Fact; In the 2020 Congressional fundraising cycle,
Senator Bernie Sanders was also the top recipient of
donors employed in 66 other industry classifications
ranging from accounting to waste management to marijuana.
_
Fact Check:
RFK Jr. Misrepresented Data
To Claim Bernie Sanders Accepted Millions from Pharmaceutical Industry
False
This rating indicates that the primary elements of a claim are demonstrably false.
Context:
The figure cited by Kennedy referred to the industry in which individual donors
were employed.
It did not refer to funds originating from, or directed by, pharmaceutical companies.
On Jan. 30, 2025, during the second day of his Senate confirmation hearings, health and human services secretary nominee
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. implied that Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders had accepted
"millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry," whose donations were intended to protect the industry's interests.
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KENNEDY:
In 2020, you were the single largest receiver of pharmaceutical money.
SANDERS:
Because I had small contributions from workers from all over this country.
Workers. Not a nickel from corporate PACs. … They came from workers.
This talking point comes from an analysis of Federal Election Commission data
done by the nonprofit political donation tracker OpenSecrets,
but it was a misuse of that analysis.
Sanders pushed back on X (archived) the next day:
"0 donations from pharma CEOs.
0 donations from Wall St. CEOs.
0 donations from oil company CEOs.
8 million from working people giving $27 at a time.
I am very proud of that fact."
Corporations themselves cannot donate directly to federal candidates, but they can make donations through corporate PACs.
The owners of companies and their employees also can make individual donations.
For donations that exceed $200, campaigns are generally required to ask for information about the industry in which the contributor works,
and they are required to disclose that information if provided.
From that official data, OpenSecrets determines the industries in which a candidate's donors worked based on its own methodology. OpenSecrets explains that:
In the 2019-20 Congressional funding cycle, Sanders received more money
from people employed in the field classified by OpenSecrets as "pharmaceuticals/health products" ($1.4 million) than any other member of Congress.
He also received roughly $400,000 from people employed in "pharmaceutical manufacturing."
"This does not mean he received nearly $2 million from "the pharmaceutical industry," — it means the money was from people employed, in any capacity, in that field.
For his presidential campaign in 2020, Sanders pledged "to not knowingly accept any contributions over $200 from the PACs, lobbyists, or executives of health insurance or pharmaceutical companies,"
while noting that "The pledge does not apply to rank-and-file workers employed by pharmaceutical giants and health insurance companies."
According to OpenSecrets, 70% of the money raised by Sanders from 2015 to 2020 originated from small individual donors contributing less than $200.
Multiple analyses of his 2020 donations have suggested that the people giving to that campaign were not executives.
The donations tallied by OpenSecrets and cited by Kennedy
almost exclusively come from rank-and-file workers.
To characterize this grouping of data as an industry donation is misleading,
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bernie-rfk-big-pharma/
Fri, January 31, 2025 at 4:28 PM
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