Fatter than ever: Trump mocks friend's Ozempic use while talking drug prices

US President Donald Trump on Friday used an anecdote about a wealthy friend’s failed weight-loss treatment to underline his argument for cutting prescription drug prices in the United States.

Speaking during rambling remarks aimed at promoting funding for rural healthcare, Trump veered into an anecdote about what he described as a “very, very rich” and “very powerful” friend whose experience with the weight-loss drug Ozempic, he said, has been anything but slimming.

“But a friend of mine — a very smart guy, very, very rich, very powerful man actually — but he’s very fat,” Trump told the audience. “And he took the fat drug. I won’t give you which one. It was Ozempic. I won’t tell you that.”

Trump said the unnamed friend, who travels frequently for business, recently complained about the vast price difference for the same medication on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

“He goes to London all the time. He can’t walk across the street, but he’s a great businessman,” Trump said. “And he tells me, ‘President, in New York I pay $1,300 for this drug. In London, sir, I paid just $87.’”

According to Trump, the medication was identical — made in the same plant, by the same company — highlighting what he described as an unfair pricing system that leaves American patients paying far more than consumers in other countries.

Still, Trump said he could not resist delivering some blunt feedback when he last saw his friend.

“I told him the drug does not work on you,” Trump said. “Because I saw him recently — he’s actually fatter than ever. I said, you’re going to have to go to something else. But it does work on a lot of people.”

Trump added that his friend took the remark in stride. “He said, ‘Thanks, you make me feel good,’” Trump recalled. “I said, well, I’ve got to be truthful.”

The offhand comments came as Trump was pressing lawmakers on Capitol Hill to address healthcare access in rural America and rein in prescription drug prices, a long-running theme of his public remarks.

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