Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to Howard Dean saying pro-life people have no home in the Democratic Party. They also wince as Republicans are divided about how to overhaul Obamacare and leaders suggest any opposition to the current bill is tantamount to supporting Obamacare. And they discuss how ESPN’s political agenda had led to a subscriptions free fall and the need to eliminate $100 million in on-air personnel.
Conservatives and liberals are savaging the House Republican health care plan, but one of the leading advocates for a market-driven approach says the bill is a good start to imploding Obamacare and setting the stage for additional conservative reforms.
The plan is getting hammered by conservatives for not fully repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, failing to allow the purchase of coverage across state lines, and for allegedly replacing one entitlement program with another. Liberal critics say the plan would knock millions of Americans off health insurance and leave them one illness from bankruptcy again.
So what about those claims?
Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner is a veteran of Washington health care debates and was a fierce opponent of the Clinton health care reform effort in the 1990’s and Obamacare since 2009. She is encouraged by what she sees in the American Health Care Act and says the realities on Capitol Hill force this kind of legislation.
“It’s a first step. They’re pushing as far as they can with the process they have to go through. They do not expect any Democrats, in the House or the Senate, to vote for this. That means they have to do this through a particularly difficult process called reconciliation that limits the kinds of things you can repeal,” said Turner.
“They can’t repeal everything in the law through this process because it has to have direct spending and budget implications. They’re doing as much as they can and they have plans to go forward with other pieces of legislation, for example, that will allow people to purchase health insurance across state lines. That’s not possible through this particular pathway,” said Turner.
She says this legislation is needed to gut the worst parts of Obamacare.
“There will also be follow-on legislation going forward, but not if this [doesn’t pass]. You can’t build change on the crumbling infrastructure of Obamacare. You’ve got to begin with changes that lead us in a new direction,” said Turner.
“It’s like a battleship or an aircraft carrier. It takes a long time to turn this around ,” she added.
Turner also says a lot can be done to ease the burden on all Americans without involving Congress. She says Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price can accomplish a lot through the powers granted him in the original Affordable Care Act.
“Sec. Price has control of the regulatory mechanism. There were 20 million words of regulation written to enforce Obamacare. He has the power to undo a lot of those and to rewrite them but also to provide new guidance to the marketplace to engender much more competition and consumer choice,” said Turner.
Sec. Price outlined the very same strategy Tuesday at the White House.
Turner says the GOP bill offers important provisions like eliminating a trillion dollars worth of taxes on the economy and protecting coverage while the system transitions from Obamacare. She also says the bill takes a smarter look at Medicaid dollars that should mean less burden on the taxpayers.
“It begins the pathway to reform the Medicaid program, arguably one of the worst health care programs in the country that is bankrupting the states. At the same time, millions of people (on Medicaid) can’t find a doctor to see them,” said Turner.
And how would it do that?
“This legislation would begin the process of giving states a per capita allocation. A per capita allocation is very different from a block grant. It basically says we are going to make a distinction between moms and babies who are healthy and people who have multiple disabilities,” said Turner.
She also likes that states will have much more say over health care while Washington backs off.
“It gives states more power and more authority, not only to figure out how to take care of their citizens that are on Medicaid, but also to provide their citizens with more choices from the kind of health insurance that they want to buy, rather than have the federal government tell them the health insurance they have to buy,” said Turner.
But will the plan ultimately lower premiums and deductibles? Turner says that hinges on getting people to stay on insurance for the year once they’ve purchased it and getting more, young healthy people into the system.
“You need young, healthy people in the system. What do you do? You try to give them more choices, more options of more affordable coverage. So attracting people, giving them incentive to want to stay covered, by giving states more options to provide them with choices for health insurance – not just Washington’s three or four cookie-cutter policies,” said Turner, who also advocated for multi-year policies so patients could lock in rates for years at a time.
While acknowledging the fierce opposition to the plan from the right and left, Turner says the bill not only makes key changes but looks at health care in a whole new way.
