October 5, 2016 | No Comments
Donald Trump’s campaign is claiming more than just victory in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate.
The Republican nominee’s team also mocked Hillary Clinton’s husband, claiming Bill Clinton as their top surrogate after the former president called aspects of the Affordable Care Act “the craziest thing in the world.”
Previewing Sunday’s presidential debate, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway highlighted health care as a key issue that’s been absent from both general election debates this cycle.
“I think it’s a huge issue that’s been left on the table in these debates. We’ve got now President Bill Clinton as our best surrogate, and we’re thinking of having him on the road — we’re thinking of having him in the spin room with us in St. Louis,” Conway told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” referring to the location of Sunday’s bout.
She added: “But also, I just wanted to mention that Donald Trump does say really that his plan for health care reform would be the ability to have your insurance be portable, to buy it across state lines, much the way you would buy car insurance, for example, also to have health savings accounts so that you own that piece of your health care and you can manage it the way you would anything else. That gives people certain responsibility and ownership.”
The former president’s comments — which came at a campaign rally in Flint, Michigan, on Monday — created a political firestorm on Tuesday as Republicans seized on them to say that even Hillary Clinton’s own spouse was critical of Obama’s signature health-care law.
“The people who are getting killed on this deal are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these subsidies because they’re not organized. They don’t have any bargaining power with insurance companies so they’re getting whacked,” Clinton said. “You’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It’s the craziest thing in the world.”
His aide said those comments were being misinterpreted, and Clinton later reiterated his support for Obamacare at a campaign event in Ohio on Tuesday.
But Conway reiterated her appreciation for the ex-president’s initial remarks during her interview on “Fox and Friends” later Wednesday morning. “We really appreciated President Bill Clinton coming out this week and telling us all what a disaster Obamacare truly is and saying it’s ‘the craziest thing in the world,’” she said. “You can invite him here next time in my place.”
At a rally Tuesday in Prescott Valley, Arizona, Trump had a slightly more colorful reaction.
“I’ll bet he went through hell last night. Can you imagine? Can you imagine?” he said. “Can you imagine what he went through after making that statement? He went through hell. But, you know, honestly, there have been many nights when he’s gone through hell with Hillary, in all fairness.”
“Well I wanna thank him, honestly. For being honest, I wanna thank him,” Trump continued. “Because that’s it. It’s not a great secret. That’s it. Exactly what he said is it, which is why on my first day in office I am going to ask a Republican Congress to send me a bill to immediately repeal and replace Obamacare.”