology Trump claimed to oppose.

It's worth noting Trump seemed even *more* eager to rush these vaccines than Anthony Fauci. See this exchange: trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-stat…

The former Trump advisers said Warp Speed was the product of Trump's deregulatory agenda. "From the time the 2016 election was decided, President Trump prioritized eliminating the huge number of regulations that were holding Americans back from realizing their full potential."

"Deregulation at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, part of HHS) was an important component of this overall deregulatory agenda."

That becomes important soon.

In most cases, cutting red tape is a good thing. This was not one of them. These vaccines were imposed on people by corporations with an interest in pushing them at a time when their safety and efficacy were not properly understood. telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/…

While lauding the financial windfall pharmaceutical giants enjoyed, the former Trump advisers suggested that the only alternative would have been extended lockdowns—which Trump, of course, supported. washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/…

In the background of this are other revelations that Trump, too, had a vested interest in the drugs he pushed on the American people.

According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Trump approached him about chairing a commission on vaccine safety. In February 2017, Kennedy told Science about his talks with Trump: science.org/content/articl…

In the end, nothing came of the proposal.

What happened? Money talked, and they listened.

Kennedy Jr. connected one piece of the puzzle recently. In an interview with Jimmy Dore, he said:

https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1635418049187840001?s=20

Documents filed with the Federal Election Commission show Pfizer gave $1 million to help finance Trump's inauguration. docquery.fec.gov/pdf/286/201704…

An analysis by Spectrum found "Trump's inaugural committee raised $107 million, more than twice as much as for any previous presidential investiture," and reported that "no health company gave more to Trump’s event than Pfizer." spectrumnews.org/news/health-co…

According to a solicitation brochure obtained and posted online by the Center for Public Integrity, Pfizer's donation entitled it to four tickets to a "leadership luncheon" with "select Cabinet appointees and House and Senate leadership." s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3227…

Moreover, a review of his business holdings showed Trump "owns stock in Pfizer as well as Johnson & Johnson, pharmaceutical giants that have come under criticism from parts of the GOP base for producing and marketing two of the coronavirus vaccines." washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/…

Trump's affair with Big Pharma also empowered some of the worst petty tyrants, like Scott Gottlieb, who led Trump’s FDA from May 2017 until April 2019.

After leaving the Trump administration and joining Pfizer's board, he flagged tweets about natural immunity being superior to vaccine immunity for Twitter to censor. It is superior—but that's not good for the vaccine business. foxnews.com/media/twitter-…

In particular, Gottlieb targeted a tweet by former Trump official Dr. Brett Giroir, who wrote, "It's now clear #COVID19 natural immunity is superior to #vaccine immunity, by ALOT. There's no scientific justification for #vax proof if a person had prior infection."

Twitter complied with Gottlieb's ask, noted his authority in correspondence as "the former FDA commissioner," applied a "misleading" label to the tweet, and prevented users from liking or sharing it, telling them, "Learn why health officials recommend a vaccine for most people."

Rep. Thomas Massie tweeted the same thing about natural versus vaccine immunity and was flagged just like Giroir. He noted the significance of the timing during a recent hearing.

https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1633902523072544768

So a guy picked by Trump to run the FDA coordinated with Twitter after joining Pfizer's board to suppress scientifically sound takes on natural immunity at a critical moment.

We know this now thanks to Elon Musk, who Trump called a "bullshit artist." thehill.com/homenews/state…

Everything @RepThomasMassie said about Biden and censorship was true. However, as Mulligan and Philipson explained, Gottlieb, Biden, and Pfizer couldn't have done this without Trump's help. Trump laid the groundwork for the biomedical security state.

The Bud Light, Disney, and Pfizer controversies show Trump and his political enterprise are deeply compromised by money, which cuts against the narrative of Trump being inoculated from these influences due to his wealth. That's just not the case.

Ironically, DeSantis, who Trump portrayed as captured by donors, has bucked them harder than Trump. Some complained DeSantis might actually believe in the social and cultural causes he fights for--unlike Trump, who is easily manipulated by money.ft.com/content/9fa261…

MAGA Inc. is ultimately the new establishment, only it pretends to be populist while selling itself to the worst enemies of its supporters. contra.substack.com/p/selling-out-…