“It’s a really different philosophy of giving people the market incentive to respond to consumers who are newly empowered and want to make responsible, good choices,” said Turner. “People want insurance but they don’t want insurance that costs more than their mortgage.”
This is one of multiple perspectives we will be sharing on this legislation as the debate continues.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss the Trump administration’s new executive order temporarily banning travel from six nations with major terrorism problems. They also react to North Korea announcing its latest missile tests were designed to strike U.S. bases in Japan. And they slam teachers in Alexandria, Virginia, for forcing the cancellation of school because 300 of them plan to attend the anti-Trump women’s march.
A former Justice Department official with experience before Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, courts says there are simple ways to determine whether President Trump is right about the government spying on him during the 2016 campaign, and she says President Obama would certainly have known about such actions by the Justice Department.
And she says it’s entirely plausible that Democratic political appointees who were later shifted to career positions in the intelligence community are working to undermine the Trump presidency.
Victoria Toensing served as deputy assistant attorney general and was also a federal prosecutor. In addition, she served as chief counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence while Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., was leading the committee.
The debate over whether the government conducted surveillance on the Trump campaign instantly caught fire Saturday after a series of early-morning tweets from Trump. The president ultimately compared Obama’s alleged actions to Watergate.
Later on Saturday, a spokesman for former President Obama issued a statement denying any involvement by Obama in any surveillance on Trump and his team.
“A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false,” the statement read.
Like other experts, Toensing noted the very careful language in the Obama statement that doesn’t appear to rule out other in the government from authorizing such activity, namely the Justice Department.
“Sounds like a non sequitur, doesn’t it?” said Toensing. “OK, you’ve never interfered, so if the attorney general said she was going to do this and gave you notice, you just said, ‘Go ahead.’ That’s not interfering. It’s a really carefully parsed statement. He’s gotten as good as Bill Clinton,” said Toensing.
Is it certain then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch would have informed Obama when taking such action?
“Oh yeah. I can’t imagine ordering surveillance of a political opponent in a political campaign (without informing the president). Loretta Lynch has shown that she’s been incompetent in many ways, but I don’t think communicating with the president is where’s she’s incompetent,” said Toensing.
Throughout the weekend, very different narratives were presented as fact, from former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper insisting that the no FISA warrant was ever issued in connection to Trump to conservatives highlighting a litany of liberal media outlets reporting on intercepts of key Trump officials for the past several weeks.
The New York Times has reported that the FISA court denied a request for a warrant back in June 2016 but approved one with a much narrower scope in October.
“What is this thing, ‘If it happened?’ There’s been reporting in the New York Times that the second time there was some computer in Trump Tower. Then, indeed, Trump was being electronically surveilled or wiretapped, depending on the technique that was used,” she said.
And Toensing says it is vital for lawmakers and reporters to consistently and repeatedly ask if wiretapping or electronic surveillance was used, since referring to one specific method could give witnesses unintended wiggle room.
Toensing fully supports the matter now going to the House and Senate intelligence committees. She says those panels, particularly on the Senate side, still enjoy a great deal of bipartisan cooperation and adds the key questions range from the existence of the FISA warrants to their scope and the length of time they were valid. She says FISA warrants are normally active for 90 days but can be extended to six months in some cases.
While FISA courts approve warrant requests in nearly all cases, Toensing says the rate is a bit misleading because the court does deny some efforts but then approves them after the government narrows the focus of the warrants.
Nonetheless, she says another good question for lawmakers to pursue is why the June request before the FISA court was rejected. And if reports of the second warrant request being granted is true, why Obama would allow such a thing to take place during the heat of a campaign.
“If it did involve Trump Tower or Trump people, I say what is a Democratic president of the United States doing even having anything to do with tapping Republican opposition during a political year? That just amazes me right there,” said Toensing.
The allegation from Trump and his allies is that partisan intelligence operatives sought to undermine his campaign and are now looking to bring down his presidency. Toensing says that argument is plausible, and point to recent events as evidence of a deep rift in intelligence circles.
