Let’s just start with the part that makes people shift uncomfortably in their seats, because this story doesn’t fit neatly into the usual talking points. For years, the pediatric cancer community pushed for one narrow, painfully specific bill aimed at helping kids with cancer get better drug treatments.
Not a sweeping government takeover, not a Green New Deal for hospitals, just a practical fix that would allow the FDA to encourage drug companies to study combination therapies for childhood cancers. The Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act was the kind of bill Washington always claims it wants: bipartisan, focused, humane, and desperately overdue.
And for a brief moment, it looked like the system might actually work. The bill cleared the House unanimously. The Senate appeared ready to pass it by unanimous consent. President Donald Trump was waiting to sign it. Families who had already buried children, and families praying they wouldn’t have to, thought they were finally seeing something resembling progress. Then Bernie Sanders stepped in and pulled the emergency brake.
On the night the bill hit the Senate floor, the gallery was packed. Advocates, reporters, grieving siblings, and even a cancer survivor were there expecting one of those rare Washington moments where decency wins. Instead, Sanders objected to unanimous consent, effectively stalling the bill and killing its momentum. Not because he opposed helping kids with cancer. He supports it, at least in theory. His problem was that the bill didn’t also do everything else he wanted at the same time.
This is where the snark almost writes itself. Sanders argued that savings from the bill should be redirected to fund community health centers and that other health-care provisions, which had already failed months earlier, needed to be revived and passed alongside it. In other words, unless Congress agreed to his entire wishlist, sick kids could wait. By demanding everything or nothing, Sanders ensured the outcome was nothing.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin didn’t mince words. “He is literally killing kids in front of us because of his political movement,” Mullin said on the floor, furious that a bill with unanimous House support was being held hostage. That comment alone should have triggered wall-to-wall coverage, but most Americans never saw it. A unanimous Senate vote would have allowed the bill to skip procedural hurdles and go straight to President Trump’s desk. That’s how close it was. One objection was all it took.
Last night, Bernie Sanders blocked our bipartisan bill, the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act, to give kids fighting cancer more treatment options.
A new low, even for “The Grinch.”
I won’t back down.
WATCH: Mullin vs Bernie Sanders: pic.twitter.com/H7FnbxI2Ya
— Markwayne Mullin (@SenMullin) December 18, 2025
Should the Senate have passed the Mikaela Naylon Bill to improve pediatric cancer treatment options?
And the human context makes this harder to shrug off. The bill gained renewed urgency because of Mikaela Naylon, a 16-year-old battling osteosarcoma. By the time Congress really paid attention, she had already endured a below-knee amputation, multiple lung surgeries, radiation, and radioactive treatments. Doctors told her she had weeks to live, and she spent those weeks lobbying lawmakers instead of resting. She met with legislators over Zoom when she was too weak to travel. Eventually, her parents had to speak for her while she listened. She spoke to Sen. John Hickenlooper on October 29. She died three hours later.
After her death, the House passed the bill unanimously and renamed it in her honor. Every senator but one was prepared to do the same. Instead, the Senate left town for the holidays, the clock ran out, and the bill died.
Bernie Sanders, you’re a disgrace to America.
Right before Christmas, with pediatric cancer advocates and grieving families watching in the Senate gallery, ready to applaud a lifesaving bill for young cancer victims, you single-handedly killed it. Heartless.pic.twitter.com/TLbaGtvK1E
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Steve2ASanders will say he was fighting for bigger goals, for systemic change, for leverage. That’s the familiar justification. But history tends to be less charitable than press releases. When incremental progress was on the table, when immediate help for vulnerable children was within reach, he decided it wasn’t good enough.
Republicans once again controlling the White House, and voters clearly signaling exhaustion with ideological grandstanding, this episode lands differently. It’s a reminder that purity tests don’t comfort parents sitting in oncology wards, and procedural stunts don’t save lives.
The bill didn’t fail because it was flawed. It failed because one senator decided that helping kids wasn’t useful unless it advanced his broader political movement. And that’s a choice people are going to remember, no matter how hard it gets spun later.
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