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This is later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you

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here weekday afternoons on the Drive.
Senator James Langford, we are not only

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getting ready for a four day holiday
for many for the big Independence Day,

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but we are also on the cusp
of another very significant anniversary. Yeah,

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we really are. So we're right
at the Dobbs anniversary. So we're talking

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one year ago this week. The
Supreme Court stepped in and said, note,

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the Supreme Court fifty years ago was
wrong when they changed the rules without

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law and shifted it two hundred and
fifty years or so as a nation.

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Two hundred of those years, states
have selected how abortion is going to be

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done into individual states. Nineteen seventy
three, the Court said, nah,

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we shouldn't do it that way.
It just switched back to like it was

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fifty one years ago, where this
is legislatures and states all over the country

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that are actually making that decision.
And now since in the past year,

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half of the states have made a
decision to limit abortion, and half of

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the states have said they either want
to increase it or keep it. But

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that's the nature of this dialogue about
how do we value children and what's the

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value of a life. Well,
they also seem to underscore with a recent

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decision where they kind of threw some
election law back to the state when they

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stepped in and said, yeah,
the states have certain election laws, but

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the Feds do as well. And
you tend to listen to the national media.

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This dad's decision. Oh at banned
abortion. At Band abortion didn't ban

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abortion. It just said the states
can decide. Absolutely did not ban abortion.

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Abortion is still legal in many parts
of the nation. We said,

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as a state in Oklahoma, you
know what, we think all children are

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valuable. We don't think some children
are disposable in some children are valuable.

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We think all children are valuable.
California stepped forward and said, not only

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are we going to have abortion or
state, We're going to do it literally

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right up until the moment before birth, and we're going to help people in

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other states that want to have an
abortion to be able to come here.

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There's a completely different attitude about the
value of each child in California than what

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there is an Oklahoma. So the
debate is both a legal debate of what's

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going to be legal in each state, but it's also a heart debate to

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be able to say, Okay,
what is it. Who are we as

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a country? What do we really
think about the value of every single child?

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Who has more rights here? A
child or the parent or do they

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both have rights? And if they
both have rights, how do we be

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respectful of both a child and the
parent here? But understand there is a

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child in this conversation. Well,
in most states that still allow abortion are

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also limiting it to a heartbeat.
At heartbeat, you can no longer abort,

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so that kind of is hyperbole and
literal at the same time. Yeah,

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it's been interesting so that the dialogue
really, I think is the place

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it should be. We should have
this ongoing dialogue about when is a child

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a child. That's not a legal
question, that's an ethical moral question.

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Some people say a child is not
a child literally until they're out of the

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womb fully delivered, than they're a
child. Other people will say literally ten

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minutes before they're born, that's when
they stop being a child. Some people

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will back it up to viability,
which is about twenty one week suggestation is

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viability. Some people would look at
it and say, no, it's when

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the child can have pain. That's
at about fifteen weeks of gestation. Some

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would say it's a heartbeat that's about
six weeks, and then some would say

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it's that conception. It's when the
DNA is different from the mom, So

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you know you've got a different person
there. You've got cell division happening with

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unique DNA different than the mom's DNA. That's when it's a different person.

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Let's have that argument. Let's talk
about it. But for Pete's sake,

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let's at least talk and acknowledge that
is a baby in that conversation. So

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let's talk about when we value that
life. Senator James Langford, you're also

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on the Finance Committee, and I
know there's been a lot of work about

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drug prices lately. There have been, and we've got some major pieces coming.

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I've worked on this for several years
on what's called pharmacy benefit managers.

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It's incredibly complicated on the details of
how it runs, but the basic part

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is drug companies don't sell the drugs
directly to the pharmacy. There is a

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warehousing system for wholesale, and then
this pharmacy benefit manager is in between everyone

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the drug companies, the warehousers,
and then the folks that are the pharmacies

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themselves. They're setting a lot of
the formularies and a lot of the prices,

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and there's an awful lot of gaming
in the system that are happening at

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those ppfs, and so I've been
very focused on how do we actually solve

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this problem to lower the cost of
prescriptions so that the money that can be

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saved doesn't just go to some entity, it actually goes to the actual consumer

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to be able to save that money, because we're paying a lot more for

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drugs than we should and the person
in the middle is the one who's making

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all the money. So we've got
several solutions on this. We've got generics

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that are coming up, For instance, that the pharmacy benefit managers are making

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sure they go on the more expensive
branded tier. So when you go into

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pharmacy and say, hey, is
there a generic of this, and the

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pharmacist says yes, but it's the
same price, that should never be So

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that generic should always be allowed to
be at a cheaper price than the branded

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price, and so there's competition in
the market. The PBMs are blocking that.

