Stephen Colbert finds one person who actually likes the GOP's embattled TrumpCare plan
On Monday, "the Republicans finally unveiled their health care plan — then, out of force of habit, they voted to repeal it," Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday's Late Show. The bill does keep some of the popular parts of the Affordable Care Act, he said. "Oh, there's one other thing they're keeping from ObamaCare — nobody likes it. Conservatives are calling it 'ObamaCare lite' — great taste, less coverage." Democrats are unhappy with it because it's essentially a $600 billion tax cut for the wealthy and it covers an estimated 20 million fewer people than ObamaCare. "Pretty rough, 20 million fewer than Obama?" Colbert said. "That sounds like Trump's inauguration."
Colbert did manage to find someone who approved of TrumpCare, and they had a little disco party. "Where was I?" he asked, after his dance with death. "Oh yeah, we're all gonna die." Aside from the Grim Reaper, Colbert found some other winners from the plan, like insurance executives making more than $500,000 a year — "so, all of them?" he said — and tanning salons, both of which get special tax cuts. He marveled that more than 10 percent of the legislation is about denying Medicaid coverage to lottery winners, then noted that Republicans haven't explained how much it will cost or how they plan to pay for it. "So this bill's going to be like those fancy restaurants where they don't have what it costs on the menu," Colbert said.
After ribbing the GOP for some of the hiccups in its TrumpCare rollout, Colbert turned to other news. "Of course the other big story today is that Trump's BFFs over at WikiLeaks took a Wiki-dump on the CIA," he said, noting that one alleged power the CIA has is eavesdropping through Samsung smart TVs. "This is true, I have all Samsung TVs in my house," Colbert said. "And that means the CIA has hundreds of hours of me looking for the remote." He ended by showing President Trump greeting visitors in the White House — under a portrait of Hillary Clinton. "That is awkward," he said. "Apparently presidential portraits are commissioned based on the popular vote."
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In the last part of his monologue, Colbert poked fun at HUD Secretary Ben Carson's comments about slaves being immigrants. "I think it unfair everyone is dwelling on this one gaffe of Carson's," he said, "because the rest of Carson's speech was a gaffe-hole of doom." Watch below. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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