Faced with reports that 15 million or more will lose their health care coverage, Paul Ryan says his plan would “never going to win a coverage beauty contest.” Meanwhile arch-Medicare phaseout chief Tom Price, now HHS Secretary, says some may have to be “moved” to insurance that is “much more desirable.”
3/9/17, AP: “President Donald Trump was not aware that his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had worked to further the interests of the government of Turkey before appointing him, the White House said Thursday.”
Here is a selection of published reports from November and December detailing Flynn’s lobbying on behalf of Turkish interests before Flynn was appointed.
Let’s walk through this chain of events today that mixes together Julian Assange, President Trump, Nigel Farage and Sean Spicer.
Sean Spicer was just asked about Trump ally/advisor Nigel Farage meeting today with Julian Assange earlier today. When asked whether Farage was delivering a message to Assange from Trump, Spicer said “I have no idea.”
The questioner said the actual meeting had yet to be confirmed. It actually has now been confirmed. Here’s the exchange …
VIVIAN SALAMA/AP: Thank you. And second thing is, Nigel farage was at the Ecuadorian embassy in London today where Julian Assange happens to be staying. Don’t know if they met or not. Was he there? He’s a close ally of President Trump. Was he there in any capacity?
SPICER: I don’t keep his schedule.
So how much has Nigel Farage been in DC since the inauguration? “A lot,” one close Farage-watcher tells me. My snoop says he thinks Farage has visited DC at least three times since President Trump’s inauguration election. He was here on election night. He was the first foreign politician to meet with Trump after his win. He came to DC against in December. He came at least once in January for the inauguration. And he came again in February. That’s a lot. All of these trips have been about deepening Farage’s alliance with President Trump and his coterie. The last meeting that we know of between the two men was on February 26th when they dined together at Trump’s DC hotel. What business would Farage possibly have meeting secretly with Assange today?
Nigel Farage, ex-leader of the UK Independence Party and key Brexit campaigner, has been spending a lot of time in Washington with President Trump recently. Today, he went to the Embassy of Ecuador in London where Julian Assange has been holed up since 2012 trying to avoid questioning and possible arrest for sexual assault in Sweden.
If you’re trying to get to the heart of just who Donald Trump’s business partners were, where he was getting his money for projects like Trump SoHo and where Russia and organized crime fit into the mix, there’s a little known 2003 book which is sort of the Rosetta Stone of maybe half the mysteries involved. In Episode 14 of The Josh Marshall Show I talk to the co-author of that book. You’ll want to hear this.
The outlook for the GOP leaderships’ ‘repeal and replace’ bill looks bleak. That said, I would not underestimate the ability of GOP leaders to get their members to vote for basically anything in the crunch. Also remember that House Republicans have a 20+ vote cushion. But it’s worth reviewing what I believe are three key reasons why the current legislation looks to be on life support just a day after it was released.