Donald Trump wants to replace the poorly named Affordable Care Act with something better, and I’m all for it. Obamacare not only managed to send premiums skyrocketing, but made coverage so much worse. I can’t say enough bad things about it. The only time I ever saw my premium go down was during the Trump administration, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. The biggest spike in premiums occurred in November, when I found out that if I renewed my plans as is, it would cost me nearly $300 more a month.
I’m sure I’m not the only person who experienced sticker shock this year. And when you add the pain of inflation into the mix, it seems likely there will be renewed hunger to fix the broken system Barack Obama made for us.
And yet the discussion about appealing Obamacare got sidelined on Friday when Trump was speaking in Iowa and not only blasted the legislation but also John McCain, who inexplicably saved it in July 2017, despite campaigning on the promise to kill Obamacare and replace it with something that actually worked.
Criticizing the late John McCain for his inexplicable and detrimental vote is absolutely fair, but Trump managed to make a heaping mess of his criticism. The first thing I heard about that rally was that Trump said, “Obamacare is a catastrophe; nobody talks about it. Without John McCain, we would’ve had it done. John McCain, for some reason, couldn’t get his arm up that day."
When I saw this quote, I cringed.
In 2008, the Obama-Biden campaign accused John McCain of being out of touch and old-fashioned because he didn't know how to use a computer or send emails. The ad backfired because the issue wasn't so much that McCain didn't know how to use them, but that his war injuries made it impossible. McCain's war injuries were well known at that point, having been discussed by the media years prior. His injuries prevented him from combing his own hair or typing on a keyboard, among other daily activities many people take for granted. As the Boston Globe noted in 2000, he couldn't "raise his arm above his shoulder."
There was no excuse for such an insensitive attack, and certainly Donald Trump should know better than to allude to McCain's injuries that way.
Donald Trump mocks John McCain's injury sustained while a prisoner of war. McCain was unable to lift his arms above his shoulders.
— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) January 6, 2024
"John McCain for some reason couldn’t get his arm up that day." pic.twitter.com/RFTwP9sDxN
Naturally, it prompted a response from John McCain's daughter, Meghan McCain.
“My dad was an American hero,” she wrote in a post on X/Twitter. “An icon. A patriot that will be remembered throughout history. I cannot buy a bagel without someone approaching me about how much they loved and miss him."
Related: Is This Trump's Biggest Unforced Error of the 2024 Campaign?
Even if we give Trump the benefit of the doubt that he didn't know that McCain's injuries prevented him from being able to raise his arms, it was still a sloppy way to address the issue. Now the media is scrambling to push the narrative that Trump was mocking McCain's injuries from his time as a prisoner of war rather than discussing the faults of Obamacare. In a way, it's hard to blame them, because that's exactly the impression I got from seeing the quote.
Trump needs to be much more disciplined going forward because these are the kinds of mistakes he can't afford to make in such a consequential election.
