On Friday, Sean Spicer gave his off-camera press briefing that the White House press corps is still too cowardly to film. He told reporters that Trump likes the Senate’s health care bill (yesterday Trump tweeted that he was “very supportive” of the bill and that he can’t wait to make it “really special”), but also that he wants to make sure that Medicaid recipients won’t get hurt.
Spicer: The president is very supportive of the health care bill. Committed to no one who uses Medicaid is affected in any way.
— Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) June 23, 2017
This, of course, is a ridiculous statement, akin to saying that one supports murder as long as nobody gets killed. Over the long term, the Senate bill would cut Medicaid even more severely than the House bill would, threatening the insurance coverage of literally tens of millions of people who are poor, disabled, and/or elderly.
Trump apparently wants to have it both ways. He wants to gut Obamacare but he also wants to keep everything the same, which means his only recourse is to blatantly lie about what’s in the bill. It’s the same strategy he’s used over and over again, promising better, cheaper health care by taking insurance away from millions of people.