U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) questioned entrepreneur and television star Mark Cuban on the cost of prescription drugs in a Special Committee on Aging hearing on Wednesday.

In 2022, Cuban, who previously starred in 15 seasons of ABC’s Shark Tank, co-founded Cost Plus Drugs, a public benefit corporation focused on selling prescription drugs at dramatically lower costs than traditional industry markups.

Tuberville began by asking Cuban how President Donald Trump’s upcoming TrumpRx website implementation and direct-to-patient programs may improve the affordability of prescription drugs for Americans.

“Yeah. I mean, we’ll work with TrumpRx. I mean, it’s incredible. It’s stupendous. It’s like the most incredible program ever,” Cuban said of the president’s new website.

“And so, we’re excited to offer them our API so that they’ll be able to download our daily prices. So, when they go down, everybody benefits. Plus, I like what they’re doing with the MFS. Because as I mentioned in my comments, our brand drugs are more expensive because PBMs are involved. And with TrumpRx and the MFN program, that allows manufacturers to work around the PBMs and work directly to patients. So, I think it’ll save seniors, it’ll save everybody a lot of money.”

The praise for TrumpRx comes after Cuban’s active involvement in failed 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ campaign against Trump. In the final few months of the campaign, Cuban made headlines after saying voters would “never see [Trump] around strong, intelligent women, ever,” seemingly overlooking Trump’s campaign manager and now White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and other female campaign advisors.

Asked about his company’s transparent pricing, Cuban outlined Cost Plus Drugs’ pricing framework for Tuberville.

“I mean, you know, with CostPlusDrugs.com, any patient can just go look at their price for their medication. And, so, there’s no uncertainty. But more importantly, by seeing our markup of only 15% and seeing our costs, that builds trust. I always tell everybody in our company that what we really sell in this industry is trust. And, so, I think that’s what’s really allowed us to grow so quickly.”

Tuberville also questioned Dr. Keith Smith, Co-Founder of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, during the Senate Aging Committee hearing.

“Well, we started the Surgery Center of Oklahoma because, frankly, practicing in a big hospital as an anesthesiologist, I’d served as an accessory to a financial crime. Surgeons were also being denied the tools many of them required to appropriately treat patients due to the cost-cutting measures at hospitals trying to maximize the revenue. So, I didn’t grow up in a home like that. I grew up [with], which is a golden rule, mutually beneficial exchange,” Smith told Tuberville, regarding his reasons for starting a transparent pricing surgery facility.

“…patients will not only shop for care, but they’ll vote with their feet. Half the patients we see at Surgery Center of Oklahoma do not live in Oklahoma. We see patients from Europe and Africa, all over the United States,” Smith went on to say.

Watch Senator Tuberville’s full line of questioning here: