Trump Weekly: White House postpones healthcare proposal after backlash

Catch up on the top industries and stocks that were impacted, or were predicted to be impacted, by the comments, actions and policies of President Trump with this weekly recap compiled by The Fly:

HEALTHCARE PROPOSAL: The White House plans to postpone its healthcare proposal following significant backlash from Congress, MS Now’s Jake Taylor reports, citing two White House officials. President Trump had intended to make an announcement as soon as Monday proposing a framework to address the cost of healthcare, including an extension of Obamacare subsidies, the author notes.

Speaker Mike Johnson has warned the White House that House Republicans do not want to extend enhanced Affordable Car Act, or ACA, subsidies, Olivia Beavers and Natalie Andrews of The Wall Street Journal report, citing people familiar with the matter. This message from Johnson comes as President Trump’s advisers were drafting a healthcare plan to extend the subsidies by two years. Publicly traded companies in the space include CVS Health (CVS), Centene (CNC), Cigna (CI), Elevance Health (ELV), Humana (HUM), Molina Healthcare (MOH) and UnitedHealth (UNH).

RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: President Donald Trump stated in a post to Truth Social, “Over the past week, my team has made tremendous progress with respect to ending the War between Russia and Ukraine (A War that would have NEVER started if I were President!). Last month 25,000 soldiers died. The original 28-Point Peace Plan, which was drafted by the United States, has been fine-tuned, with additional input from both sides, and there are only a few remaining points of disagreement. In the hopes of finalizing this Peace Plan, I have directed my Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with President Putin in Moscow and, at the same time, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll will be meeting with the Ukrainians. I will be briefed on all progress made, along with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. I look forward to hopefully meeting with President Zelenskyy and President Putin soon, but ONLY when the deal to end this War is FINAL or, in its final stages. Thank you for your attention to this very important matter, and let’s all hope that PEACE can be accomplished AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!” Publicly traded defense contractors include BAE Systems (BAESY), Boeing (BA), GE Aerospace (GE), General Dynamics (GD), HII (HII), L3Harris Technologies (LHX), Lockheed Martin (LMT), Northrop Grumman (NOC) and RTX (RTX).

TV OWNERSHIP CAP: President Donald Trump weighed in on the FCC’s potential move to raise or eliminate the current 39% cap on local TV station owners – saying he opposes it if the result would be an “expansion of the fake news networks,” citing ABC News (DIS) and NBC News (CMCSA) specifically, Variety’s Todd Spangler reports. His remarks stand in contrast to the position of FCC chairman Brendan Carr, who was appointed by Trump. Carr has been a vocal advocate for abolishing the FCC’s decades-old rule limiting TV station groups from owning outlets that reach more than 39% of U.S. households. The National Association of Broadcasters also supports eliminating the cap. Trump signaled he would oppose the move if it gave broader reach to “radical left” news networks, the publication adds. Of note, Nexstar (NXST), seeking to clear its $6.2B deal for rival TV broadcast station group Tegna (TGNA), officially filed applications last week with the FCC that include a request for a waiver of the agency’s 39% ownership cap for local TV broadcasters.

MEDICARE PRICE CUTS: JPMorgan views the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ announced negotiated maximum fair prices in Medicare for the 15 drugs selected for 2027 Inflation Reduction Act price negotiations as implying 35%-40% net price cuts for the products included. This is roughly in line with JPMorgan’s assumption for modestly greater cuts versus the previous cycle of 20%-25%, and in-line with Q3 commentary from Novo Nordisk (NVO), Teva (TEVA) and AbbVie (ABBV), the firm tells investors in a research note. JPMorgan says the focus of this round of negotiations is centered on Novo’s semaglutide and Teva’s Austedo. As it relates to Eli Lilly (LLY), the firm does not see any read-through from the semaglutide maximum fair price at this point given that Lilly’s recent deal with the Trump administration provides for known Zepbound and Mounjaro prices in Medicare.