Meryl Streep, Trump’s Attack On A Reporter’s Disability, And Reality

MATT GERTZ/Media Matters

On November 25, 2015, during a speech before thousands of supporters in South Carolina, Donald Trump mocked the disability of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski.

This is not a controversial statement, or one up for debate. It is a reflection of reality.

Here’s the video. The despicable attack came as Trump was attempting to rebut Kovaleski’s work debunking Trump’s false claim that he saw “thousands” of Americans cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center. You can see Trump holding his right hand at an angle while flailing about in cruel mimicry of Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, which limits the functioning of his joints.

Following criticism of his vicious attack on Kovaleski, Trump claimed he had not been mocking the reporter’s disability. He lied. Part of his defense was that he had never met Kovaleski and didn’t know what he looked like. That was false. Here’s PolitiFact’s ruling that his denials were false. Here’s The Washington PostFactChecker’s.

This is not in question. So why is The New York Times itself helping Trump redefine reality?

During a speech at The Golden Globes on Sunday, Meryl Streep criticized the “instinct to humiliate” on display during Trump’s attack on Kovaleski. The Times’ Patrick Healy called Trump up for his reaction, then authored an article depicting the exchange as a she said/he said: Streep had called attention to a speech in which Trump was “seeming to mock” its reporter and Trump had “flatly denied” the claim.

The Times knows better. When Trump first attacked Kovaleski in July 2015, the paper responded, “We’re outraged that he would ridicule the physical appearance of one of our reporters.”

This is what Trump and his allies do. When Trump says something that exposes a real vulnerability, they outright lie about what he said and why. Trump lies habitually, so unwinding the rationale behind any particular falsehood is difficult. But the result is a news environment in which facts become unstable, reality is constantly under attack, and both journalists and news consumers are unable to process new information within a coherent collective framework.

If the paper of record won’t stand up for the truth about an attack on one of its own reporters, I have to question whether the Times will be able to do so regarding key issues of policy and politics. And that’s a real concern as the next administration unfolds.

MSNBC host Van Susteren smacks down Priebus for downplaying Russian hacks: ‘This is extremely serious’

TOM BOGGIONI/Think Progress

Former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren launched her new show on MSNBC Monday night, lecturing GOP head Reince Priebus for trying to diminish the severity of Russian involvement in the 2016 election.

While Priebus, who will serve as President-elect Donald Trump’s chief of staff, said the new administration would look into the hacks, he attempted to blame the Democratic National Committee instead of the perpetrators.

“As you may know, what the Trump administration is going to do is order a report and a recommendations back within 90 days of the people we have at DNI and then the CIA and Homeland Security and others to look at what we need to do to be better at protecting ourselves from cyberattack,” Priebus said. “But also what recommendation we have an a response to some of the things that have been occurring.”

“What’s getting lost is some of the things I’ve have talk about over the last few days,” he continued. “Yeah, this was a hack and, yes, by foreign entities. But it’s also scaled in magnitude because the DNC had no defenses in place in order to prevent the hack. This is a type of hack, Greta, where someone send you a e-mail that says ‘I’m stranded in Mali, i need $20,000. send it to you me.’ And you have people at the DNC hit the link. The the FBI calls the DNC multiple times over months and the DNC doesn’t respond. I don’t think we would be talking about this if they had some basic defense in place or returned a phone call.”

Van Susteren then pulled Priebus up short, by bring up Russian President Vladimir Putin actions, a topic Trump advocates usually avoid.

“Alright, I used the word mischief and I don’t want the viewers to this is isn’t serious,” the MSNBC host told Priebus. “And even if the DNC could have had better protection, I still see this as extremely serious and I think it’s very bad conduct of Putin towards the  United States showing bad intent even if the DNC could have done better job protecting themselves.”