“Do you remember when the Yemen raid took place and the [Navy SEAL] was killed? All of a sudden, a few days later, you saw headlines (reporting that) nothing came out of the Yemen raid. It was a loss. Then, about a week ago, I see hundreds of names were acquired during that Yemen raid,” said Toensing.
She says there are a lot of entrenched Democrats now serving in non-political positions.
“Democrats like to stay in government more than Republicans do. So Democrats tend to stay around after the political process goes. They’re given a job in what called a career position,” said Toensing.
She says one of the most controversial figures from the Obama administration is a good example of that transition.
“Lois Lerner, no better example than that,” said Toensing, referring to the former IRS official at the center of government harassment of conservative groups applying for non-profit status.
“She’s a political appointee and then they put her in career positions, where she could sit there and do all kinds of evil to opponents of President Obama,” said Toensing.
So while Toensing is unaware of any specific rogue elements of the intelligence community, she says the idea that some are working against their own president is not far-fetched.
“It would seem to me that the mechanism is there for the people to undermine President Trump. It would appear that that’s what’s happening,” said Toensing.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos break down the political surveillance debate in three different martinis. They wonder why Pres. Trump decided a late night series of tweets was the best way to lodge serious allegations against his predecessor. We also note Pres. Obama’s carefully worded statement denying any involvement in spying on Trump, the conflicting narratives on what actually happened – all leading to the dizzying Washington conjecture that Trump might not be correct but he’s probably right. And we unload on Delaware Sen. Chris Coons for claiming transcripts of Russians interacting with the Trump team would tell us once and for all if there was any collusion during the 2016 campaign – only to later admit he has no idea what’s in the transcripts.
Conservatives in Congress are increasingly frustrated by what has been leaked about the Obamacare repeal legislation and by what they see as a lack of transparency, even as House Speaker Paul Ryan insists Republicans are all on the same page and predicts unity on a final vote.
For most congressional Republicans, what they know of the repeal is what they read in a leaked report on the purported bill last week. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., made headlines by unsuccessfully trying to get a hard copy of the legislation.
Most Republicans don’t know what’s currently being put together.
“I think it’s mostly members of committees with jurisdiction. You’re talking about members on Energy & Commerce and members on Ways & Means. That’s probably as far as it goes,” said Jason Pye, director of public policy and legislative affairs at FreedomWorks, which has endorsed the replacement bill authored by Sen. Paul.
“Maybe the broader conference knows the general discussion of what’s going on,” said Pye. “The actual legislative text is what matters. That’s where the nuances come into play.”
FreedomWorks shares the frustrations of Sen. Paul and other lawmakers clamoring for details.
“I think Sen. Paul has a point that this entire process is being done largely in secret. Americans deserve to know what’s going on. Are we going to see Obamacare-lite or are we actually going to see a real patient-centered alternative,” said Pye.
What would real transparency look like?
“We should be having hearings as the bill is going through. Why not have debates on C-SPAN while it’s being discussed and being drafted?” asked Pye.
On Friday, Politico reported that GOP leaders hoped to vote on repeal later this month and they were prepared to “steamroll” conservatives into backing the plan.
“They say they have no problem steamrolling conservatives by daring them to vote against an Obamacare repeal that their constituents have demanded for years,” reported Politico.
“‘Conservatives are going to be in a box,” said one senior Republican lawmaker. Trump, the source predicted, eventually will “go out front and … tell the conservatives … they’re either for this or for keeping Obamacare,'” the report continued.
That’s a far cry from the assurance of unity Ryan offered at his weekly press conference on Thursday.
“We’re all working off the same piece of paper, the same plan. So we’re in sync – the House, the Senate, and the Trump administration – because this law is collapsing. You can’t just repeal it. You have to repeal it and replace it with a system that actually works. That’s exactly what we’re doing,” said Ryan.
“I am perfectly confident that when it’s all said and done we’re going to unify because we all, every Republican, ran on repealing and replacing and we’re going to keep our promises,” added Ryan.
