Marc Lotter, Director of Strategic Communication from the Trump 2020 campaign, joined Katy Tur on Meet The Press this afternoon to talk about Obamacare/Trumpcare and the fresh plans from Trump and the GOP to try *again* to repeal Obamacare in the lead up to the 2020 elections.
Let me just say, before you watch the video, how different this interview would have gone if Chuck Todd had conducted it. Chuck would have let Lotter spin and lie with no push back. Zero follow up on blatant lies, zero fact checking, zero actual journalism.
Lucky for us, Katy Tur knows how to do her job and she knows how to do it well.
TUR: Is this the issue you want to be running on in 2020?
LOTTER: It is something the president has talked about since 2016 campaign. We need to eliminate Obamacare, rising premiums and deductibles, and doing about something about the cost of prescription drugs. A lot of the action they have taken so far has been on the regulatory side.
TUR: You're right, Donald Trump did run on it in 2015 and 2016, Republicans have tried about 70 times to repeal it, still no plan to replace it, with no plan in the last 10 years.
LOTTER: We came one vote short of getting something done, it was very close, this is an opportunity. You heard the president said he would ask a number of Senate leaders including Rick Scott, who have experience dealing with state plans and state associations, because so much of this is done at a state level. So this is his expertise to bear. We'll see what he can come up with. We have some appeal court process, it will go to the United States Supreme Court and that will put the deadline to get something done.
Oh yeah, Trump says that Senators John Barasso, Cassidy and Rick "Medicare Fraudster" Scott are crafting the legislation that will be this "spectacular" replacement plan for Obamacare.
When pressed about his main lie that Obamacare needs to be repealed (astronomical premiums), this is what he said:
LOTTER: And they have seen their premiums skyrocket.
TUR (with the receipts): Only 2% to 4% have seen their premiums skyrocket. That is 2% to 5%, the rest are being subsidized. They have Medicare, Medicaid, that is a something number, why not work in the parameters of what exists to lower those premiums for people instead of cutting it entirely?
LOTTER (flustered): I'm not a health care expert, so I can't get into some of the finer points, but we know we can do this in the private system, but Democrats are out there saying they want to take 180 million people's private insurance away and give them some government insurance.
And then Katy went in for the kill:
TUR: The Republicans have run repeatedly on repealing and replacing it and still there is no plan to replace it. When you say the plan but you have nothing to show for it, I don't understand why you expect to get that trust back especially after what you saw in 2018 with what happened in the House.
LOTTER (drowning): Again, we were one vote short, they can build on that, they can use their expertise. We have a larger majority now than we did back then.
TUR: But you don't have the House.
BOOM.
