A video has resurfaced of Kamala Harris discussing how she would use the force of the American government to take over the patents of drug companies if they wouldn’t reduce prices.

Here’s the clip:

“I will snatch their patent, so that we [the American government] will take over. Yes we can do that! The question is: ‘Do you have the will to do it’!? I have the will to do it.”

I double checked and this is legit. She is talking about taking over the patents of drug companies, which allows them to recoup all of the money they spent on investments in a particular drug and prevent competition in the process:

On Friday night, Sen. Kamala Harris made a campaign trail promise that grabbed some attention: If drug companies refuse to lower their prices, “I will snatch their patent so we can take over.”

According to the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel, somebody in attendance asked the obvious question: Can you do that? “Yes, we can do that,” Harris replied. “We just need the will to do that.”

This whole debate centers on the patent system. The way the US drug development system works is pharmaceutical companies are granted long monopolies on new drugs, which is supposed to reward them for new treatments and allow them to recoup the money they invested in researching and developing them.

But the resulting lack of competition also gives them wide leverage to set high prices. If the government were able to break those monopolies and grant patents to other competing companies, that would help to bring prices down. That’s the logic of the promise Harris and others are making.

I know that nobody likes high drug prices, however the effect of a policy like this would be to kill the innovation we also love in the pharmaceutical industry. For example, I take a drug that costs my insurance company about $2400 per month. It’s an insane price, but the drug was developed about 10 years ago. It’s still very new so there are no generics yet.

But if it weren’t for this oral medicine, my life would be very different and not for the better. I don’t know how much the company spent in development of this unnamed drug, but if someone like a president Kamala were to just steal their patent to force generics onto the market, why would any company spend the time and money necessary to develop new drugs in the first place? Drug companies don’t just pour decades of research and money into new drug development out of the goodness of their hearts.

This is what a Kamala presidency would look like. She’s a radical leftist tyrant who sees the Constitution as a road block to be overcome, not as ideal necessary for liberty.