Watch the video below via MSNBC:

Watch Anderson Cooper ridicule Trump for tweeting Meryl Streep is ‘overrated’

TOM BOGGIONI/Think Progress

While CNN host Anderson Cooper gave an assist to Trump advocate Kayliegh McEnany defending Donald Trump’s attack on actress Meryl Streep, he drew the line at Trump calling the most decorated actress of her time “overrated.”

After McEnany fought with the members of the panel who insisted that Trump had ridiculed New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski who is disabled, with the Trump booster insisting, “that’s a subject of debate,” the CNN host weighed in with his own problem with Trump’s widely derided tweet.

“My point is that his comeback is ‘She’s overrated’ is like,” Cooper said. “Really? That’s what the comeback is?”

CNN regular Kirsten Powers jumped in to add that Trump’s tweet was “adolescent.”

Watch the video below via CNN:

Fiat Chrysler says Trump had nothing to do with its jobs announcement

Bryce Covert/Think Progress

On Sunday, FCA US, the parent company of Fiat and Chrysler, announcedthat it will spend $1 billion to expand plants in Michigan and Ohio and create 2,000 more jobs in the U.S. The move, as the company made clear in its press release, is simply the next phase in an expansion plan it announced last year and comes on top of billions of previous investments that created thousands of jobs.

“This plan was in the works back in 2015,” Jodi Tinson, a spokeswoman for FCA, told ThinkProgress. “This announcement…was just final confirmation.”

When asked directly if it was true that politics and the election had no influence on the announcement, she said, “Correct.”

But that didn’t stop President-elect Donald Trump from tweeting about it without that context. “It’s finally happening,” he said, describing FCA’s plans as well as Ford’s recent announcement that it would invest in a Michigan plant. “Thank you Ford & Fiat C!” he tweeted.

FCA US announced a year ago in an investor presentation that it was experiencing what it saw as a permanent shift among U.S. consumers from cars to SUVs and trucks, and that there was therefore unmet demand for larger vehicles than the Wrangler and Grand Cherokee. It committed to expanding faster in the U.S. and to “[realigning] installed capacity to produce more pickups and Jeeps by end of 2017 to match shift in demand.” It said it would get to that goal within its existing plant infrastructure and potentially increase its headcount.

The company started following through in July of last year. It announced at that time that it would invest more than $1 billion in plants in Illinois and Ohio, adding new 1,000 jobs; and $1.5 billion in a Michigan plant, adding 700 jobs.

Monday’s announcement, therefore, is the second phase in this process and a confirmation of these ongoing plans ,“[c]onsistent and combined with previously announced investments,” as the company put it. The company says it has already invested more than $9.6 billion in U.S. facilities and created 25,000 new American jobs since 2009.

The same dynamic played out last week with Ford’s announcement. The company said it was ditching plans to build a new factory in Mexico and instead investing $700 million in a Michigan plant, creating 700 jobs. Trump quickly tweeted his thanks and said the announcement “is just the beginning.”

But Ford CEO Mark Fields maintained that the decision would have been made regardless of the election outcome. And while Trump had lambasted the company on the campaign trail for making the Focus in Mexico, the company hasn’t changed those operations.

Similarly, Trump took credit in December for Sprint’s decision to bring back or create 5,000 jobs in the U.S. and for satellite startup OneWeb’s move to create 3,000 — despite the fact that both are the outcome of an investment announced before he won the presidency.

Republicans are playing with the future of the entire health insurance industry

Victoria Fleischer/Think Progress

Since President Obama first signed the Affordable Care Act into law, Republicans have been itching to dismantle it. And come January 20 — the day Trump takes the oath of office and Republicans have a majority in the House and the Senate — they will actually have the capacity to do so.

In other to expedite the process, Senate Republicans have one strategy in mind: repeal and delay. They want to repeal Obamacare quickly and give themselves a two to three year grace period to create an alternative policy.

But experts caution that repealing the ACA without having another plan in its place is dangerous. On January 3, in a piece for Health Affairs, Joe Antos and James Capretta of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institutewarned that this strategy would leave many people without insurance.

