During his Indianapolis speech touting tax reform, President Donald Trump claimed the GOP “has the votes” to pass the party’s unpopular Obamacare repeal and replace bill — despite it being pulled from a Senate floor vote and effectively killed the day prior.
Naturally, Twitter took Trump to task for this week’s latest false claim.
“This would be news to literally everyone in the Senate,” Reuters’ Pete Schroeder tweeted.
“Fact check: No, he doesn’t,” CNN’s Jim Acosta responded.
His bold claim during his tax reform speech was not the first time Trump claimed the GOP had votes that didn’t exist that day. Earlier, he said they had the votes, but could not pass it because “there’s an ailing senator in the hospital” — another false claim.
Trump just said 6 times that Graham-Cassidy failed because “there was a senator in the hospital.” There are no senators in the hospital. pic.twitter.com/pepKaUhd9n
Appearing on Fox & Friends this morning, Donald Trump explained that Republicans “have the votes” to pass the Graham-Cassidy health care bill but the legislation nonetheless can’t pass because a crucial senator is in the hospital.
Trump said 2 more times to "Fox & Friends" that health care can't pass because a senator is in the hospital.
In reality, there is no hospitalized senator. But Trump has constructed for himself an alternative version of reality in which not only is there a hospitalized senator but the budget reconciliation instructions which expire tomorrow somehow return early next year, meaning that when the fake senator’s hospitalization ends they’ll be able to come back and pass the bill.
Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth, remarkably, did not press Trump on this extraordinary claim.
But Trump keeps saying it. The “hospitalized senator” theory first appeared on his Twitter account Wednesday morning.
With one Yes vote in hospital & very positive signs from Alaska and two others (McCain is out), we have the HCare Vote, but not for Friday!
Then during his tax reform comments later that day he made a modified version of the claim, saying the issue was that “we have a wonderful senator, great, great senator, who is a yes vote, but he’s home recovering from a pretty tough situation.”
However, Trump appears to have cause and effect reversed here. According to Cochran’s staff, he is resting in Mississippi because there are no crucial senate votes rather than the senate not holding votes because Cochran is in Mississippi. No less an authority than Bill Cassidy stated flatly on Tuesday that “we don’t have the votes” with John McCain, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul all publicly opposed. Indeed, the real question regarding the whip count seems to be whether or not the bill really has the unanimous support of all the other senators, or if a handful of private opponents are simply laying low and letting those four take the heat.
Either way, the situation poses the obvious question of why Trump is saying this.
Is he trying to mislead his supporters? Is someone on his staff trying to mislead him? Has he become confused and nobody on his staff wants to correct him?
President Donald Trump slammed Sen. John McCain for opposing efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, vowing at a Friday campaign rally for an Alabama Senate candidate that Republicans would succeed on health care “eventually.”
The crowd booed as Trump said the opposition from McCain, R-Ariz., who announced on Friday that he would vote against the latest GOP health care bill, was “terrible, honestly, terrible” when he cast the deciding vote against an earlier measure.
“That was a totally unexpected thing,” Trump told the crowd.
The president went on to say that McCain’s opposition was “sad.”
“It was sad,” Trump said. “We had a couple of other senators, but at least we knew where they stood. That was really a horrible thing, honestly. That was a horrible thing that happened to the Republican Party.”
“It’s a little tougher without McCain’s vote, but we’ve got some time,” Trump said, acknowledging the difficulty in passing the Senate health care bill before a critical September 30 deadline. “We are going to do it, eventually.”
The boisterous arena rally recalled the heady days of Trump’s insurgent 2016 campaign. Thousands of supporters in the stands reprised chants of “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton and “build the wall,” and erupted in cheers when the president called North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un “little Rocket Man.”
But this time, Trump came as the president, using his first big endorsement trip outside of the Beltway to tout the establishment’s favored candidate in the heated special election to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Trump’s all-out support for interim Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., who is trying to close his gap in polls ahead of Tuesday’s GOP runoff election, is a political gambit, which the president acknowledged.
“I’m taking a big risk,” Trump said. “Luther Strange is our man.”
Challenger Roy Moore is an anti-establishment favorite, backed by many of Trump’s most prominent supporters — including Ben Carson, Trump’s HUD Secretary.
Trump said critics had given Strange “a bum rap.” And he praised the senator’s loyalty in the health care battle, recalling that Strange asked for nothing in return for his support to repeal Obamacare — unlike McCain and other unhelpful GOP senators.
