“Thank you for joining us on a day of great relief for many million Americans, because the Graham-Cassidy health-care bill, a bill I’ve been speaking about all week, we got news today: It shall not pass,” announced Jimmy Kimmel at the top of his show Tuesday night.
Indeed, the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host had done more than perhaps any civilian to sink the problematic GOP health-care bill, devoting several passionate segments on his late-night program to exposing the bill’s myriad deficiencies. Kimmel was motivated to take on the Republicans’ attempts to gut Obamacare by the recent birth of his baby son, who was born with a congenital heart disease (Tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia) and nearly died.
And on Tuesday, Sen. Mitch McConnell officially pulled the bill because it didn’t have the necessary votes to pass Congress.
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“I haven’t been this happy about something being dead since Bin Laden, I’ll tell ya,” cracked Kimmel. “And on behalf of my family, especially my son Billy, I want to sincerely thank those of you who called your representatives, made your voices heard, and got involved to help.”
He added, “I bet the walls of the Oval Office are filled with dozens of tiny little fist holes today,” referencing President Trump’s notoriously small hands.
One of the big reasons Graham-Cassidy failed was due to Sen. John McCain, who once again stood up against his party and opposed the bill. He was followed by Sen. Susan Collins.
McCain’s opposition to the bill prompted President Trump to tweet out the following:
“My oh my. He’s so mad, he’s turned into Scarlett O’Hara!” joked Kimmel. “And by the way, McCain didn’t even flip-flop on this. He’s still in favor of repealing-and-replacing [Obamacare], just not repealing-and-replacing with a flaming pile of dog crap. And the idea that Donald Trump would criticize anyone for changing their position is very rich. It’s definitely richer than he is. Donald Trump has more flip-flops than a Jimmy Buffett concert. No one contradicts themselves more.”
Kimmel then played a montage of clips of Trump flip-flopping on various positions, including Trump saying Bill Clinton was a “great president” and Hillary Clinton was a “great woman”; Trump saying that he identifies “more as a Democrat”; that he’s “very pro-choice”; that he’s “not going to have time to play golf” while president; and that he would “produce my tax returns” if he decided to run for public office.
The late-night comedian proceeded to refer to a meeting Trump had with conservatives in which he lashed out at Sen. McCain for effectively killing the GOP’s attempts at repeal-and-replace, and called him a “disgrace.” This isn’t the first time Trump has insulted McCain—who, by the way, is battling brain cancer—either. During the presidential campaign, he said of Vietnam vet McCain, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
The slew of Trump insults directed at McCain really seemed to get under Kimmel’s skin.
“That in itself is disgraceful. John McCain is at home fighting brain cancer right now. What’s your brain’s excuse?” said a fired-up Kimmel.
“And also, the same week Trump is telling the NFL to be more patriotic, he’s insulting a man with a Purple Heart. Sen. John McCain, when he was a young man, he went to Vietnam, he was beaten viciously, he was a prisoner of war for five-and-a-half years, they offered to release him and he said no, he refused to leave his fellow soldiers behind. So he stayed there voluntarily. Donald Trump got out of even going to Vietnam because he had a ‘bone spur’ in his foot. He got a deferment from Dr. Scholl’s.”
Trump did, in fact, receive five draft deferments that helped him dodge the Vietnam War—including a final medical one in 1968 that was attributed to bone spurs in his heels. However, the heel spurs seem to have since disappeared, if the medical report his doctor released during his candidacy is to be believed.