Pye says FreedomWorks is just as eager to scrap Obamacare, but he says how it’s done is vital.
“The speaker said that the repeal and replacement of Obamacare is entitlement reform. That certainly should be the case but the problem is we’re repealing one entitlement and creating a new one. You don’t do that as conservatives, especially one who claims to be a fiscal conservative,” said Pye.
He says if the leaked version of the bill is accurate, there is a lot to oppose in there.
“We were surprised to see the Republican version of the individual mandate included in this bill. We were surprised to see $100 billion in new mandatory spending over the next ten years in this bill. We didn’t anticipate that. We didn’t anticipate the new Republican version of the Cadillac Tax in this bill. We weren’t old those thing,” said Pye.
In the end, will leaders twist enough conservative arms to pass the plan? Pye doesn’t think so.
“Leadership is really who’s in a box right now. If the 70 conservatives in Congress stick together, if you keep 41 of those guys and maybe a couple more, [leaders] don’t 218 votes to repeal and replace,” said Pye.
“They’re going to have to listen to conservatives in the conference. I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is. And right now, this Lee, Cruz, and Paul trifecta sticks together, [Republicans] only have 52 seats in the Senate. You’re going to get Democratic votes on either side. You have to listen to conservatives,” said Pye.
Conservatives are already explaining what they want, namely in bills offered by Sen. Paul and Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C.
“It puts individuals on the same playing field as employers. It gives states the option for flexibility through Medicaid, allowing them to seek waivers from the Department of Health and Human Services. It expands [Health Savings Accounts] to the point at which you can pay your health insurance premiums out of that,” said Pye
“Those are patient-center alternatives and consumer-friendly alternatives that improve the health system and truly empower Americans to make their health care choices,” said Pye.
If conservative ideas are now adopted into the replacement bill, Pye suspects Republicans may abandon the effort to pass a repeal and replacement together. He says passing a repeal similar to the one President Obama vetoed last year might be where the GOP factions find common ground.
“I know everybody wants to get this over with now and I do as well, but there is no difference, fundamentally, between what we did in 2015 and what we should be doing now, other than the disagreements over replace. If we can’t figure out replace, let’s come back another day, but let’s go ahead and start the process on repeal,” said Pye.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud the FBI for arresting a man in connection to threats made against Jewish Community Centers and other institutions, and the suspect might surprise you. They also get a kick out of Colin Kaepernick suddenly ending his national protests now that he needs a job. And they unload on Rep. Cedric Richmond for his horrible comments about KellyAnne Conway and for stating that Trump is not his president.
A former Justice Department official says the liberal outrage over Attorney General Jeff Sessions having contact with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 campaign is much ado about nothing and that Democrats are doing whatever they can to thwart the Trump agenda.
He also says reports of a slush fund at the Justice Department created during the Obama years and funneled money to liberal activist groups are a big deal and further evidence that Democrats turned a blind eye to the Justice Department when far more serious things were happening.
It’s the Sessions story that has the media in a frenzy Thursday after Wednesday reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions misled senators during his confirmation hearings in January.
At that hearing, Sen. Al Franken cited CNN reports that officials in the Trump campaign discussed the election on multiple occasions with agents of the Russian government. When asked by Franken what he would do if the reports were proven true, Sessions indicated he was unaware of such activity.
“I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians. And I’m unable to comment on it,” said Sessions during the confirmation hearing.
New revelations show that Sessions was at an event that included Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the Republican National Convention in July 2016. They also crossed paths later in the year.
Democrats are now accusing Sessions of perjury for that answer and for not clarifying the statement in writing after the hearing.
On Thursday, Sessions did try to clarify.
“I have not met with any Russians at any time to discuss any political campaign,” he told NBC News.
So is Sessions in real political or legal trouble for his testimony under oath or are his critics deliberately blurring the line between communication about the campaign and communication for other purposes?
Former Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky says this controversy is way overblown.
“Those calls for his resignation are all overblown and there’s no reason for him to resign,” said von Spakovsky, who now runs the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation. “There’s really nothing to this story.”
