When Trump is losing an argument, his strategy is to deflect, overstate his accomplishments, and ramp up the insults. Thursday’s Twitter feed shows that Trump is throwing everything at the wall to see what might stick.
His first tweet of the day is factual and is excellent news, but it leaves out a lot. Gilead’s donation is welcome, but it does nothing to lower their prices overall. Gilead recently was investigated by the Senate Finance Committee for charging around $1,000 per pill for Hep-C treatment drugs, and just two months ago, Gilead raised the prices on their HIV treatment drugs by 4.9 percent. Trump ran on a campaign promise to lower drug prices. This doesn’t do that and feels more like a public relations ploy than a structural change.
The Democrats’ disaster relief funding bill would increase aid to Puerto Rico as they struggle to recover from recent hurricanes, as well as extend aid to other areas of the United States that have experienced natural disasters recently, like the California wildfires. Trump’s failures in these areas have left millions of people suffering.
The Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions Act of 2019 absolutely does protect Americans with preexisting conditions by denying Trump and the GOP the opportunity to allow states to roll back funding for coverage by allowing insurance companies to skirt the rules of the ACA, including rules around preexisting conditions.
Think Progress reported that:
‘The Department of Health and Human Services issued new guidance around the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last November that encourages states to make changes to their marketplaces even if that means skirting federal rules and putting people with pre-existing medical conditions in jeopardy of increased health care costs. The Kaiser Family Foundation called the change “significant,” as it “eliminates the requirement to demonstrate comparable protections for people with high health risks.”
At best, Trump was deliberately misleading throughout the day as he stopped talking about the two new school shootings that have happened in the past week and shifted to how excited he was that a professional sports team finally deigned to come to the White House. At worst, he’s deliberately deflecting and lying as the aftershock of the Mueller report continues to rock the Trump administration.
Twitter had many thoughts on Trump’s day on Twitter. Read some of their comments below:
Featured image via Flickr by Michael Vadon under a Creative Commons license
