Everyone knows that the truth and Donald Trump have just a passing acquaintance, but this is getting kind of ridiculous. On Wednesday, Trump insisted that Trumpcare has all the votes it needs, just that they ran into a time problem and a temporary vote count problem. He insisted that one of the yes votes was in the hospital, and that's why they couldn't come up with the requisite 50 votes this week. But there's no one in the hospital, as was widely reported after Trump made that assertion Wednesday.
Trump either hasn't gotten that news, or he likes this excuse for failure, because even after he was debunked he's still at it!
"We have the votes, but reconciliation is a disaster," Trump told Fox & Friends in an interview that aired Thursday morning. "But as you know, it ends on Friday. So we don't have enough time, because we have one senator who's a 'yes' vote, a great person, but he's in the hospital."
Trump went on: "And he's a 'yes' vote. So we can't do it by Friday. So we have the votes. We will do it some time at the beginning of the year, but prior to the election in November."
Trump unveiled this excuse Wednesday morning on Twitter and told reporters a few hours later that he was talking about Mississippi senator Thad Cochran. But Cochran, whose office said he had a medical procedure earlier this week, isn't in the hospital. The 79-year-old confirmed that in a tweet.
So what's Trump talking about? Who knows. But here's the other thing. They don't have the votes. They didn't have the votes last week, they didn't have them Monday, they don't have them now. Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the guy who whips the votes in the Senate says so, telling CNN "the votes aren't there for this," and "if we had the votes, we'd be voting right now."