People Are Calling Out Trump For Not Knowing How Many Votes Were Needed For Health Care Bill
On Friday morning, after news broke that the Senate's latest bill for health care reform failed thanks to Senator John McCain's shocking vote -- along with those of Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins -- President Donald Trump took to Twitter to express his views.
While phrased in a hypothetical and conditional tense, most people are interpreting the tweet to be in response to the vote on the Health Care Freedom Act, which failed on the floor early Friday morning in a 49-51 vote.
The tweet prompted a swift and hilarious backlash from all corners of the social media platform.
Several users responded directly to Trump, replying that the GOP's bill, which he was likely referring to, only needed 51 votes to pass the Senate, not 60.
The number of votes needed to pass certain things in the House and Senate are, to be fair, endless confusing and complex, and they've changed a lot in recent years. But for legislation that Trump has been digging in his heels about, it seems odd that he'd reference the 60-vote rule.
One user pointed to the fact that Senators largely disagree with what Trump is proposing.
Part of why people are so relentlessly calling out the president, beyond the fact that the nation's leader should know how many votes are required to pass legislation that would change millions of people's lives, is because he himself did the math just hours before.
In early hours of Friday, Trump said that a total of 51 senators "let the American people down," showing that he was clearly keeping tabs on the night's votes. So you'd think he'd know how many votes it would've taken to get a victory.
Someone was quick to call out his previous tweet as well, pointing out that he even commented on the vote's outcome, seemingly contradicting himself.
Amidst all these callouts, Trump followed up 15 minutes later with a second tweet in what appeared to be an epic backpedal.
Trouble is, the latter only seemed to contradict the former. And beyond contradiction, taken together, the pair of statements just doesn't make any kind of sense.
On this, too, people weren't about to let Trump's tweets off the hook. Another user called out the nonsensical follow-up:
And as more time passes without a clear statement on what exactly he meant by these tweets, others are continuing to press the president for answers.
This isn't the first time Trump has ranted on Twitter about the need for a 51-vote majority -- just 10 days ago, he was tweeting about changing the majority vote requirements for filibusters.
And when he said it then, Republicans, in general, denounced it. By the looks of Twitter, people aren't letting this one go, either.
