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Ex-RNC Chair Warns That Trump Moving to Totally Ax ObamaCare Is a Terrible Issue for the GOP in 2020

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With Democrats now controlling the U.S. House of Representatives, the chances of Republicans repealing the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a.k.a. Obamacare, via Congress in 2019 or 2020 are slim and none. But President Donald Trump is attacking the ACA through the federal courts instead, championing the GOP’s anti-ACA lawsuit Texas v. Azarand calling for Obamacare to be struck down as unconstitutional. And when former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday morning, he stressed that politically, Trump is giving Democrats a major weapon for the 2020 election.

“The Republican Party,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, “will soon be known as the party of health care. You watch.” But Steele stressed to “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski the following morning that Trump is making it easier for Democrats to paint the GOP as the party that wants to deprive Americans of health care.

“The Republicans I’ve talked to, they’re scratching their heads,” Steele noted, adding that those Republicans would prefer to avoid discussing health care because “they know their history on this subject is replete with failure. There is no plan to replace (the ACA). So if the courts take the president up on his charge to completely eliminate Obamacare, then what? We revert back to the old system.”

And that pre-Obamacare “old system,” Steele explained, is a loser for Republicans in multiple ways. Coverage for preexisting health conditions, in a post-Obamacare scenario, “goes away, meaning that people who have those preexisting conditions no longer will have coverage,” Steele warned.

Further, the 60-year-old Steele asserted, “Those who currently have plans will see increased premiums because insurance companies, who are at the center of this health care debacle in the first place, will still run amok and set the market against consumers. So, Republicans don’t want to have this fight.”

Republicans, the former RNC leader added, “saw the costs paid in 2018” over health care—meaning that Democrats achieved a majority in the House of Representatives. And “the costs” for Republicans “will be exponential in 2020” because “Democrats will have the upper hand on this issue until the Republicans come to the table with a plan—and we saw how that went since, what, forever?”

Scarborough piled on, joining fellow conservative Trump critic Steele in stressing that health care is a terrible issue for Republicans. Health care, Scarborough warned, is an issue that Trump should “stay away from” because “it is the one issue that, more than any other issue, has proven the intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican Party—how they are void of ideas. They started running against Obamacare in 2009; a decade later, they still have no plan.”

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, Scarborough added, “never put together an effective plan to replace Obamacare. Here we are, a decade later, they still have no plan they can submit to Americans…. It does seem like a political disaster waiting to happen.”

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‘Utter Cowardice’: Jim Jordan Blasted for Telling Reporter He Can’t Read Trump’s Violence-Threatening Post Without Glasses

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Countless GOP lawmakers over the years have professed ignorance over Donald Trump’s tweets as reporters ask them to respond, often claiming they hadn’t read them, but House Republican Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan took that performance to a whole new level Friday afternoon.

NBC News senior national political reporter Sahil Kapur asked the Ohio Republican congressman to weigh in on Trump’s social media post threatening “potential death & destruction” if he gets indicted.

“Jordan said he hasn’t seen Trump’s post,” Kapur said via Twitter. “When I showed [it] to him on my phone, he said he can’t read well without his glasses.”

“He added he’s reviewing DA Bragg’s letter,” Kapur added.

READ MORE: ‘Big Shoe Drops’: Bad Day for Trump on Multiple Fronts in Special Counsel’s Grand Jury Probes

Jordan, who didn’t need glasses to appear on Fox Business just two days ago (photo) is getting blowback.

VICE News Deputy DC Bureau Chief Todd Zwillich explained the progression.

“The stages of ignoring incitement,” he tweeted. “2016: I don’t respond to tweets —> 2018: I havent seen the tweet —-> 2023: I literally can’t see the tweet.”

“Utter cowardice,” declared former GOP Congressman Joe Walsh. “Not at all the @Jim_Jordan I knew & served with in Congress 10 yrs ago. Or…maybe it is.”

“The sheer dishonesty and cowardice of these people,” lamented MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan, echoing Walsh’s remarks.

Government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics said the “extent to which Trump’s backers in Congress are going to not condemn [his] calls for violence are ludicrous.”

