Donald Trump won last year’s election, promising to get rid of radical American leftists, but on Monday he adopted some policies.
When the president ordered pharmaceutical companies to cut prices for U.S. drugs on Monday, his Republican health secretary admitted that Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders had a clear response in the president's plan.
“This is the fulcrum for Bernie Sanders’s run for president,” said Robert F Kennedy, Jr., referring to Vermont’s senior legislator. “I have a few kids who are fans of Democrats (and) Bernie Sanders and their eyes were wet when I told them that this was going to happen.”
The remaining populists are inspired by more than Trump’s efforts to reduce the rising costs of medical care in the United States.
In recent weeks, he has mastered policies that are often espoused by progressive Democrats, from higher taxes to very affluent prices to stricter prices, making them their own taxes, to the discomfort of many in his party.
“I think Trump realizes these things are popular, he’s a guy who loves popularity,” said Liz Pancotti, managing director of policy and advocacy for Groundwork Partnership, a left-leaning economic think tank and Sanders assistant to Capitol Hill.
Trump's shift in certain areas of tax and health policy has already happened as his poll numbers declined in his handling of the economy and the severe market whiplash in tariff plans.
He may also hope to undermine the democratic attacks ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. During Trump's first term, Democrats restored the House majority by criticizing the president and his party for imposing huge tax cuts on the rich while seeking to cut health care for middle-income Americans, and the president will hope to avoid his fate during his second term.
But the change also reflects the broader momentum of Trump’s recasting Republicans into working-class parties rather than business parties – a shift that began in his first term but was more evident in his second period.
Last week, the president said he would support raising the highest income tax rate for individuals earning more than $2.5 million a year, 39.7% from 37%, which goes against the party’s traditional opposition to any tax increase.
"It's really a redistribution, and I'm willing to do that," Trump told the Oval Office reporter. "I'd love to be able to give people a big breakthrough by giving up some of my stuff."
Earlier this year, Trump supported the removal of priority tax treatment for private equity and hedge fund profits (called “carrying interest”) in a single shot across Wall Street.
He threatened to take several measures under Monday's drug price order, which would also be aversion to Republicans, including export controls for pharmaceutical companies selling their products in countries with lower drug prices.
Trump also said the FTC should be prepared to take “enforcement actions” to deal with any “anti-competitive” behavior in the industry.
Sanders seems to approve of the White House’s actions. "I agree with President Trump: It's anger that the American people have paid for the highest price of prescription drugs so far," the Vermont senator said in a statement.
"But let's be clear," he added. "The problem is that prescription drugs in Europe and Canada are too low. The problem is that last year the extraordinary greedy pharmaceutical industry has deprived the American people of more than $10 billion of profits."
Trump has always had populist economic conditions. It has been largely in his protectionist trade policy, but is now becoming increasingly apparent in other areas.
In the 2024 presidential election against Kamala Harris, he proposed a series of tax measures, including eliminating income taxes for tips and overtime work, aimed at supporting lower- and middle-class Americans.
But when she proposed measures to control grocery costs, his campaign also slammed Harris' "price control" and "socialism" that included a federal price ban, similar to his latest threat to pharmaceutical companies.
If Trump’s embrace of Sanders-style populism will be apparent later this year, if he sticks to plans to crack down on pharmaceutical companies, and whether he can get his preferred tax measures through Congress (including high taxes for the wealthy).
"I don't think the focus within the Republican Party is good to raise higher taxes. Republicans are willing to be closely related to these policies."
Currently, Trump’s economic plan – including widespread tax cuts in tax volumes and substantial spending cuts on government programs that help low-income families – is still beneficial to high-income families and harmful to others in Americans, so his populism is primarily manifested.
“If populism is a horseshoe, he sometimes keeps going to the edge to the right,” Pankoti said. “(But) it’s hard for me to say we have a populist president when in fact the policies he actually made are largely inconsistent with his remarks.”