Trumpcare on Life Support 

Trumpcare on Life Support:  If he could have pulled it off, Senate Majority Leader McConnell would have kept his version of Trumpcare a secret up until the end, forced the Republicans to vote and moved on to tax reform.  Sadly for McConnell the Senate still has some rules that he couldn’t get around so he had to go public with his Trumpcare “draft.”   Bad reviews, constituent outrage and a lousy scoring report followed the big reveal. Yesterday for a variety of reasons ten or more Republican senators jumped ship forcing McConnell to put Trumpcare on life support.  He hasn’t given up but for now has postponed any votes until after the July fourth holiday. We’ve been here before, the House version turned zombie for a while before coming back to life so the Obamacare repeal saga is far from over.  After the vote was postponed Trump who still doesn’t understand the effect that Trumpcare will have on his base, invited all the Republican Senators to the White House for a face to face meeting peppered with threats, seating himself between two dissenters, Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.  How ironic that the women who had been excluded from all the Trumpcare drafting sessions were positioned front and center. Though they didn’t look particularly cowed, Collins and Murkowski did appear to be keeping their eyes peeled on Trump’s little hands just in case they needed to fend off any Access Hollywood moves. Before shooing the press out of the meeting room, Trump dumped on the uninvited uncooperative Democrats and again attacked “failing” Obamacare. After the meeting he tweeted “With ZERO Democrats to help, and a failed, expensive and dangerous ObamaCare as the Dems legacy, the Republican Senators are working hard!” If McConnell and Trump really cared about healthcare they would stop the tweeting, call Senate Minority Leader Schumer and start negotiating fixes to Obamacare but that’s not in the cards.  Instead McConnell will spend the holiday break trying to buy votes with his $188 billion slush fund while Trump, Pence and the rest of the Senate leadership team continue trash talking the Obamacare exchanges.  The battle goes on. 

The Dissenters:  The dissenters are a mixed lot and not all of their “no” votes will go the distance under pressure.  The two most likely to stay in the “no” column are Kentucky Senator Paul who is a principled gadfly who wants a full Obamacare repeal and Maine Senator Collins who said that “no tinkering will satisfy my fundamental and deep concerns about the impact of the bill.”  Wisconsin Senator Johnson said he would vote “no” this week, but given more time and some changes he could come aboard.  Utah Senator Lee and Texas Senator Cruz are “no” votes, but are probably just looking for a few concessions and lots of press time.  Nevada Senator Heller was the first to articulate that he would vote “no” and given his upcoming election in a state that Hillary won he will most likely stay in the “no” column.  America First, the Trump related PAC that had started running negative ads against Heller is backing off after McConnell told the Trump team that their foolhardy effort to jeopardize a Republican seat was “stupid” and counterproductive so Heller may be in the clear.  Kansas Senator Jerry Moran was a surprise addition to the “no” wagon announcing his dissent after McConnell pulled the vote.  West Virginia Senator Moore Capito joined the “no” team ostensibly because of her concerns about the Medicaid cuts and bill’s failure to address the opioid crisis but mostly because she has been bombarded by constituent calls.  Ohio Senator Portman also said he was a “no” because of his state’s reliance on Medicaid and its need for more opioid funding.  Alaska Senator Murkowski said that she needed more time and Louisiana Cassidy, who had worked with Collins on their own version of a health care plan,  said the CBO score made him “more concerned.” Less Medicaid cuts and more opioid funding and most of the more moderate senators could move into the “yes” column.  A few free market concessions and the conservative “no” voters could also become “yeses.”  McConnell isn’t done yet.           

The CNN Screw-Up:  Last week CNN was forced to retract and apologize for a story linking Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge fund manager and close Trump ally, to a Russian investment fund supposedly being investigated by the Senate. The story was false and three prominent CNN journalists resigned over their screw-up.  Trump just appointed Scaramucci to serve as Chief Strategic Officer for the US Export Import Bank, an entity that Scaramucci previously called “excess baggage.”  Trump and the right wing press are now relentlessly attacking CNN as a purveyor of false news. CNN was wrong and it’s apology was warranted but the absurdity of the alternative fact pushers, led by a Liar-in-Chief who never apologizes or acknowledges his lies, attacking CNN can’t be missed.  Tuesday during the daily press conference Sarah Huckabee Sanders stuck to the anti-CNN theme, going off against all of the  press for their “constant barrage of fake news that is directed at the president” until one correspondent finally spoke up.  Brian Karem of the Sentinel newspapers countered “We’re here to ask you questions, you’re here to provide the answers.  What you just did is inflammatory to people all over the country.”  Sanders was stunned by the comments but without losing a beat went on to push a video made by James O’Keefe, a discredited right wing undercover journalist.  The war between the Trumpsters and the press is getting worse with no end in sight.           

Manafort Money: It took him a while but former campaign manager Paul Manafort has finally filed forms retroactively registering as an agent of a foreign government.  His firm received $17.1 million over two years lobbying for pro-Russian Ukrainian clients.  Manafort acknowledged that some of his lobbying work was aimed at influencing US policy makers and journalists, not to mention adding pro-Russian positions to the Republican platform.