RELATED: Ninth Wrestler Comes Forward to Say Jordan ‘Snickered’ When He Complained of Sexual Abuse: Report

Some tied Jordan’s inability to see the post to his apparent inability to see or remember all the Ohio State wrestlers who say they complained to Jordan when he was their assistant coach, about being sexually harassed or assaulted by the team doctor. To this day despite numerous reports and people publicly coming forward, Jordan denied it ever happened.

“Apparently, Jim Jordan is unable to see wrestlers being sexually abused or Donald Trump social media posts,” attorney and Republican turned Democrat Ron Filipkowski tweeted.

“Well, @Jim_Jordan has shown before that he has trouble seeing threats right in front of his nose, so this checks out,” tweeted historian Kevin M. Kruse.

But Jordan’s Democratic colleagues on the Judiciary Committee may have served up the best response: “Why do you need your glasses to condemn violence @Jim_Jordan?”

READ MORE: ‘Pits Parents Against Parents’: House Republicans Pass Anti-LGBTQ Florida-Style K-12 ‘Parents’ Bill of Rights’

 

 

 

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Jim Jordan Busted for Helping Trump ‘Tamper’ With Probe: ‘Beyond All Bounds of What’s Legal’

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Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg rebuffed a Republican House demand for a peek inside an investigation involving Donald Trump as “unlawful,” and MSNBC’s Al Sharpton agreed it amounted to “tampering.”

Bragg’s general counsel denied a request for documents and an interview with the district attorney by Judiciary, Oversight and Administration Committee chairs Jim Jordan (R-OH), James Comer (R-KY) and Bryan Steil (R-WI), calling the congressional inquiry an “unprecedented” intervention into a pending local prosecution undertaken at Trump’s request.

“Any man that is up in the middle of the night, that is going with this kind of language, is scared to death,” Sharpton said of Trump, who has been posting highly provocative online attacks against Bragg. “The problem, though, is that he is inciting people, no matter how small they have become as a crowd, to do something. Add that to him having the photo of the bat at a sitting prosecutor, I mean, it’s unimaginable. You’re right, we’d be arrested for that.”

“We have chairmen of committees telling a prosecutor, who is in the middle of an investigation, to come and give us the evidence,” Sharpton added. “I mean, they’re really tampering with an investigation. This is not an investigation that’s concluded. Before we know whether there is an indictment or charge, they’re saying bring us the evidence? I mean, this is unheard of. What is Jordan talking about? They’re in the middle of a grand jury proceeding. You want the prosecutor to leave the proceeding and tell me the evidence you’re giving, and we’ll put it on national television so the target can understand the evidence? I mean, we are going beyond all bounds of what is legal, what is respectful, and we have a man who is scared to death, that is up in the middle of the night inciting violence, having a photo with a bat, because he’s scared to death he’s going to have to face this prosecution.”

READ MORE: Trump is ‘out of his mind scared’ after late-night outburst : Morning Joe panel

Watch the video below or at this link.

 

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Lindsey Graham Admonished by Senate Ethics Committee

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U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has been formally admonished by the Senate Ethics Committee for violating ethics rules and standards by repeatedly soliciting campaign donations during an interview at the Capitol.

The bipartisan committee issued Graham a Public Letter of Admonition after the South Carolina Republican solicited donations for Georgia GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker.

“Based upon all available information, the Committee concluded that on November 30, 2022, you conducted a media interview with Fox News in the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building and that your interview was slightly over nine minutes, with over four minutes devoted to a discussion of the 2022 senatorial run-off election in Georgia. The Committee further concluded that during your discussion of the senatorial run-off election, you directly solicited campaign contributions on behalf of Mr. Walker’s campaign committee, www.teamherschel.com, five separate times.”

The letter notes that Sen. Graham had previously violated the same standards when he solicited campaign donations in a federal building in October of 2020, but said it was an “unplanned media interview.” When a reporter had asked him about fundraising, Graham “directly solicited campaign contributions” for his re-election campaign.

READ MORE: Watch: GOP Lawmaker Orders Grieving Parkland Parents Removed From ‘ATF Overreach’ Hearing

The Committee noted “mitigating” circumstances and did not cite him for that violation.

“The public must feel confident that Members use public resources only for official actions in the best interests of the United States, not for partisan political activity,” the letter concludes. “Your actions failed to uphold that standard, resulting in harm to the public trust and confidence in the United States Senate. You are hereby admonished.”

CNN’s Manu Raju posted the letter to social media.

You can read the letter below or at this link.

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