OPINION:
The Golden Age that President Trump has promised is unfolding before our eyes.
The southern border is being secured, energy dominance is back and the foot of government is being lifted off the neck of American business. Yet for the Golden Age to truly begin, there is one last high cost that congressional Republicans must address: prescription drug prices.
About 90% of Americans believe it is important for our government to take action on drug prices, and more than 70% of Trump supporters believe Congress must deliver relief at the pharmacy counter.
If Republicans want to win the midterm elections in November, they cannot rest on their economic laurels. They must work with Mr. Trump to deliver real relief to the millions of Americans who are desperate for help when they pick up their prescriptions.
The president understands that Republicans cannot claim victory on the cost of living while drug prices remain sky high. He has rallied House and Senate Republicans to own this issue, backed by polling from Tony Fabrizio showing that the base trusts Mr. Trump, not the old guard, to finally break the cost curve while protecting the innovation that saves lives.
For our growing community of retirees, economic stability hangs by a thread, often dependent on whether their monthly budget can withstand the shock of prescription costs. When pharmaceutical giants and middlemen inflate prices to pad profits, they are looting the fixed incomes of American seniors.
To protect our constituents’ financial liberty, we must prioritize their survival over special interest profiteering.
Mr. Trump has already taken decisive action. His April 2025 executive order directs the administration to pursue most-favored-nation pricing, expand TrumpRx-style transparency and competition, reform pharmacy benefit managers and, critically, work with Congress to fix the Inflation Reduction Act’s flawed pill penalty by aligning the treatment of small-molecule drugs with biologics.
This balanced “America First” approach lowers costs for patients today without sacrificing the breakthroughs we will need tomorrow.
Republican lawmakers must stand shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Trump on this full agenda. Supporting middlemen and foreign freeloading while American families ration insulin is not conservative. It is a surrender to the status quo.
If Republicans are seen protecting the wrong interests while their constituents suffer at the pharmacy counter, we will hand Democrats a lethal weapon at the midterms.
The political reality this year is stark. Suburban moms and working-class families who joined the Trump coalition did so because they believed he would fight for them, not for the special interests. They want results, not excuses.
They do not care about legislative complexity. They care that their copay is higher than their electric bill.
We need our leaders to act as a firewall against Big Pharma’s worst abuses: price gouging, opaque middleman schemes and global freeloading. At the same time, we must embrace Mr. Trump’s pro-patient and pro-innovation reforms.
We need our congressional Republicans to show they are working with Mr. Trump to finally bring down the price of prescription drugs.
Mr. Trump has opened the door to a populist pro-patient future where the free market actually serves the consumer, not Big Pharma. Yet he cannot do this work alone. The Republican Party must decide: Are we the party of the status quo, or are we the party of the people?
To win in November, the choice is clear. We must crush the cost of care, deliver Mr. Trump’s “America First” drug pricing agenda and finally put the American patient and American innovation first.
• JD Longo is the mayor of Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania.
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