Health Care

Hugh Hewitt invokes ‘Game of Thrones’ listing ‘doomed’ GOP healthcare defectors

by Josh Delk

Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt invoked HBO’s “Game of Thrones” Tuesday as he listed the Republican senators who oppose the latest GOP plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

“We know the list to blame. It’s like #AryaStark list. And it just keeps getting longer: Heller, Johnson, then Collins and Paul, then Lee and Moran and we will add the ‘no’ votes on ‘RepealPlus2Years. They are cavalier about those w/o coverage, about their promises, about costs etc,” he wrote in a series of tweets, referring to GOP Sens. Dean Heller (Nev.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), Susan Collins (Maine), Rand Paul (Ky.), Mike Lee (Utah) and Jerry Moran (Kan.).

 

In “Game of Thrones,” which premiered its seventh season on Sunday, the character Arya Stark is often seen repeating a list of people she wants to kill in search of revenge against violence visited upon her family. 

{mosads}The tweets come one day after the Senate GOP’s healthcare repeal-and-replace effort fell apart, after Moran and Lee said Monday night that they would not vote to proceed on the plan. 
 
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) then proposed that the Senate vote to repeal ObamaCare, with a replacement plan to follow within the next two years. But that plan seems to lack support as well, with at least two GOP lawmakers against it. 
 
Hewitt highlighted Heller in his Twitter outburst; Heller opposed the steep Medicaid cuts in the now-sidelined plan. He is up for reelection in 2018 and is considered vulnerable. 
 
Hewitt also took a shot at Heller in a radio interview with Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) on Tuesday, saying he “isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer” and is “doomed” if healthcare reform fails. 
 
“I think Dean Heller is doomed unless this thing moves on. I’ll be campaigning against him every single day. Is there a reality check? Do people understand? I’ve been taking calls all morning, how outraged the base is?”
 
He told Thune his listeners will buck the Republican establishment if the party can’t deliver on its campaign promises.
 
“I don’t believe any of my listeners will give a dime to the National Republican Senatorial Committee if this fails. And I believe that anyone who reverses course is doomed whenever they next come up, even if it’s five years down the road, doomed with a capital D.”
 
He told Thune to “relay that to the caucus, not one dime for the National Republican Senatorial Committee” if lawmakers fail to repeal ObamaCare using a 2015 legislative vehicle.
 
The Republicans’ failure to repeal and replace ObamaCare has created “an actual crisis of credibility for the Republican Party,” Hewitt added.   

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