Bernie Sanders has built a decades-long career positioning himself as the champion of working families and children.
Now he's getting exposed for who he really is.
And Bernie Sanders just killed one bill that left families with sick kids stunned.
Sanders blocks cancer research for dying children as families watched
The Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act was primed to pass through the Senate on Wednesday with near unanimous support.
The bipartisan bill would have given the FDA authority to push pharmaceutical companies to study combination drug therapies that could save the lives of children with cancer and rare diseases.
Every senator was ready to pass it except one: Bernie Sanders.
Sanders stood up on the Senate floor and killed the bill dead in its tracks.
"What's happened right here in front of us? The Grinch is stealing kids' lives, and they're stealing hope from the families, hope from the families that might have an opportunity just to try for a political agenda," Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said.¹
Mullin brought the bill to the floor expecting routine passage.
Instead, he watched Sanders torpedo it while at least three siblings of cancer victims and one pediatric cancer survivor sat in the Senate gallery watching.
"And I hope to God that every single family that's going through this will hold the senator from Vermont accountable, and the state of Vermont will hold him accountable, too, because he's playing with kids' lives," Mullin continued. "He's literally killing kids in front of us because of his political movement, and it is ridiculous."²
Elon Musk's tweets from a year ago drove Sanders to hold sick kids hostage
Sanders made no secret about why he blocked the bill.
He didn't oppose helping children with cancer.
He opposed passing anything unless Congress also funded his laundry list of socialist healthcare demands.
"This is not a radical amendment," Sanders claimed. "I'm not coming here saying, 'Let's do something we've not talked about.' I'm not talking about passing Medicare for all here. I am talking about doing what the Republicans and Democrats agreed to a year ago but was torpedoed by some tweets from Elon Musk."³
Sanders was still fuming about December 2024.
Back then, Congress had negotiated a massive year-end funding package that included billions for community health centers and other programs Sanders wanted.
Then Elon Musk torched the whole thing on Twitter.
Musk called out the bloated spending bill and urged Republicans to vote it down.
They listened.
The package got scrapped and replaced with a stripped-down continuing resolution.
Sanders spent an entire year nursing that grudge.
When the pediatric cancer bill came up for a vote, he saw his chance for revenge against Musk and leverage for his agenda.
So he held dying children hostage.
Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who chairs the Senate Health Committee, tried reasoning with Sanders on the floor.
Cassidy promised to work with Sanders on funding community health centers when Congress returned in the new year.
That wasn't good enough for Sanders.
"To think that we can do it all at once, it's just not true," Cassidy said. "But also to say that you're not going to give a chance for children to have a cure for cancer if you don't get what you want, it's just not true. It is selfish. It is tragic."⁴
Vice President JD Vance leads the charge against Sanders
Vice President JD Vance led Republicans in condemning Sanders for blocking the bill while cancer families watched from the gallery.
The move sparked widespread outrage across the Trump Administration.
The bill had already passed the House on a unanimous voice vote earlier this month and was headed for President Trump's desk.
Sanders killed it anyway.
The bill is named after Mikaela Naylon, a 16-year-old girl who died from osteosarcoma in October after spending years fighting for this legislation.
Mikaela spent her final weeks lobbying Congress for the bill instead of resting at home.
She suffered below-knee amputation, multiple lung surgeries, radiation, and radioactive treatments.
Doctors told her she had only weeks to live.
She kept fighting for other kids.
Her parents had to speak for her during her last Zoom meetings with legislators because she was too weak.
She spoke with Senator John Hickenlocker on October 29 and died three hours later.
After her death, the House renamed the bill in her honor and passed it unanimously.
Every senator except Bernie Sanders was ready to do the same.
"Everyone was just so exhausted and deflated and sad when we exited the gallery," one member of the pediatric cancer community told reporters. "It was a feeling of abandonment and confusion."⁵
Sanders chose political leverage over dying children.
The Senate left town for the holidays Thursday evening with the bill dead.
Those families will spend Christmas knowing Bernie Sanders cared more about punishing Elon Musk and scoring political points than giving their children a chance to live.
¹ Alex Miller, "Sanders blasted after blocking bipartisan kids' cancer research bill: 'Grinch,' 'selfish,'" Fox News, December 22, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Sam Stein, "A Milestone Pediatric Cancer Bill Fails at the Hands of Bernie," The Bulwark, December 18, 2025.