MSNBC’s Katy Tur has a long list of gaffes involving an apparent inability to recall recent political history, all while getting into arguments with Republican congressmen. The latest installment of this saga occurred when she was filling in for Chuck Todd has the moderator of MTP Daily Thursday evening. This time, she got into an argument with Republican Congressman Chris Collins over what was to blame for ObamaCare’s current death-spiral.
Collins was trying to explain why it was important to Republican members of the House to repeal ObamaCare. “But it was a campaign promise the President made and every one of us made to replace the failure of ObamaCare, where today, 94 out of 99 counties in Iowa don't have an insurance carrier at all,” he told her.
Tur cut Collins off (one of the numerous times), and tried to lecture the congressman on what she claimed was the real reason for the mass exodus of insurance companies from the health care exchanges. According to Tur’s flawed retelling of history:
Part of the reason is because of the lack of confidence in ObamaCare because of the way that Republicans have gone about gutting regulation and also saying that they would repeal it. Part of the reason that there's only one health care provider or no health care providers, is because of the insurance markets and insurance providers pulling out because of what Republicans were-- the rhetoric they were putting forth and what they were doing.
“No Katy, you can't say that,” Collins exclaimed. “They pulled out when they thought Hillary Clinton was going to be elected. This didn't happen in the last four months. You go back a year ago and you look at what happened in Arizona.”
The congressman was right, but the failings of ObamaCare are something NBC doesn’t like to discuss on air.
According to a Media Research Center study, between January 1 and August 27 of 2016 NBC spent a total of three minutes and one second talking about the program’s collapse. In the time period covered by that study, one the stories they failed to cover was insurer Aetna pulling out of the exchanges after suffering over $430 million in losses. And in October, they took their sweet time reporting that premiums were skyrocketing. All of this occurred when it looked as though Trump was not going to win.
“So no, this was the abject failure of ObamaCare,” Collins explained to set the record straight, “You can't say that they pulled out because a few months back, we elected President Trump. You can't connect those.” Tur then quickly changed the subject and asked what he thought of criticisms from organizations that object to the bill.
That wasn’t the only slip-up Tur had on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, she wondered if President Trump could get primaried out in 2018. “Is there any chance—and this is a question that might be a little too early to ask: Is there any chance that Donald Trump will face a primary challenger in 2018 from the Republican side,” she asked Chris Matthews, who didn’t seem to notice the flub.
Transcript below:
MSNBC
MTP Daily
May 4, 2017
5:22:26 PM Eastern(…)
CHRIS COLLINS: A bill we've been working on for years. So this is so very different than what happened with Obamacare. And of course we had a party line vote. There's no way Nancy Pelosi was going to let a single member of the conference vote to repeal ObamaCare—
KATY TUR [Cutting off Collins]: It wasn't just a party line vote. There were a number of Republicans. 20 Republicans voted no on this. 20 Republicans!
COLLINS: Yes, so we had 93% of our conference on board. 93%. And we're talking about states like New Jersey, California, and Pennsylvania which are entirely different than Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and Texas.
TUR [Cutting off Collins]: Do those Republican voters not matter in those states?
COLLINS: Everyone matters. All politics are local. We did have 20 members, for one re or another. Some from the Freedom Caucus, some from the Tuesday Group, some not in either group. But we had 93% of our conference come together that had no support from the Democrats. But it was a campaign promise the President made and every one of us made to replace the failure of ObamaCare, where today, 94 out of 99 counties in Iowa don't have an insurance carrier at all.
TUR [Cutting off Collins]: Part of the reason is because of the lack of confidence in ObamaCare because of the way that Republicans have gone about gutting regulation and also saying that they would repeal it. Part of the reason that there's only one health care provider or no health care providers, is because of the insurance markets and insurance providers pulling out because of what Republicans were-- the rhetoric they were putting forth and what they were doing.
COLLINS: No Katy, you can't say that. They pulled out when they thought Hillary Clinton was going to be elected. This didn't happen in the last four months. You go back a year ago and you look at what happened in Arizona. That was with President Obama and the expectation that Hillary Clinton would be elected and they were down to one, only one insurance carrier in Arizona. And even yet later during the year. Others pulled out. So no, this was the abject failure of ObamaCare. It has nothing to do, and you can't say that they pulled out because a few months back, we elected President Trump. You can't connect those.
TUR [Changing subject]: What do you say to the AARP…