He says the Democrats are still in shock over losing the elections and are lashing out in every possible direction.
“They did not want Jeff Sessions to become attorney general because he’s a conservative, rule of law type of guy. They’re seizing on this, even though there’s nothing really to it when you dig down into it, because they want to oppose anything the attorney general might do, such as actually start enforcing our immigration laws. That’s the real goal here,” said von Spakovsky.
But why is there nothing to the story? Von Spakovsky says you have to understand Sen. Franken’s question in its proper context.
“It’s clear Sen. Franken is asking about communications between the Trump campaign and Russian intermediaries or agents about the election. Sen. Sessions had no such meetings with the Russians over the elections as a surrogate of the campaign,” said von Spakovsky.
He also says the meetings in question hardly qualify as election collusion.
“One of them was a conference at which there was a hundred people, ambassadors and their staff. They had been invited to observe the RNC convention by the State Department. The Heritage Foundation, a number of other organizations and the U.S. State Department had this conference at which Jeff Sessions was the keynote speaker,” said von Spakovsky.
“The idea that he engaged in some hush-hush conspiracy talk with the Russian ambassador in a conference with a hundred folks where he’s giving the keynote speech is just ridiculous,” said von Spakovsky.
“The only other meeting was a meeting when he was a member of the (Senate) Armed Services Committee and he had a meeting with the Russian ambassador last year in which they talked about relations between the countries, no discussion of the election,” said von Spakovsky, noting Sessions met with roughly two dozen ambassadors in 2016.
Several Republicans are joining Democrats in demanding Sessions recuse himself from the federal investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 elections and any collusion it had with the Trump campaign. Von Spakovsky says there’s nothing for Sessions to recuse himself from.
“That’s premature because at the moment there’s nothing in front of the attorney general. The FBI has not sent over any kind of investigative file for him to look at,” said von Spakovsky.
While Sessions stands in the media and political cross hairs, the Obama Justice Department is under fire for operating a slush fund to give a boost to liberal activist groups. Instead of sending money won through legal cases to the U.S. Treasury, the Justice Department instead sent billions to activist groups, including the National Council of La Raza, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and the National Urban League.
Von Spakovsky and co-author John Fund exposed this slush fund in their book, “Obama’s Enforcer,” which details the legacy of former Attorney General Eric Holder. Von Spakovsky says this activity is unique to the Obama Justice Department.
“This has been an open secret in Washington for years, but nothing has been done about it. I would hope the new attorney general would this down and, frankly, go in and try to get these funds back if that can possibly happen,” said von Spakovsky.
He admits the action is most likely no illegal but he says it should never be done.
“I do think it was unethical. I think any funds recovered by the federal government in a lawsuit should go to the U.S. Treasury because they belong to the American taxpayer. Those funds should not be given to third party advocacy organizations, certainly not political organizations like La Raza,” said von Spakovsky.
Von Spakovsky says Holder politicized the Justice Department far more than any of his predecessors and adds that Loretta Lynch was no better. He notes the federal judges scolded DOJ attorneys for their unethical conduct and Holder was the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt of Congress for withholding documents related to the ill-fated and deadly “Fast and Furious” gun-running operation.
He says the people now venting over Sessions had no problems with the Justice Department from 2009-2017.
“We never heard any complaints whatsoever from Chuck Schumer or any other Democrats about that behavior,” said von Spakovsky.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss Democrats killing their own goal of immigration reform by refusing to work with Trump. They also discuss Attorney General Jeff Session and the significance of his comments under oath about Russian communication with the Trump campaign. And they discuss the new interior secretary’s first commute to work and comments from a GOP House member that may come back to bite him.
The Virginia congressman who defeated his own party’s House Majority leader three years ago is hailing President Trump’s speech as a “total conservative tour de force” but says Republicans must resist the temptation to embrace Obamacare-lite and truly embrace repeal and reform.
Trump’s speech Tuesday night to a Joint Session of Congress highlighted a number of conservative priorities. It received acclaim for both style and substance. Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., was thoroughly impressed.
