President Donald Trump’s new scheme to transform the federal government into a pharmacy is already raising red flags for legal and health experts.

Earlier this week, Trump announced the launch of TrumpRx, a strangely socialist-sounding service where consumers can procure cheap prescription drugs from the U.S. government—just days before Trump’s 100 percent tariff on pharmaceutical products is set to cause prices to skyrocket. Pfizer has agreed to provide prescription medicine through the purchasing platform at a “significant discount” of on average close to 50 percent, according to a press release from the company.

But not everyone is convinced.

Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University, told Mandatory that TrumpRx was “more of a gimmick” to make drug companies happy. In reality, the site is likely “not going to help the average person” who purchases medications through their insurance. Even with the discounts, prescriptions could still cost thousands of dollars, likely much higher than a typical insurance co-pay.

The White House did not clarify how exactly prices would be determined, and Pfizer’s press release noted that the “specific terms of the agreement remain confidential.”

It’s not just consumers who would be sold short. Independent pharmacists have voiced concerns that the service could hurt their businesses. And The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board excoriated Trump’s move Wednesday as “political extortion” of drug companies, threatening them with gargantuan tariffs if they failed to cut a deal with his administration.

Eliza Orlins, a career public defender and former candidate for Manhattan district attorney who produces social media news explainers, posted a video Wednesday in which she begged her followers not to enter their personal information into the TrumpRx website. “This is one of the scariest things I’ve seen in 2025—and that’s saying a lot,” she said.

“In order to use the site, you’d have to tell the government exactly what medications you take, what conditions you have, when you refill them,” she explained, noting, “And the White House hasn’t said data they collect, how it will be stored, who gets access, or what happens when the program ends.”

Orlins argued that the discount Trump had promised came at a cost. “That cost is your privacy. Because once you hand over this information, it is theirs forever, and you will never know where it went,” she said.

The Trump administration has a history of playing it fast and loose with Americans’ private information. In August, a whistleblower revealed that DOGE employees had uploaded a copy of a Social Security database onto a cloud server, making the information vulnerable to leaks and hackers. It could also be unwise to let the government know your medical information considering the administration’s attitudes about vaccines and antidepressants.

The copy-and-paste shutdown message broadcast by several executive branch agency chiefs earlier this week affected more parts of the government than previously understood.

Treasury Department employees and workers at the IRS also received near mirror images of the ethics-violating directive, according to an internal email shared with The New Republic.

The email, headed, “Planning for Potential Lapse in Funding,” issued guidance for Treasury Department workers on the eve of the government shutdown, including staff furloughs and continued work plans. But it also overtly blames the shutdown on Democrats, in apparent violation of the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch.

It was signed by the assistant secretary for management at the Treasury, John York, a former policy analyst for the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation.

“President Trump opposes a government shutdown, and strongly supports the enactment of H.R. 5371, which is a clean Continuing Resolution to fund the government through November 21, and already passed the U.S. House of Representatives,” the email reads. “Unfortunately, Democrats are blocking this Continuing Resolution in the U.S. Senate due to unrelated policy demands. If Congressional Democrats maintain their current posture and refuse to pass a clean Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded before midnight on September 30, 2025, federal appropriated funding will lapse.

“A funding lapse will result in certain government activities ceasing due to a lack of appropriated funding,” it continues. “In addition, designated pre-notified employees of this agency would be temporarily furloughed. P.L. 116-1 (which provides for furloughed employees to be paid for the period of furlough at their normal rate of pay once appropriations are restored) would apply.

So far, 1,736 Treasury Department employees have been furloughed, according to The New York Times’ shutdown monitor. Until Congress passes a resolution to continue funding the government, the agency will not issue regulations or guidance. The IRS will continue to operate for the first five business days of the shutdown.

“The agency has contingency plans in place for executing an orderly shutdown of activities that would be affected by any lapse in appropriations forced by Congressional Democrats. Further information about those plans will be distributed should a lapse occur,” the email says.

Employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Social Security Administration received a similar message.

Ethics experts have argued that the message could also be in violation of the Hatch Act, which is designed to limit partisan messaging from federal employees.

York was caught in another internal email drama earlier this year when he issued an OPM-related memo from the official “Treasury Secretary” inbox, failing to sign as the assistant secretary for management while apparently filling the shoes of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

World leaders laughed at President Donald Trump on Thursday, as Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama mocked Trump for repeatedly mistaking his country with Armenia.

Trump has, time and again, falsely claimed to have brokered peace between Azerbaijan and “Albania,” while attempting to brag about a peace declaration he helped arrange between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Standing beside Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at a summit for European leaders in Denmark, Rama jokingly reprimanded French........

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