Greg Sargent in the Washington Post reports that Trump’s decision to go after the Affordable Care Act again came about as the result of a bitter fight within the WH.
A fight inside the White House exposes Trump’s depravity and unfitness – The Washington Post Link
What is especially telling is how the Sargent describes the role of WH Chief of Staff Mulvaney and how he persuaded Trump to take the action he did.
What’s telling is the argument that Mulvaney used to prevail against it. He told Trump not just that blowing up Obamacare would thrill his base, but also that Trump and Republicans could take the health-care issue back for themselves — which, of course, would require having an actual plan.
But the White House doesn’t have any plan. And the Washington Examiner reports that Senate Republicans concede that the White House has not provided assurances that one is forthcoming. Indeed, this is precisely why Pence argued against fully endorsing the lawsuit!
Yet Mulvaney was able to manipulate Trump into backing it. Mulvaney likely played on Trump’s ignorance about the complexities of health care, and his unshakable confidence that he can simply make things come true if he says so, to persuade him that he’ll be able to conjure one up. And sure enough, Trump has been suggesting this will happen, blithely asserting: “The Republican Party will soon be known as the party of health care.”
The idea that coming up with an alternative plan would magically mitigate the consequences of total repeal at this point is itself daft. That’s because those consequences would be truly dire.”
And Trump acted without any plan for a replacement for the ACA! And as Greg Sargent describes the implications:
either he actually believes Republicans might come up with a plan to mitigate all this damage (in which case he’s dangerously incurious about the policy complexities involved and is willing to take a preposterous risk, given the GOP’s failures on this front), or he doesn’t care if they do not (in which case he’s dangerously venal and reckless).
Truly appalling.
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