“He hit it out of the park. It was just a total conservative tour de force across all the issues and it was all upbeat. It just gave everybody hope,” said Brat. “When MSNBC can’t say anything negative, you know you had a good speech.”
Brat hailed Trump for pushing tax cuts as part of overall tax reform and for lifting the regulatory burden from families and businesses. While politicians and pundits alike suspect tax reform cannot happen this year, Brat says Trump has a way of motivating people that the so-called experts may not understand.
“This city has a way of delaying and letting the special interests take over. Trump is the one guy who can light a fire and make sure that does not happen,” said Brat.
One of Trump’s most forceful demands was for Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. But how that can be done is becoming increasingly contentious inside the GOP.
Last week, a leaked memo of a Republican replacement plan set off fierce debate as the more conservative members of the House and Senate balked at replacing health care subsidies with refundable tax credits.
Brat also revealed that the debate over tax credits is playing out only in the wake of the leaked memo because GOP lawmakers haven’t assembled to work through a replacement bill.
“We’ve never even had a show of hands for , ‘Hey, which way do you want to go on this? That’s part of the problem with this town. Our conference needs to be more transparent and represent the will of the people,” said Brat.
“We all ran to represent the will of the people. We all ran for six years on repeal of Obamacare. So when you say repeal of Obamacare, I think the average person means repeal of Obamacare, right? If we end up putting Obamacare-lite in its place, our base is going to be furious. The average small businessperson is going to be furious,” said Brat.
Brat reminds citizens and lawmakers how we got into the current predicament with respect to Obamacare.
“The insurance guys walked into the White House eight years ago looking at their shoes. They were going to get 18 million new customers, but they knew they were setting up a non-free market death spiral system,” said Brat.
He says Republicans can’t leave the American people effectively headed down the very same road.
“Having taught economics for 20 years, you’ve got to get the system right. That’s what some of us are very worried about, that’s we’re going to do an Obamacare-lite. Then our team is going to own that product. That will be a disaster,” said Brat.
“We’ll just do the same thing and call it (something) different, but you keep the insurance regulations. You keep the implicit mandates. The tax credits will turn into a new entitlement. And then we’re also getting rid of the health care deductions in the piece that was leaked on Politico,” said Brat.
Pointing out that entitlement spending is set to engulf the entire federal budget within a decade, Brat says responsible lawmakers cannot create another entitlement through the tax credits.
“We do not want to provide another federally-run entitlement program. The others are all insolvent, right, Medicare, Social Security. Everything the feds touch is insolvent,” said Brat, who points out Trump will need to fend off the growth of mandatory spending, either through entitlement reform or pushing tax reform that spawns major economic growth and tax revenues.
Brat says the most obvious priority in replacing Obamacare needs to be lowering the costs.
“Everybody’s paying attention to who’s covered and whether everybody’s covered, but we’re ignoring the cost of 300 million Americans,” said Brat. “If you can half the cost, then the money we’re spending goes twice as far just on simple math.”
In the meantime, Brat urges the public to see through the slanted media coverage on repeal and replace. The congressman points out bronze plan deductibles are now averaging $12,000 per year while premiums increase roughly 20-25 percent per year.
“Then the press calls and they say, ‘Hey, can you assure us that every single person is going to be just as well off or have gold-plated health care?’ I’m like, ‘You’re missing the thesis. Obamacare is in a death spiral, according to the heads of Humana and Aetna,'” said Brat.
“The entire system is collapsing under it’s own weight. About five million people lost their plans due to Obamacare. Where’s the reporting on there? The reporting is just in the realm of fake news at times and they’re acting like the Republicans are in charge of the disaster that just happened over the past eight years,” said Brat.
Despite his frustrations with the media and a lack of communication within GOP ranks, Brat is still optimistic repeal and replace will happen and that it will be done right.
“The car’s in the ditch. Now we’ve got to pull it out, get some free market principles going and I think we have plenty of time to get it right,” said Brat.
