Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in a 2009 press conference, praised MIT health economist Jonathan Gruber’s work on the Affordable Care Act, advising that reporters inspect his findings on the topic.
Today — on Nov. 13, 2014 — Pelosi told reporters that she “didn’t know who [Gruber] is,” adding that the noted economist didn’t help congressional Democrats draft the massive healthcare law.
“I don’t know who he is. He didn’t help write our bill. And, so, with all due respect to your question, you have a person who wasn’t writing our bill, commenting on what was going on when we were writing the bill who has withdrawn – withdrawn some of the statements that he made,” the House minority leader said during a press conference Thursday.
Pelosi’s contradictory statements come after conservative activist groups and various news outlets have uncovered past controversial comments from Gruber on the Affordable Care Act.
Congress was able to pass Obamacare in 2010 “because Americans are too stupid” to understand its finer points, Gruber can be seen saying in a video from 2013.
“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber said in a separate video from 2013. “Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever. But basically, that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.”
Elsewhere, Gruber said at a conference in 2012 that the budgetary tricks were used in the Affordable Care Act that “basically” depend on the “exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.”
Pelosi’s claim that she doesn’t know Gruber is also confusing given that the congresswoman’s website cites him by name in at least seven places:
