Politics

Bernie Sanders Uses President Trump's Tweet Against Him

May 22nd 2017

President Donald Trump's 2015 tweet about Medicaid came back to haunt him — again — on Monday.

donald-trumpAP/Andrew Harnik - apimages.com

In a sarcastic tweet, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders referenced the tweet, writing that what he "really likes" about Trump is "how true to his word he always is."

The post features two images: a screenshot of Trump's tweet claiming credit for being the "first & only" Republican presidential candidate who pledged not to cut funds to popular federal programs including Medicare and Medicaid; and a screenshot of a post from CNN that reports Trump's proposed budget calls for $800 billion in Medicaid cuts.

White House officials have confirmed certain details of Trump's budget proposal ahead of its official release Tuesday. Though it doesn't recommend cuts to Social Security or Medicare, the proposed budget would slash $800 billion in Medicaid over 10 years, The Washington Post reported. That figure comes from the GOP health care bill, which would stop providing states with additional Medicaid funding in 2020.

The health care bill is "an absolute disaster" that "really has nothing to do with health care," Sanders said in a press release in early May. He condemned the plan for reducing Medicaid funding, which could leave an estimated 24 million Americans without health insurance, while rewarding drug companies and insurers with tax cuts.

Sanders, who advocates for a single-payer health care system that guarantees coverage for all Americans, has used the tweet from then-candidate Trump before, bringing an oversized print copy to the Senate floor in January, for example.

"This is what he asked millions of elderly people and working class people to vote for him on — these are the principles that Donald Trump ran and won the presidency on," Sanders said at the time.

SandersC-SPAN - c-span.org

Both the budget and GOP health care bill are likely to change as they are debated and amended in Congress.

The Senate has yet to come forward with its version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which would have to pass and then return for a House vote before reaching the president's desk. That said, the budget proposal seems to indicate that the White House is at least confident that the Medicaid cuts are there to stay.

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