Trump Wants Kinder, Gentler Health Bill

Cheriss May/NurPhoto via ZUMA

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President Trump met with 15 Republican senators today, and the Associated Press reports that he had nothing good to say about the Paul Ryan health care bill that passed the House last month:

One source said Trump called the House bill “mean, mean, mean” and said, “We need to be more generous, more kind.” The other source said Trump used a vulgarity to describe the House bill and told the senators, “We need to be more generous.”

The first thing that comes to mind, obviously, is that Trump sure seemed pretty pleased with the bill back when it passed, didn’t he? He had a grand old time celebrating in the Rose Garden with Paul Ryan and the gang. “Premiums will be coming down….Deductibles will be coming down,” he said. “It’s a great plan….What we have is something very, very incredibly well-crafted.”

But let’s put this aside and concentrate on something more important: what was Trump’s vulgarity? Was it something that sounds vaguely like “mean mean mean,” and the first source misheard it? Or was the first source just too delicate to mention the word? Either way, the public deserves to know what Trump said. Who will be the first senator to tell us?

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Russian bots are impersonating us. Trump and his allies want to silence us. AI wants to (and does!) steal our content. The list goes on. But with 50 years of experience, we know we were built for this moment: We’re ready to keep diving deep and uncovering the truth, then getting that to you right here, completely accessible and never behind a paywall.

While our work is free to read, watch, and listen to online, it’s incredibly costly to make. Court documents, travel, research: It all adds up. Because we’re a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on reader support to fund our investigations. Will you stand with us in these extraordinary times, as headlines clamour for our attention and disinformation is rampant? We can’t get the truth out without you.

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