-Republicans are once again making a mad dash
to rush through a bill that would repeal Obamacare
and drastically overhaul health care in this country.
And once again, very few Republicans
can actually defend their bill or explain what it does.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
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[ Cheers and applause ]
-There's nothing Donald Trump is better at
than making big, empty promises
even though he has no idea how to achieve them.
The latest example of this strategy came yesterday
when Trump met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
at the United Nations
and said he'd like to achieve Middle East peace.
Although he seemed to have no real clue how to do it,
as you can tell from his nonchalant tone.
-Israel is working very hard toward the same goal.
And I must tell you,
Saudi Arabia and many of the different nations
are working also hard.
So, we'll see if we can put it together.
Who knows? Stranger things have happened.
[ Laughter ]
-He talks about Middle East peace
the way people talk about getting back together
with their ex.
Hey, stranger things have happened, right?
But he's right.
Not only have stranger things happened,
stranger things are constantly happening.
I think we might all be trapped
in an episode of "Stranger Things."
We're a week away from Trump saying
[As Trump] we're gonna pass health care,
achieve Middle East peace,
and bring Barb back from the Upside Down.
We can get it done.
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Normal voice ] Even when it comes to basic details,
Trump is, of course, often confused.
Just take his address yesterday
at a luncheon with African leaders
where he tried to praise several African countries
for their efforts on health care,
but seemed to make up a country on the spot.
-In Guinea and Nigeria,
you fought a horrifying Ebola outbreak.
Nambia's health system is increasingly self-sufficient.
-Of course, the problem is
Nambia is not a country that actually exists.
I'm pretty sure Trump pulled that right out of his Djibouti.
Trump is single handedly keeping
Google's "did you mean" feature in business.
[ Laughter ]
That's right. Trump thinks there's a country
called Nambia, which, of course, is right next to Nigeristan
and Kenya-Believe-This- [Bleep ]-Guy.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
Now, the "who knows" approach is basically the same approach
Trump has used on health care.
During the campaign, he claimed repeatedly
that he would provide great health care
at a much lower cost that would cover everybody
and that it would be very easy to pass.
Well, shockingly, it turns out Trump had no idea
how to accomplish any of that.
In fact, during a recent meeting
where a bipartisan group of lawmakers
tried to pitch him on a compromise bill
to shore up Obamacare,
all Trump cared about was the name.
According to
A Democratic lawmaker responded...
Hell, you can call it Nambia!
[ Laughter ]
No one else is using it.
Now...
[ Applause ]
Democrats and Republicans actually were getting close
to a bipartisan solution that would have fixed
some of the problems with Obamacare
while keeping the bill largely in place.
But GOP leaders decided to blow all of that up
in favor of yet again another last-ditch effort
to repeal and replace Obamacare.
-A health care hail Mary --
The president pushing Republicans
to not let this Obamacare repeal fail.
-This is the Graham-Cassidy bill.
This, really, for all intents and purposes,
is the final hail Mary
here for Republicans on health care.
-Republicans pushing ahead with a hail Mary plan.
-This hail Mary option.
-They're referring to it as a hail Mary, essentially.
-There is the last-ditch, furious hail Mary effort.
-Of course, if this thing passes,
a hail Mary might be the only health care option
some people can afford.
Hail Mary, full of grace,
does this mole look weird to you?
But that's right.
They're throwing another hail Mary.
Except Republicans aren't exactly
Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers.
They're more like Jay Cutler.
-He's gonna launch it.
And that was way out of bounds. Incomplete.
[ Laughter ]
-Now, the main sponsors of this new bill
are Senators Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham.
And they are trying to rush it through for a vote
as early as next week.
Now, as you may recall,
Republicans complained repeatedly
about the process Democrats used
to pass Obamacare in 2009 and 2010
even though it was a far more open process
than they're using now.
But they didn't just complain about the process.
They even complained about the length of the bill itself.
In fact, back in 2009, Senator Mitch McConnell thought
the page length of the Obamacare bill was so damning
that during one floor speech,
he kept repeating it over and over.
-We have now had less than 48 hours
to look through this 2,074-page bill.
This massive, 2,074-page bill.
Buried in this 2,074-page bill.
This monstrous, 2,074-page bill.
On what is buried in this 2,074-page bill.
In this 2,074-page bill.
Were we to pass this 2,074-page bill.
This 2,074-page bill.
What else do we know about this 2,074-page bill?
-Well, there's one thing we definitely know.
[ Laughter ]
But here's the thing. It's supposed to be long.
This isn't book club.
You're reorganizing one-sixth of the American economy.
Details are good.
Just take Obamacare's protections
for people with preexisting conditions as an example.