“They are not doing a service to the people that they represent,” Trump said.
Democrats are as rare in Alabama as Louisiana State fans, but Trump warned that Moore, a controversial religious fundamentalist, would have “a very good chance of not winning in the general election” later this year.
If Strange pulls off a come-from-behind-win, Trump will get the credit and an infusion of political capital with elected Republicans when he needs it most.
“Our research indicates that he is the decisive factor,” said Steven Law, the president of the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that has spent almost $8 million backing Strange.
Trump is hugely popular in deep-red Alabama, gushing, “It’s nice to go places where people love you.”
Richard “Gator” Payne, the former commander of the local Purple Heart chapter, acknowledged he didn’t know much about Strange, but said Trump’s endorsement was enough for him. “I’m for Trump, and if Trump’s for Strange, then I’m for Strange,” he said.
President Donald Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill are trying to assure Americans their latest effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) covers people with pre-existing conditions.
Both the president and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who with Senator Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) is co-sponsoring the health care bill known as the “Graham-Cassidy plan,” took to Twitter to defend the legislation, expected to be up for a vote on the Senate floor next week. “I would not sign Graham-Cassidy if it did not include coverage of pre-existing conditions. It does! A great bill,” Trump wrote Wednesday night. “Repeal & Replace.”
Graham quoted the president’s tweet later Wednesday, adding that any claims his bill doesn’t cover those with pre-existing conditions should be called “#FakeNews on steroids!”
Unlike former President Barack Obama’s landmark health care law, however, the new Republican bill would not guarantee coverage for people living with pre-existing conditions. Instead, the Graham-Cassidy plan would disproportionately harm sick people and Americans living with a variety of medical factors, who could see their insurance costs soar if the legislation were to pass.
The bill would allow states to opt to waive Obamacare rules requiring basic health benefits, essentially cutting protections for sick people in an effort to keep premiums from rising. The waivers allow states to charge more for health insurance offered to people with pre-existing conditions—including cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s (or dementia), cerebral palsy and even pregnancy, among other medical factors that could have resulted in denied coverage prior to Obamacare—while continuing to receive federal block grant funding.
Experts say the bill could raise health care costs for those with pre-existing conditions to a point where insurance would be virtually unaffordable for millions of people.
For people with pre-existing conditions, the bill would remove any guarantee of coverage. pic.twitter.com/p4sSKDwg1i
The Graham-Cassidy plan would allow states to more easily gut protections for sick people than the previous Senate bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act, as well as the House’s failed effort, the American Health Care Act. The earlier Senate bill would have let states request a reduction from the federal government in what was considered “essential health benefits,” while the House bill would have allowed states to charge more for people living with certain pre-existing conditions when searching for insurance.
The new bill—seen by House Majority Leader Paul Ryan as “our best, last chance” to repeal Obamacare—has received criticism from the even health care industry, which said it would damage existing benefits and do little to reduce insurance premiums that continue to tick upward for millions of Americans.
“The Graham-Cassidy plan would take health insurance coverage away from millions of people, eliminate critical public health funding, devastate the Medicaid program, increase out-of-pocket costs and weaken or eliminate protections for people living with pre-existing conditions,” Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said in a statement.
This is a lie. A horrible knowing fabrication. The bill is intentionally constructed to force states to drop this protection. https://t.co/t6z2bckyN5
Meanwhile, Democrats are warning that if a sudden vote on the legislation is held before the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) can issue a full report on it, there could be serious implications for years to come.
“Thus far, every version of Republicans’ effort to repeal and replace the ACA has meant higher health costs, millions of hard-working Americans pushed off coverage, and key protections gutted with devastating consequences for those with pre-existing conditions,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote in a letter Monday to CBO Director Keith Hall. “A comprehensive CBO analysis is essential before Republicans force a hasty, dangerous vote on what is an extreme and destructive repeal bill.”
So, while those with pre-existing conditions wouldn’t have their insurance suddenly ripped away, the Graham-Cassidy plan could make it increasingly difficult for sick Americans to afford any insurance at all. Until the CBO is able to fully assess the latest Republican-led attempt to overhaul the nation’s health care system, the bill’s total impact will remain unknown.
The key section lies in the bill’s rules for state waivers from many regulations in the Affordable Care Act (starting at page 8 in the bill.) If a state says it “intends to maintain access to adequate and affordable health insurance coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions,” then it can allow insurance companies to charge sick people more than healthy ones.
