Oh, what a lovely week it was.
Out of frustration that the Republican Congress had not repealed Obamacare, last week Trump announced that he was cutting Obamacare cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments. The CSR payments subsidize insurers for reducing costs for people with low incomes. We can’t be helping people with limited money pay for healthcare, you know.
Trump claimed those payments were unconstitutional, although they have been made for years. He made the cuts even though many Trump supporters would be harmed. One would hope he had some grand strategy, but as events unfolded that seemed impossible. Pennsylvania said that cutting the CSR payments would raise healthcare premiums there by 30%. A map shows which states would be hit hardest.
Then, despite Trump’s claim that he acted because the CSR payments are unconstitutional, Steve Bannon, former Trump strategist, publicly admitted that Trump really did this to “blow up” Obamacare.
Still, not all hope was lost. On Tuesday a bipartisan team of Senators led by Republican Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Democratic Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) announced a deal on a bill that would fund the CSR payments for two years. With Congressional approval, presumably the CSR would not be unconstitutional in Trump’s eyes.
On Thursday, the Senators announced they had 12 Republican and 12 Democratic co-sponsors of the bill. If, as expected, all Democratic Senators voted for the bill, it would have a filibuster-proof majority and would pass the Senate. The ultra-conservative House would be another matter, so Presidential support was important, not to mention having a President willing to sign the bill.
Trump had initially encouraged the deal. Perhaps he spoke with Steve Bannon in the meantime, because after the Senators’ announcement Trump backed away from it. What happens now is unknown.
Then, on another matter, Trump executed a perfect illustration of how to first create a public relations mistake and then grow it into an outright disaster.
It began simply enough when a reporter asked Trump on October 16 why there had been no White House comment regarding the four American soldiers killed in Niger on October 4. Trump could have just said that the military was still investigating. The military has conflicting accounts and is trying to sort them out.
Instead, Trump became defensive and attacked. He said “I’ve written them personal letters. They’ve been sent, or they’re going out tonight,” and alleged that former President Obama and other presidents had not called grieving military families. That caught people’s attention. As former White House deputy chief of staff Alyssa Mastromonaco put it, “that's a f***ing lie,” calling Trump a “deranged animal”. We would have to start a list of Trump nicknames but it’s already been done.
Trump, of course, had to make things worse. He called Myeshia Johnson, pregnant widow of one of the soldiers killed in Niger, and told her that her husband “knew what he signed up for.” For some reason, others thought that was not comforting. After being criticized, Trump denied that is what he said.
Unfortunately for Trump, the call was on speaker phone as Myeshia Johnson was on the way to the airport to receive her husband’s remains. With her was long-time family friend Rep. Frederica Wilson, (D-Fla), a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, who confirmed what Trump said.
Trump, being Trump, has to attack anyone who challenges him, so he claimed that Rep. Wilson “fabricated” what she said. There were other witnesses to the conversation in the car, though, and Myeshia Johnson’s mother also confirmed what Trump had said.
Trump decided he had to have back up. Because Trump contaminates everyone around him, he sent out Chief of Staff John Kelly, former Marine four-star general. Said Kelly, “It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation,” as if Rep. Wilson had been eavesdropping. Kelly also said that Rep. Wilson, at a dedication of a new FBI building in Florida in 2015 to two FBI agents killed in the line of duty, had boasted that she was instrumental in getting the money for that building.
The problem was that there is a video showing that she did nothing of the sort. She didn’t say she got the money for the building, just that she said she sponsored the bill to name the building after the fallen FBI agents. She said she did this at the request of James Comey (yes, that James Comey, the FBI Director Trump fired), who thanked her at the dedication.
Trump then sent out White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (daughter of 2016 Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee). Her retort was that “if you want to get into a debate with a Four Star Marine General I think that that’s something highly inappropriate.” Because, of course, in a democracy no one is ever allowed to question a military general, especially one serving in a civilian post such as Chief of Staff.
As noted, a perfect illustration.