Obamacare had lots of very specific legal definitions
for what kinds of coverage
people with preexisting conditions should get.
By comparison, the new GOP bill has none of those details.
And I don't know if you've met
the guy who will be signing this bill,
but I'm not sure we should go by his definition of affordable.
[ Light laughter ]
So the bill takes money away
from vulnerable people on Medicaid
and strips away protections
for people with preexisting conditions.
Now, you might think, "How could any senator
vote for such a monstrous bill?"
Well, the answer is, they either don't know or don't care.
The website Vox interviewed GOP senators
and asked them basic questions about the bill,
and their answers were baffling.
Take, for example, this exchange
with Kansas Senator Pat Roberts.
[ Laughter ]
I love how he realized halfway through
that his analogy made no sense
and he just hoped the reporter had never seen the movie.
"You see, it's kind of like 'Forrest Gump.'
You probably haven't seen that movie."
"No, I've seen it."
"Oh. Uh...
it's like 'Minions.'"
[ Laughter ]
And on top of everything else this bill would do,
it would also...
Now, those cuts may seem savage and cruel, but to be fair,
Republicans have always preached fiscal responsibility
and the importance of saving money.
And I'm sure this next series of clips
about Trump's Health Secretary, Tom Price,
won't prove that they're all full of [bleep]
-Health and Human Services Secretary Tom price
is taking a little bit of heat after Politico found
he took five private flights last week
for events in Maine, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania.
The cost? Tens of thousands of dollars.
-That included a flight
from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia and back
on a 30-seat private charter
at a cost of -- and this is really astounding --
$25,000.
-$25,000.
Do you know how short a flight is from D.C. to Philadelphia?
If you tried to watch
"Thelma & Louise" on that flight,
you wouldn't meet Louise!
Susan Sarandon is in it? Not the part I saw.
[ Laughter ]
So, Tom Price thinks Medicaid patients
should lose their health care, but has no problem
spending tens of thousands of dollars on private jets.
And he's not the only one.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin also came under fire after he...
And before that...
And when he was asked about that taxpayer-funded eclipse trip,
he tried to claim that he didn't actually care about the eclipse
because he's from New York.
-When I got there, the staff had actually intended
that we watch the eclipse on the roof of Ft. Knox.
And, you know, people in Kentucky
took this stuff very seriously.
Being a New Yorker in California,
I was like, the eclipse --
We got there, I was like, "Really, I don't have
any interest in watching the eclipse."
-You think New Yorkers don't care about the eclipse?
I can show you one New Yorker
who wanted to see the eclipse so badly,
he almost burned his retinas.
[ Laughter ]
[ As Trump ] No, I don't want the glasses.
I want to see the whole thing. No glasses.
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] So these guys think millions of people
should have their health care ripped away from them
while they spend thousands
on private jets and eclipse trips
they don't even care about.
And now the question is,
can they get the votes to pass this bill?
Republicans are pulling out all the stops,
even forming unlikely alliances.
Lindsey Graham, for example, said he's even been in contact
with his one-time nemesis,
Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon
and that Bannon has been helping him
push the new repeal bill.
Graham said of Bannon...
Hey, Lindsay, when you're trying to get a bill passed,
you're not supposed to admit
that the people you're working with are evil.
[ As Graham ] Let's just say, Cruella de Vil and I
have been working on something that I believe
will be good for all Dalmatians.
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] But there is still some holdouts.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul remains opposed to the bill
because he thinks it doesn't actually go far enough
in repealing Obamacare.
So, to win over votes, Trump has been tweeting.
Yesterday, he claimed...
And before that, he tweeted...
So, Trump managed to claim three falsehoods in there.
Bill covers preexisting conditions.
It doesn't.
Graham-Cassidy Bill is great. It's not.
And Rand Paul is a friend of mine.
He is?
-His visceral response
to attack people on their appearance --
short, tall, fat, ugly.
My goodness. That happened in junior high.
Are we not way above that?
Would we not all be worried
to have someone like that in charge of the nuclear arsenal?
-Mr. Trump.
-I never attacked him on his look.
And believe me, there's plenty of subject matter right there.
[ Laughter ] That I can tell you.
-Plenty of subject matter right there.
Trump knows more about Rand Paul's appearance
than he knows about his own health care bill.
In fact, his Rand Paul burn book is 2,074 pages.
[ Laughter and applause ]
So Republicans are racing
to jam through a health care bill
that would destroy Medicaid and strip coverage
for millions of people,
including those with preexisting conditions.
Could Republicans really be shameless enough
to pass this monstrous bill?
-Who knows? Stranger things have happened.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
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