During Donald Trump’s 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, he offered some insight into the ongoing government shutdown.
Trump is clearly ready to bargain, but he insisted that he will not allow Democrats to extort the GOP into giving them subsidies that will ultimately need to be dialed back.
There were also a few key moments from the interview in which I thought Trump got a bit of a raw deal, so I wanted to expose them as well.
On Saturday, we were all finally able to see what our healthcare premiums would be like for next year. I had already had a preview of mine, so I knew it was going to be bad, and that preview did not tell nearly the whole story.
When I signed in, I saw that my current plan went from $785 per month to $1,135 per month. My out-of-pocket amount went up by several thousand, and my deductible went up by $2,000. So, my premium increased by nearly 45%, and if I were to have to use my max coverage, including my premium, I would be out an additional $6,200, and that would be after paying $13,620 in premium costs and $12,000 in out-of-pocket expenses. That’s more than $25,000 for a single person’s healthcare, and that is the bronze plan!
This type of scenario, I believe, is what Democrats have been waiting on, hoping that the high premiums would swing voter sentiment in their direction.
To that exact point, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stated, "People are going to see drastic, drastic increases in their healthcare costs. People are going to sit at the dinner table Friday night with a pit, with a hole in the pit of their stomach, and say, ‘How are we going to do this?’"
During Trump’s Sunday interview, I thought one of his best moments was when he exposed the Democrats' tactic of trying to use the American people as leverage to extort the healthcare subsidies that the party wants (subsidies they could have codified in 2021 or 2022 when they used reconciliation to pass two major funding bills).
When journalist Norah O’Donnell asked Trump what he would do to end the shutdown, especially since he had interjected himself in the dispute before, he quickly shot back, “I’m not gonna do it by being extorted by the Democrats who have lost their way. There’s something wrong with these people.” Then he put the focus right back on Schumer, stating, “He’s gonna be defeated in the next election by a vast number of people. And he has nothing to lose. He’s become a kamikaze pilot.”
I would also note, in a different interview, CNN’s Jake Tapper was taking a Democrat to task on this, stating that in the past, the networks have all covered a shutdown by saying that the party that refused to back the continuing resolution was at fault for the shutdown, which is the Democrat Party in this case.
O’Donnell also addressed the situation in Venezuela, where Trump’s answer was exactly what it should have been in terms of keeping strategic plans a secret.
He responded, “How can I answer a question like that? ‘Are there plans for a strike on Venezuela?’ Who would say that? Supposing there were -- would I say that to you, honestly? ‘Yes, we have plans! We have very secret plans!’ Who would say that? What kind of a question is it?” Trump clearly learned his lesson after revealing that the CIA had been approved for missions in Venezuela.
There were a lot of “gotcha” moments in this interview, but you would not know that unless you watched the full interview (click here) and the aired interview (click here) separately. There were also some really lighthearted moments between Trump and O’Donnell, but they were left on the cutting room floor and were not included in the aired interview.
Thankfully, the full interview was made available right away, and Trump’s Rapid Response team put it up so the American people could see how the show was edited, taking 73 minutes of the discussion and cutting it down to less than 30, and that does not even take out the video that was used to fill some time. Realistically, there were fewer than 25 minutes of the interview that actually aired on Sunday night.
