James Carville Demands Democrats Go ‘Crazy’ Over JD Vance ‘Pants-On-Fire’ Debate Claim That Trump ‘Saved’ Obamacare
James Carville called on Democrats to go “crazy” over Republican running mate Senator JD Vance’s (R-OH) “pants-on-fire” claim that former President Donald Trump “saved Obamacare.”
Vance made the claim during Tuesday night’s CBS-hosted vice presidential debate with Democratic running mate Tim Walz, arguing that Trump “salvaged” the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and tried to improve it when in office.
He told moderators: “When Obamacare was crushing under the weight of its own regulatory burden and health care costs, Donald Trump could have destroyed the program. Instead, he worked in a bipartisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care.”
Trump’s opposition to the ACA was demonstrated when his administration cut funding for advertising and online tools for enrolling in ACA programs and scaled back the annual enrollment period. Additionally, it approved state “demonstration waivers” that enforced work requirements for Medicaid recipients under the ACA expansion. In 2017, Trump supported Republican efforts in Congress to repeal the ACA, a move that was blocked at the last minute by a “no” vote from late Republican Senator John McCain.
In his signature style, the Democratic strategist unleashed on Vance’s claim on Wednesday night, speaking with CNN host Kaitlin Collins.
My biggest takeaway was, we knew who these people were. Okay? Vance is a kind of smooth-talking, educated Ivy League guy. Governor Tim is a master sergeant, coach. And the only thing that I thought — and I just cannot believe… and I think David Axelrod said it as well — why haven‘t they just gone crazy over Vance saying that Donald Trump saved ObamaCare? That’s not… that‘s pants-on-fire, five-star 20 Pinocchio B.S. And it‘s a great issue for us. And I don‘t know why they did not kick in that thing — why they don‘t have [Vice President Kamala] Harris out there, President [Barack] Obama, former Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, everybody. Like, what are you talking about?
Rounding on Trump, Carville added to his point:
He did everything he could to kill ObamaCare. And that‘s my — I thought it was fine. I thought the governor did fine. I thought JD Vance was good at sentence construction, which is a kind of minimum, but he was all right at that. But I just — somebody please, please go kick this ObamaCare Trump story.
Watch above on CNN.
