***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[AEA18]

Should have known that invite had something do with one of his properties in the Philippines.

 

[rillo561]

Looks like something out of dumb and dumber

 

[aepps20]

Just so DAPPER.

 

[cards93]

Im not even sure what he is saying, or trying to say, here?

 

[whywesteppin]

da dapper don could've been a ballerina with such dainty feet. there's absolutely nothing that man can't do!

there's no reason he couldn't have been a ballerina. people don't realize, you know, his dainty feet, if you think about it, why not? people don't ask that question, but why wasn't he a ballerina? why could he not have been da prima?

 

[frink85]

Im not even sure what he is saying, or trying to say, here?

Your libbie brain can't handle the huge verbiosiousness of da Donald

 

[Based Jesus]

I'm pretty sure Andrew Jackson was too busy being dead to be thinking about the civil war.

 

[AEA18]

I'm pretty sure Andrew Jackson was too busy being dead to be thinking about the civil war.

He makes Dubya look like Einstein in comparison. Damn he really knows nothing.

DOAT POTUS

WOAT POTUS

 

[Belgium]

https://www.vox.com/2017/4/30/15492354/trump-ahca-interview

 
President Trump gave a lengthy interview  Sunday morning to CBS’ John Dickerson about the Republicans’ health care plan.

His responses to basic questions — like what provisions the bill includes or how it would change the health insurance system — suggest he either doesn’t understand how the American Health Care Act  works, or doesn’t want to tell the truth about it.

Dickerson is the first journalist I have seen grill Trump on what, exactly, is in the Republican plan. He isn’t asking about the politics of the bill and whether it will pass. Rather, he focuses on what are arguably basic questions: what elements are in this bill, and what do you think of them?

Trump stumbles. He says that people with pre-existing conditions will be protected. Under the latest amendment  to the American Health Care Act — the one that got the Freedom Caucus on board — they won’t be. He says that deductibles will go down under the Republican plan. Non-partisan analysis  expects deductibles would go up.

The health care plan that Trump described on Face the Nation is not the one that the Republican party has offered. His answers suggest an unfamiliarity with basic policy details of a plan that has been public for nearly six weeks at this point — a plan that his administration has pushed Congress to pass.

"Forget about the little ****," Trump reportedly  told a room full of legislators during the health care negotiations. "Let's focus on the big picture here."

His answers on CBS suggest that, if he actually read the Republican bill, he would find it sorely disappointing — and at odds with his health care goals.
[h3]Trump says the updated GOP plan protects people with pre-existing conditions. No, it doesn’t.[/h3]
Much of the Trump interview centers on Trump claiming that new changes to the Republican health care bill will protect people with pre-existing conditions. In fact, its exactly the opposite: an amendment to the AHCA introduced this week would give states authority to let insurers charge sick people higher premiums.

Dickerson starts with a relatively simple question that is basically: how will this bill help your supporters? Here is Trump’s response:

Pre-existing conditions are in the bill. And I just watched another network than yours, and they were saying, "Pre-existing is not covered." Pre-existing conditions are in the bill. And I mandate it. I said, "Has to be."

The first iteration of the Republican bill, introduced in the House on March 6, kept Obamacare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions. But a new amendment introduced this week to win Freedom Caucus support changes all that. It caves to conservatives’ demand that to deregulate the insurance industry and let health plans once again use pre-existing conditions to set premium prices.

It creates waivers that states can use to let health insurers charge sick patients higher premiums, a practice outlawed under current law.

Trump knows there were changes to the bill. But he gets them backwards, insisting that the updates strengthen protections for sicker patients:

This bill is much different than it was a little while ago, okay? This bill has evolved. And we didn't have a failure on the bill. You know, it was reported like a failure. Now, the one thing I wouldn't have done again is put a timeline. That's why on the second iteration, I didn't put a timeline.

But we have now pre-existing conditions in the bill. We have -- we've set up a pool for the pre-existing conditions so that the premiums can be allowed to fall.

Trump is describing the evolution of the Republican plan backwards. The protections for those with pre-existing conditions have gotten weaker, not stronger. It sounds like Trump may be confusing pre-existing conditions with high risk pools — which an amendment last month would have provided $15 billion  more in funding for — but it’s hard to tell.