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I've got a build to be able
to solve that. But there's a

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bunch of details that we've gone through
to try to find out where are the

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loopholes and then closing those down.
I would ask your doctor when you get

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the prescription, hey, make sure
that you prescribe the generic. That way,

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there is no middleman to ask.
Yeah, that's a good thing to

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do, except for some of the
doctors actually make more money if they prescribe

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the branded rather than the generic,
but often the pharmacists. In fact,

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it's one of the things we actually
changed a few years ago. It used

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to be illegal for the pharmacists to
be able to tell you there's a cheaper

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option here. We change that and
so the PBM's then shifted it and said,

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well, we'll just put the generics
on the branded tier and we'll try

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to drive them out that way.
On it, there's always this fight for

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them to be able to sell them
more expensive because they get a cut of

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the more expensive We're trying to make
sure the consumer at the end of it,

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all of us actually get acts as
to the cheaper drug. Senator James

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Langford and are there particular drugs that
are targeted here? Are there particular drugs

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you're featuring when you think about this
legislation? So I go through every drug

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that has gone through what is the
initial patent process. So when a new

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drug comes out, they're protected for
several years. They can sell it at

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a higher price because they're trying to
make their money back from all the development.

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But after about a decade they've got
to allow generic competition. It's those

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drugs that are about ten years old, and that, by the way,

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that's the vast majority of drugs.
Those are the drugs that I am actually

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going after to be able to make
sure we get those at a lower price.

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Senator James Langford on you, You've
got another a lot of other stuff

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that is in the work too,
you have time to touch on those.

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Sure, yeah, obviously a lot
that we're working on. The border still,

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I mean, this is still one
of the biggest issues. I've been

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back and forth. In fact,
I literally just finished up a call walking

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through some different border issues to be
able to try to figure out how we're

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going to resolve how we can build
some unity. I know everybody gets frustrated

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with the Senate. Believe me,
I'm on the front row. I get

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very frustrated with the Senate. But
you've got to build Republicans and Democrats to

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acknowledge the same set of facts and
determine the same set of solutions. One

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of those big ones is actually how
you're dealing with asylum. Who qualifies for

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asylum? Right now, the Biden
administration literally just waves just about everybody in

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and says, yeah, you y
you qualify, you qualify. We've got

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to be able to tighten that doubt
in the law, so this president and

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no future president can literally just wave
people in and say, I'm just not

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going to enforce the border. I'm
going to make everybody automatically eligible for asylum.

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That's not how it works in the
vast majority of the world. Certainly

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it's not how it works in our
neighbors. So I want to be able

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to make sure that we can actually
clean that up. So we've got a

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lot of work going on to be
able to fix that issue, because we've

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got to solve the millions of people
coming across our border unchecked and unvetted.

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Well, just the other week you
were down there. Is it any worse

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or any better or about the same. It is about the same. We're

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still In fact, the Bidy administration
was just growing about how the numbers were

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down. But we had to ride
about one hundred and fifty thousand people that

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illegally across the border just in the
last month. So those those numbers may

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be down, but they may be
down by a handful. The numbers are

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still extremely high. Senator James Langford. I know it's been hot lately,

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but I don't think it's as hot
here as it is in Washington, DC.

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Figuratively and literally. We'll take that
the temperatures down a little bit in

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DC. Yeah, you know what, I'd take Oklahoma heat and being home

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in Oklahoma more than being in Washington, d C. In time. But

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we've got to get the work done. Well, it's that humidity in that

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area. It just doesn't go away, does it. It just stays there.

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So it doesn't go away. When
you're that close to the Atlantic,

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you just have it all the time. That's all right, It's got to

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be done, and there's work to
be done, and there are real productive

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things that are actually going on energy
policy, on immigration. We've got some

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very blunt conversations that are happening right
now to say, everyone just admit the

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facts. We've got to have more
energy, we've got to be able to

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solve the border. Let's actually get
to it and stop just talking about let's

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do it. Yeah, I'm tired
of seeing those Oklahoma pump jacks. Sits

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still. Yeah, at the end
of the day, we need every form

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of energy. I'm not opposed to
electric or anything else when solar bring it

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all. We need all forms of
energy, but at least be realistic.

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There is no future in the next
thirty to fifty years that doesn't include oil

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and natural gas. So everyone can
talk about what we may use in the

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days ahead. Here's what we are
using and will be using for decades.

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And anyone who's driving an F one
fifty pickup right now assumes they're going to

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be driving it for decades that we
need to make sure that they can still

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do that. And the second thing
is I am not going to allow us

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to finally be energy independent of Saudi
Arabia and then to become energy dependent on

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China. That's not going to happen. And so my five years to say,

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if we're going to use electric vehicles, fine, we've got to get

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the lithium here, not from China. Senator to James Langford, thanks for

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joining us today and have a happy
holiday weekend. Thanks for listening to Later

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with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews
Podcast, and remember to listen to The

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Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to
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