“The most likely end result of ‘repeal and delay’ would be less secure insurance for many Americans, procrastination by political leaders who will delay taking any proactive steps as long as possible, and ultimately no discernible movement toward a real marketplace for either insurance or medical services,” they wrote.

Some Senate Republicans agree. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told MSNBC that “it’s a huge mistake for Republicans if they do not vote for replacement on the same day we vote for repeal.” And he’s not alone. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen, Bob Corker (R-TN), and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) have also cautioned against this strategy.

Transcript:

VICTORIA FLEISCHER, ThinkProgress: Since the day it was signed into law, Obamacare has been on the defense. And in a Trump administration, it could actually be left in tatters. Only the Republicans don’t exactly have a health care plan to enact in its place.

Their strategy: repeal and delay. They want to repeal Obamacare as quickly as possible, while giving themselves a two to three year grace period to come up with an alternative plan.

In order to expedite the vote, House Republicans are taking advantage of the budget process, which eliminates the Democrats ability to filibuster.

So what does that mean for health care?

The GOP plans are scarce on information, but there are two major issues with the Republican approach.

1) Fewer people will buy insurance.

Obamacare created the individual mandate, which requires everyone — healthy and sick — to buy insurance. Remember: healthy people balance out costs and keep premiums low. Republicans want to abolish the mandate. That means healthy people are less likely to buy coverage and sick people would get stuck with higher and higher premiums.

2) Fewer insurance companies will offer plans.

Insurance companies have adjusted their plans to Obamacare, but without a replacement, they don’t know how to prepare for the future. This uncertainty would likely lead companies to pull out of Obamacare’s state-level marketplaces. With fewer companies in the marketplace, premiums will rise.

And so begins the spiral: competition decreases, premiums rise, more healthy people leave, and on and on and on…until the whole system collapses.

Repeal and delay isn’t final yet, and there are some Republicans who don’t want it to be. But in the meantime, at least 20 million people’s access to health care hangs in the balance.

Kellyanne Conway: Ignore what Trump actually says and ‘look at what’s in his heart’

Zack Ford/Think Progress

Receiving a lifetime achievement award Sunday night at the Golden Globes, actress Meryl Streep expressed her concern about President-elect Donald Trump, focusing in on the moment during the campaign in which he mocked a reporter’s disability. Doing damage control Monday morning, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway pleaded that people ignore Trump’s words and the video of Trump obviously mocking the reporter, and instead look at “his heart.”

“You can’t give him the benefit of the doubt on this and he’s telling you what was in his heart?” Conway asked CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “You always want to go by what’s come out of his mouth rather than look at what’s in his heart.”

Just an hour earlier, Conway had been on Fox and Friends, attacking Meryl Streep for “inciting people’s worst instincts.” Streep gave an eloquent speech about rejecting bullying and encouraged everyone to feel empathy for others.

Whether Trump was intending to mock the reporter in the infamous clip has been well litigated, but the evidence in support of Trump’s after-the-fact claims are not particularly believable.

In the speech from November of 2015, Trump was defending his bizarre claim that thousands of Muslims were celebrating in New Jersey on 9/11. He attacked New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who he knew enough to call a “nice guy,” for standing by his recollection of his own 9/11 reporting at the time of the tragedy.

In his gestures mocking Kovaleski — “you gotta see this guy,” he said — he clearly kept his right hand in a hooked position to mock the way the reporter’s arthrogryposis limits the flexibility in his arms. Trump later explained that he couldn’t possibly have been mocking his disability because, “despite having one of the all-time great memories, I certainly do not remember him.” Trump did not apologize.

But Kovaleski challenged both claims in his statement, highlighting that he had interviewed Trump as many as a dozen times throughout his career, including in his office in Trump Tower. “Donald and I were on a first-name basis for years,” he explained to the Times.

