On Saturday, Judge Jeanine Pirro offered a fiery defense of President Trump after his healthcare legislation failed, telling viewers of her show, “Folks, I want to be clear: this is NOT on President Trump.”
This, despite the fact that the president enthusiastically advocated for the bill even after it crashed and burned late last week. Also, Trump warned House Republicans before it happened that the bill’s failure would harm the effectiveness of his presidency.
Like many other Trump allies, Pirro instead cast blame on House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., claiming he sold the president a bad bill of goods. “Mr. President,” Pirro said, “all reports are that you wanted to handle the tax cuts first but that Ryan convinced you to go with health care.”
“No one expected a businessman to completely understand the nuances, the complicated ins and outs of Washington and its legislative process,” Pirro said on Saturday.
But Trump expected that. In fact, he campaigned on that.
In his speech at the Republican National Convention in July, Trump declared, “I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”
If Pirro accepts Trump’s statement that “nobody knows” the system better than he does, she must concede her own defense of his healthcare failure is defeated.
On the campaign trail, Trump claimed to have a deep understanding of various “systems”: government, money in politics, the tax code.
Take this statement from a CNN town hall last April: “They do so many bad deals and people think, oh, why are they so stupid? They’re not stupid. They’re doing it because they’re told to do it by the people that give them money… And it just is the way politics works. And nobody knows the system better than I do.”
Ironically, this is a claim opponents of the healthcare bill made about Trump’s own proposed legislation. Last week, Breitbart ran a headline on its homepage quoting a source who said Steve Bannon thought the bill was “written by the insurance lobby.” Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., echoed that assertion repeatedly as well. We reported on Friday that, as it turns out, the committees responsible for drafting the bill received big support from the industries it would have benefitted.
Nevertheless, in August, Trump remarked, “Hillary Clinton’s campaign is all about protecting the powerful. And I understand that very well. I think nobody knows the system better than I do.”
“Our campaign,” he continued, “is about protecting those who have no power.”
Trump told voters that his intimate, unparalleled knowledge of the broad “system” of government is exactly what would enable him to defeat it.
It is not logical, then, to claim Trump’s lack of experience with the system exempts him from the blame now that his healthcare legislation has failed.
On this issue, his defenders must accept one argument or the other.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