Eventually, Trump becomes insistent that any bill he signs with protect people with pre-existing conditions. He appears to throw cold water on that new amendment, the one that won over the support of the Freedom Caucus. He describes it as “in one of the fixes” and that its currently “changing:”

John Dickerson: In one of the fixes it was discussed pre-existing was optional for the states--

Donald Trump: Sure, in one of the fixes. And they're changing it--

John Dickerson: --oh, okay. So it'll--

Donald Trump: --and changing.

John Dickerson: --be permanent?

Donald Trump: Of course.

John Dickerson: Okay. Well, that's a development, sir.

This part of the interview is a bit bizarre. House Republicans have, at the behest of the White House, been working for weeks now to nail down a bill that their caucus can support. They inched closer to that goal when the MacArthur amendment created the pre-existing condition waivers, which clinched the Freedom Caucus’ support.

Now Trump appears to be saying that he’s ready to reverse course, that this part of the Republican bill is currently “changing.” So either Trump is announcing a big policy shift that would likely lead to Freedom Caucus opposing the bill — or he’s misunderstanding what is actually in the bill. From the interview, its hard to know.
[h3]Trump says things are in the Republican health care bill that aren’t true[/h3]
This happens a few times. There are a few exchanges like this one, where Donald Trump promises that his bill will lead to lower deductibles than the Affordable Care Act:

Most importantly, we're going to drive down premiums. We're going to drive down deductibles because right now, deductibles are so high, you never -- unless you're going to die a long, hard death, you never can get to use your health care.

Deductibles under the Republican plan would not go down. They would go up, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analysis. The agency writes that they “expect that individuals’ cost-sharing payments, including deductibles, in the nongroup market would tend to be higher than those anticipated under current law.”

CBO expects that premiums would go down, but that isn’t necessarily great news. Premiums would decline under AHCA because higher premiums for older enrollees would essentially price the elderly out of the individual market. CBO estimated, for example, that a low-income 64-year-old would see her premiums increase 750 percent under AHCA.

There is “no magic,” as Margot Sanger-Katz has written, in how the Republican plan lowers premiums. It does so by making premiums unaffordable for elderly.

Elsewhere, Trump claims that his plan would allow insurance sales across state lines:

Donald Trump: We're taking across all of the borders or the lines so that insurance companies can compete--

John Dickerson:  But that's not in--

Donald Trump:  --nationwide.

John Dickerson: --this bill. The borders are not in--

Donald Trump:  Of course, it's in.

Dickerson is right here: allowing insurers to sell across state lines is a popular conservative policy, but it is not one included in the current Republican bill. It is not included because it likely couldn’t pass as part of a reconciliation bill, where all provisions need to have a direct effect on the federal budget.

Trump does relent on this point when pressed by Dickerson, saying that it will need to pass in a separate bill. But again, he stumbles. He says that bill will get “quickly get approved.” That is incredibly unlikely. Because this bill would need to go through regular order, it needs 60 votes in the Senate — a tall order when Democrats have no interest in working with Republicans on repealing Obamacare.
[h3]Trump’s lies matter because voters will believe them[/h3]
Last December, I reported a story  about Obamacare enrollees in Kentucky who voted for Trump. These were generally people who had followed the election closely and knew that Trump promised to repeal Obamacare — the source of their health insurance.

They voted for Trump, however, because he kept promising something better.

Donald Trump made promises during campaign interviews that sharply diverged from his actual campaign stances. He promised, "I am going to take care of everybody,” during an interview with 60 Minutes  — even though his campaign health plan would leave 21 million without coverage.

“That man has a head for business,” one enrollee said. “He will absolutely do his best to change things.”

There is a moment where Dickerson presses Trump on how his own supporters would be effected by his own plan. Dickerson seems to be starting to cite CBO data about how premiums could increase by 750 percent for a low-income, older Obamacare enrollee.

He can’t finish his question before Trump begins waving it away:

John Dickerson:  So but in the bill, as it was analyzed, there were two problems. One, and you talked about this with Congressman Robert Aderholt, who brought you the example of the 64-year-old who under Obamacare the premiums--

Donald Trump: But that was a long time ago, John.