Conway’s argument is that no matter what Trump might do or say that is actually wrong or objectionable, it doesn’t matter so long as people believe he meant well. Streep, on the other hand, must be held accountable for promoting division by not standing by the President-elect.

Keeping it 100 Fridays

By me

First of all, I would like to say fuck everyone that makes up the far left and right.  You guys were the reason the 2016 election sucked now my rage is more aimed at the far left than the right because being angry at white folks who been voting to slash their own throats since the late 1960s is like being angry at a newborn that poops on itself, it's what you should expect. If you give poor Republican voters a choice between a government that actually functions and everyone has a chance to have a decent life or a government that doesn't do shit for anyone but your perceived enemies(blacks and Latinos)will suffer they'll pick the shitty government.

The far left on the other hand has always value purity over everything, my personal belief of Wikileaks they had no role in changing minds hardcore Bernie fans would have found any excuse, not to vote for Secretary Clinton. Hardcore Bernie supporters invested two years on hating Clinton for the simple reason she had the nerve not to bow down to the greatest that is Bernie Sanders and got out of his way in the primary. The hate for Clinton among the far/emo left is on par with the hate the right has for her.

I get having a preference but the hate I saw they had for her was like Hillary Clinton came to their house personally, took a shit in their Fruit Loops, killed their dog, kicked their dad in the balls, bitch slap their mom and called them dirty piss drinking monkeys while leaving out the door. I didn't like Bernie Sanders but I didn't hate the man the same way they did for her.

But the sin the far left has committed over and over again is they're cool with risking other people well-being and rights for false purity. This is why I'm more angry with the far left than the far right. The far right has an excuse they're dumb and filled with hate. The far left likes to pride themselves as smarter than the average liberal and light years smarter than the average conservative. So they knew the risk of the Republicans having control of both the white house and congress yet they didn't give a fuck because Hillary Clinton wasn't as pure as they wanted.

The thing that gets me about the far left many of their heroes are not pure from Bernie who voted to side with the hate group the minutemen and voting to dump toxic waste in Latino communities, hardcore Bernie supporters claiming they couldn't vote for Clinton because she was a Goldwater girl but their second choice Elizabeth Warren voted for Ronald Reagan not once but twice and voting for Republican all the way up to 1996, they loved John Edwards before we knew what kind of shitbag he was and granted a majority of Bernie supporters for Clinton but when you look at the states she lost and look at the numbers Jill Stein got in those states you can make the case the hardcore Bernie fan gave those states to Trump. And speaking of Jill Stein the Daily Beast exposed had a piece her as a fraud as hell so the far left ability to pick heroes and leaders is shitty.

Now  there are about 20 to 30 million people are scared shitless because we got a Republican government looking to rip it away from them without a viable replacement, you got the LBGT community scared because the gains they were made for them could get rolled back via executive order or some bullshit law congress passed the first amendment defense act pretty much allowing assholes to use religious reason to be bigots, hate crimes going up post elections and god knows what else these right-wing lunatics want to do. And all this going to happen for what because no one outside that box of white well to do liberals didn't want Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee.

Check out purity left Twitter, they're still talking shit about Clinton. People are going to suffer and these clowns are still attacking Clinton and attempting to gaslight their role in enabling a man who's going to make George W.Bush look like fucking FDR.

Fuck Cenk Uygur, Fuck Glenn Greenwald, Fuck Mike Malloy and if you're a fan of these guys or guys like them fuck you too.

Will Megyn Kelly Bring The Hate Group Leaders And Extremists Who Frequented Her Fox Show To NBC?

ZACHARY PLEAT & CRISTINA LóPEZ G./Media Matters

In her past role at Fox News, new NBC News hire Megyn Kelly has invited onto her show a number of extremists and hate group leaders who spread and espouse anti-LGBTQ, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant views, statements, and lies. Will she continue her practice of hosting bigotry in her upcoming daytime news and Sunday evening programs?

