Trump Wants Kinder, Gentler Health Bill

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President Trump met with 15 Republican senators today, and the Associated Press reports that he had nothing good to say about the Paul Ryan health care bill that passed the House last month:

One source said Trump called the House bill “mean, mean, mean” and said, “We need to be more generous, more kind.” The other source said Trump used a vulgarity to describe the House bill and told the senators, “We need to be more generous.”

The first thing that comes to mind, obviously, is that Trump sure seemed pretty pleased with the bill back when it passed, didn’t he? He had a grand old time celebrating in the Rose Garden with Paul Ryan and the gang. “Premiums will be coming down….Deductibles will be coming down,” he said. “It’s a great plan….What we have is something very, very incredibly well-crafted.”

But let’s put this aside and concentrate on something more important: what was Trump’s vulgarity? Was it something that sounds vaguely like “mean mean mean,” and the first source misheard it? Or was the first source just too delicate to mention the word? Either way, the public deserves to know what Trump said. Who will be the first senator to tell us?

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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