The View’s Abby Huntsman Excoriates Trump: ‘What a Dumb Move’ to Push for Obamacare Repeal

Abby Huntsman has a one-word analysis of President Trump’s renewed push to repeal Obamacare: “Dumb.”

The co-host of The View made the observation at the top of Thursday’s episode. Joy Behar had just noted that Trump, in the wake of the attorney general claiming he had been cleared of Russian collusion in the 2016 election, had a chance to bring the nation together to work on something of concern to everyday Americans. Namely, the spiraling costs of healthcare and coverage.

Huntsman agreed, noting that Trump just had “the three best days of his entire presidency.” So the president’s reaction is to order the Justice Department to support a lawsuit that would strike down the entire Affordable Care Act, immediately causing chaos for the health insurance industry and hardship for millions of Americans.

“What a dumb political move,” Huntsman said. “It’s dumb because this is the issue that won Democrats the midterms, gave them their win.” She went on to note that Republicans do not have a plan to offer as an alternative to the ACA.

Naturally, Meghan McCain diagnosed Trump’s decision through the only lens of which she is capable: How does this relate to Meghan McCain?

“Can I tell you my theory?” McCain asked. “Because he’s so, as we know, obsessed with my father, my father was the person who voted no because he didn’t believe in the skinny repeal, because Republicans as we just stated could not come to terms with what they wanted.”

It’s true that Trump has cited the late senator John McCain’s “no” vote on ACA repeal in the summer of 2017 many, many times as one of the great frustrations of his presidency. But he has also been promising to repeal the entire law since he started running for president four years ago. To him, it is a campaign promise he has not yet fulfilled. Now that he believes he has been cleared of collusion with Russia, he is feeling confident enough to try it again.

Huntsman is correct in her analysis. Democrats stomped the GOP in the 2018 midterms partly by talking about healthcare, months after John McCain’s death. That Trump is handing them an opportunity to do so again, at a moment when some in the party might have been feeling deflated by the end of the Mueller investigation, is a stupendously boneheaded political move. Or, in a word, dumb.

Watch the clip up top, via ABC.