‘Does It Make Any Sense?’ CNN’s Chris Wallace Stunned By Trump Attack On Obamacare ‘Out of the Blue’
CNN anchor Chris Wallace was stunned that President Donald Trump attacked Obamacare “out of the blue” this week when the law “is still very popular among a lot of voters!”
Trump ranted about Obamacare on Truth Social Wednesday, but it wasn’t exactly “out of the blue,” as a lot of outlets have reported. It followed several days of attacks by the Biden-Harris campaign over a week-old Truth Social post on the health care law.
Journalists Kristen Soltis Anderson, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Reihan Salam, and Kara Swisher joined Wallace for this week’s edition of CNN’s The Chris Wallace Show on Saturday morning.
Wallace asked the panel if Trump was making a mistake, and there was general agreement with that premise:
CHRIS WALLACE: He said something very interesting to say this week. I want to put it up on the screen. Just out of the blue. He said, “I don’t want to terminate Obamacare, I want to REPLACE IT with MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE. Obamacare Sucks!!!”
And yes, all of the exclamation points and capitals were those of the author. Does it make any sense for Donald Trump to refight the Obamacare battle? I mean, this is still very popular among a lot of voters!
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO: Because it’s Christmas and he wanted to give a gift to the Democrats. That’s it’s Christmas. And he wanted to give a gift to the Democrats. And that’s what–.
KARA SWISHER: It doesn’t matter! It really, literally doesn’t matter. He’s the nominee, unless and literally, unless he breaks a hip. Maybe he’ll fall and break his hip.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO: I’m not disputing the fact that he’s ahead and he’ll probably be the nominee. I’ve said this before, but with things like this, this is the problem with Donald Trump. He’s Donald Trump. He is always trying to fight the last battle. This is 2017 when he was defeated in Congress with McCain giving the thumbs down famously. And he’s trying to bring that back for reasons that are inexplicable. This because because Obamacare actually polls well now.
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON: If I was advising him the thing that I would tell him to get him to knock this off is I would say we’re coming out of Thanksgiving. We’re in the mode where we’re all reheating leftovers or maybe it’s a little late for that. This is the reheated leftovers of the Republican Party you blew up, Donald Trump. Repeal and replace. That predates him. Do not go back there, Republicans.
CHRIS WALLACE: You’re saying that because you think that this is a sure loser for him or any Republican?
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON: Think it is a sure loser for him, at least in a general election context? I think that health care is a relatively low priority right now for Republican voters relative to the economy, immigration, crime. But those are also the economy, immigration, crime issues, where Republicans are doing well in the polls. Health care is consistently only abortion is worse for Republicans in terms of issues. This rhetoric will not help his genius.
REIHAN SALAM: And his unique talent is his ability to discard statements like this. By the time you get to a general election, he is going to be able to run. He’s going to claim to be an absolute centrist. He’s going to be running on tariffs. He’s going to be running on a totally different set of issues and it’s going to work well.
CHRIS WALLACE: I mean, look at him on abortion. The guy who put three people to overturn Roe v Wade suddenly doesn’t want to come within a mile of abortion. So we’ll see.
Watch above via CNN’s The Chris Wallace Show.
