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As Donald Trump feebly looks hapless as Iran and Israel go to war, a Republican Senator had a startling story that he shared with the American people, although not in the way he intended.
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Hawley meant it as a defense of Trump when he told CNN’s Manu Raju:
I walked through it with him and he said, oh, wow, that’s very surprising. He said, I’m surprised that they made all these changes to the degree they did. I said, I am too. He was real clear to Senate Republicans just two weeks ago. Don’t touch anything else on Medicaid. Take the House framework, tweak it if you need to, but do not do anything else.
And this Senate framework really, it departs from his framework big time.
Hawley, who opposes Medicaid cuts, was trying to use the story to reflect the idea that the Senate was making changes that Trump didn’t want, but the story also paints a picture of a president who isn’t guiding the ship and seems to have no idea what is going on with what is supposedly his signature piece of legislation.