Republicans reduced to lying about GOP health plan's Medicaid cuts

Donald Trump promised Americans, over and over again, in writing and in public remarks, that he would never cut Medicaid. And yet, the president is now an enthusiastic proponent for a Republican health care plan that makes brutal cuts to Medicaid.

I've been curious as to how the White House and its allies would defend this. Now we know: they're defending it by lying.

The first real indication of the GOP's rhetorical direction came on Friday, when White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had this exchange during the official briefing:

Q: When you look at the House bill and the Senate legislation, is the Senate legislation the preferred vehicle for this going forward?

SPICER: I think the President is very supportive of the Senate bill. There's a lot of ideas in there. He's talked about having heart, and he likes a lot of the reforms that have been in there. He's committed to making sure that no one who currently is in the Medicaid program is affected in any way, which is reflected in the Senate bill, and he's pleased with that.

For anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the Republican plan, the idea that Medicaid beneficiaries won't be "affected in any way" is hopelessly bonkers.

And yet, Spicer isn't alone in pushing this outlandish line. Asked yesterday about the GOP plan's Medicaid cuts, Kellyanne Conway said with a straight face, "These are not cuts to Medicaid." HHS Secretary Tom Price made the same argument.

The nonsense isn't limited to Trump administration officials. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), for example, argued yesterday that "no one" would lose coverage through Medicaid from his party's plan. (The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 14 million Americans who rely on Medicaid would lose coverage under the House bill, and the Senate bill cuts deeper.)

Around the same time, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) bragged about his party's proposal to increase Medicaid spending.

We're stuck in a very strange conversation, but no one should be confused about reality.

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Friday's Mini-Report, 6.23.17

Today's edition of quick hits:

* A great report: "In political terms, Russia's interference was the crime of the century, an unprecedented and largely successful destabilizing attack on American democracy. It was a case that took almost no time to solve, traced to the Kremlin through cyber-forensics and intelligence on Putin's involvement. And yet, because of the divergent ways Obama and Trump have handled the matter, Moscow appears unlikely to face proportionate consequences."

* Middle Eastern demands: "Saudi Arabia and three other Arab countries that recently cut diplomatic ties with Qatar issued a harsh list of demands on Friday, insisting that the wealthy but tiny Persian Gulf nation shut down the news network Al Jazeera, abandon ties with Islamist organizations and provide detailed information about its funding for political dissidents."

* Rachel mentioned this one briefly on the show last night: "CBS News has confirmed that congressional investigators are interested in whether Trump campaign associates obtained information from hacked voter databases."

* Nice FOIA work: "Former US Attorney Preet Bharara sent an email to Justice Department officials in New York to express concern about a voicemail he received in March from President Donald Trump's secretary, Madeleine Westerhout, according to emails BuzzFeed News obtained on Thursday from the Department of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act."

* The outrage remains elusive: "Al Baldasaro, a former President Trump campaign adviser who called for Hillary Clinton to be 'shot for treason' over her handling of the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, attacks, visited the White House for a bill signing on Friday."

* Sadly predictable: "Newly-elected House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Trey Gowdy does not plan to investigate Russia's meddling in the 2016 election or questions of whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice."

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GOP senator on health care: "It depends on how you define 'better'"

On Capitol Hill yesterday, Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) told reporters that his party's health care plan is "much better than Obamacare." Asked why, the Georgia Republican wasn't sure. "I've got to read it first," Perdue replied*.

Oh. So the senator hadn't read the GOP plan, but he's nevertheless certain that it's not only an improvement on the status quo, but it's "much better" than the Affordable Care Act.

This almost certainly captures the attitude most Senate Republican will adopt, probably without a whole lot of effort. They know they're supposed to hate the ACA; they know their party has a far-right alternative; and so they know how they're going to have to vote next week.

But when it comes to the between the Affordable Care Act and the GOP alternative, I think this is a better answer.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) expressed his support for the Senate Republicans' Obamacare repeal bill Friday, although he told the hosts of "Fox & Friends" that he had yet to commit to voting for it.

Asked if the bill bettered the state of health care, Cassidy replied: "It depends on how you define 'better.'"

Well, yes, I suppose it does.

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Trump's Carrier boasts become an unexpected political headache

Following up on a story I've been keeping an eye on, during the presidential transition period, Donald Trump claimed one notable achievement. The Republican, following through on a promise he made on the campaign trail, announced in late November that he’d reached an agreement with Carrier that would keep hundreds of jobs in Indiana.

It sounded great, but even at the time, the boasts came with fine print. Trump exaggerated the number of jobs saved, rewarded a company with taxpayer money that was closing a plant and shipping jobs to Mexico, and fudged the facts about how many of the saved jobs will be eliminated anyway.

CNBC reported yesterday that the story looks even worse now.

More than 600 employees at a Carrier plant in Indianapolis are bracing for layoffs beginning next month, despite being told by President Trump that nearly all the jobs at the plant had been saved. [...]

In fact, after the layoffs are complete later this year, a few hundred union jobs will remain at the plant. But that is far different from what then-President-elect Trump said just three weeks after the election.

Indeed, as the Washington Post recently reported, Trump said there was a "100 percent chance" he would save the jobs at the plant. "Carrier stepped it up, and now they're keeping over 1,100 people," Trump said in December. Trump added, "And by the way, that number is going to go up substantially as they expand this area, this plant. The 1,100 is going to be a minimum number."

And while this looked at the time like a public-relations coup for the president, we now know the boasts weren't true. Trump was counting hundreds of engineering and technical jobs that were never scheduled to be cut, and he ended up misleading plant workers whose jobs are now being outsourced.

Soon after, Trump traveled to a Boeing factory in South Carolina, his first outside-the-Beltway visit to a business after his inauguration. "We're here to day to celebrate American engineering and American manufacturing," he said at the time. "We're also here today to celebrate jobs. Jobs!"

This factory is now laying off workers, too.

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