John Dickerson:  But has that been fixed?

President Trump: Totally fixed.

John Dickerson: How?

Donald Trump: How? We've made many changes to the bill.

No, this problem isn’t fixed. There is no change that House Republicans or the White House have offered publicly that would protect the Obamacare enrollees that are likely to be Trump voters, generally lower-income and older.

These are still the people who are most vulnerable to high premiums and fewer consumer protections under the Republican health care plan. Young, healthy people could stand to benefit from a less regulated health insurance market. Insurers would be eager to offer those customers cheap policies.

But older, sicker, and poorer Americans have a lot to lose under the Republican plan. That fact is true whether Trump admits it or not.

 

[wavycrocket]

Im not even sure what he is saying, or trying to say, here?

at trump not knowing Andrew Jackson was dead almost 20 years before the civil war.

Dead at trump knowing absolutely NOTHING about the civil war

 

[frink85]

I don't know anything about Andrew Jackson, but then again I'm not name dropping him like the Game

 

[dreamer23]

first thing that came to mind....

 

[rolaholic]

Should have known that invite had something do with one of his properties in the Philippines.

Yup,who gives a **** about human rights when you've got business holdings depending on being chummy chummy with that murderous authoritarian?

This whole regime is one gigantic conflict of interest,by muddying the distinction between national interest and personal gain, dudes company is gonna be caking whenever his term ends probably regardless of what shape he leaves the economy in...

Also,the US co-signing and propping up all these authoritarians and dictators overtly, instead of covertly like back in the day, isn't gonna be a good look long term in terms of international perception/standing

 

[Based Jesus]

Oh boy there's audio.

"Had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War" @realDonaldTrump told @SalenaZito. Full intv at 2pE, Ch124 pic.twitter.com/d7PuRRm7Md
— SiriusXMPolitics (@SXMPolitics) May 1, 2017

 

[Fozz]

Oh crap Duterte will finally meet Trump?

Let's see which one is going to BS each other more 

 

 

[rolaholic]

This dude must not know a damn thing about the civil war and what it was fought over,Andrew Jackson wasn't even alive during that time

From dude's Face the Nation interview:

@alexwagner:
Trump on federal mandate re: coverage for pre-existing conditions, says he'd rather have govt focused on North Korea & not someone's "knee"

Murica first huh...

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

Thought making deals was his claim to fame

 

[frink85]

Oh crap Duterte will finally meet Trump?

Let's see which one is going to BS each other more   

I'm seriously waiting for the argument and then the escalation and then the fight

But really, duterte would BS the crap out of trump and all Donnie would be able to do is nod. Duterte for all of his insanity walks the walk (death squads etc), trump is a little boy in big boy pants he'd shrink fast

 

[frink85]

They have something in common though; they both campaigned hard about being tough on china and standing up to China, and both now are currently China's *****

 

[IATT]

This dude really going run a 4 year campaign




This stuff I see really amazing

 

[AEA18]

Oh boy there's audio.
[QUOTE url="[URL]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump[/URL]"]
"Had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War" @realDonaldTrump told @SalenaZito. Full intv at 2pE, Ch124 pic.twitter.com/d7PuRRm7Md
— SiriusXMPolitics (@SXMPolitics)

May 1, 2017

[/quote]

Interviewer should have said that Jackson died before the Civil War began. This is part of the problem too.

Gotta call the BS out.

 

[AEA18]

That first 100 days ad is scary.

Straight up propaganda

 

[whywesteppin]

At this point I think Congress has decided to humor him when necessary but otherwise operate independently of him.

There will be a clash and censure soon.

 

[dragicon]

Oh boy there's audio.
[QUOTE url="[URL]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump[/URL]"]
"Had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War" @realDonaldTrump told @SalenaZito. Full intv at 2pE, Ch124 pic.twitter.com/d7PuRRm7Md
— SiriusXMPolitics (@SXMPolitics)

May 1, 2017

Interviewer should have said that Jackson died before the Civil War began. This is part of the problem too.

Gotta call the BS out.[/quote]

When they do, he just ends the interview

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/us/politics/trump-cbs-interview.html