NBC News Hires Fox News’ Megyn Kelly As Daytime News Anchor And Prime-Time Magazine Show Host

Megyn Kelly To Anchor Her Own Daytime News And Sunday Evening Shows On NBC. NBC News announced January 3 that Fox News host Megyn Kelly will join the network and “become anchor of a new one hour daytime program that she will develop closely with NBC News colleagues.” She will also “anchor a new Sunday evening news magazine show and will become an important contributor to NBC’s breaking news coverage as well as the network’s political and special events coverage.” NBC News said details about her shows will be released in the coming months. [NBC News, 1/3/17]

Kelly Invited Onto Her Prime-Time Fox Show Hate Group Leaders And Other Extremists Dozens Of Times

Megyn Kelly Has Hosted Anti-LGBTQ Hate Group Leader Tony Perkins At Least 34 Times. Kelly has regularly hosted anti-LGBTQ hate group leader Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council (FRC), to speak as a “captain of the religious right.” FRC was labeled an anti-LGBTQ “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in 2010, a designation given to anti-LGBTQ organizations that either intentionally spread misinformation to advance their agenda or have worked to criminalize LGBTQ people. Perkins has called pedophilia “a homosexual problem,” claimed that gay men “recruit” children into homosexuality, and endorsed a Uganda law that would have imposed the death penalty for homosexuality. Kelly has described FRC as “a group whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and culture from a Christian worldview.” Kelly has also peddled Perkins’ talking points that “Christian beliefs and Christian rights” are being trampled as LGBTQ rights increase, lamenting that it must be “alienating” for him to be criticized for his anti-LGBTQ beliefs. Kelly also hosted Perkins to promote his book No Fear. [Media Matters, 4/11/16, 9/10/15; Nexis, accessed 1/3/17]

Kelly Gave Anti-Immigrant Extremist Ann Coulter A Platform At Least 13 Times. Ann Coulter, whom SPLC refers to as a “white nationalist in the mainstream,” repeatedly appeared on The Kelly File to promote her extremist anti-immigrant views. According to SPLC, Coulter’s quotes are “strikingly similar” to “things [that] have been uttered by neo-Nazis and hardcore white nationalists.” In one of Coulter’s appearances, Kelly laughed off Coulter’s suggestion that then-presidential nominee Donald Trump should arrest undocumented journalist Jose Antonio Vargas. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 5/27/15; Media Matters, 7/23/15; Nexis, accessed 1/3/17]

Kelly Has Hosted Anti-Muslim Hate Group Leader Brigitte Gabriel At Least Six Times. Kelly has repeatedly invited anti-Muslim leader Brigitte Gabriel, founder of ACT for America, to discuss terrorism on her show. SPLC reports Gabriel’s ACT for America floods “the American public with hate speech demonizing Muslims," and notes that it claims a “‘secret Islamification’ of the West” is occurring. SPLC also reports ACT once held a conference featuring a speaker who called news outlet Al Jazeera “the voice of Islamic terrorism.” Gabriel herself has called Arab people “barbarians,” claimed a practicing Muslim “cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America,” and wrote, “In the Muslim world, extreme is mainstream.” [Media Matters, 6/16/16; Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 1/5/17, 2/17/16, 8/24/11; Nexis, accessed 1/3/17]

Kelly Hosted Jordan Lorence, VP Of The Anti-LGBTQ Group Alliance Defending Freedom, At Least Three Times. Kelly hosted a leader of the Alliance Defending Freedom at least three times. Established as the Alliance Defense Fund in 1994, ADF was founded by religious right leaders including Focus on the Family's James C. Dobson and Campus Crusade for Christ's Bill Bright. According to ADF's website, the organization changed its name to Alliance Defending Freedom in 2012 to highlight its "enduring mission to gain justice for those whose faith has been unconstitutionally denied in the areas of religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family." ADF's relentless legal campaign against LGBTQ equality led SPLC to describe the organization as "virulently anti-gay." SPLC proved instrumental in exposing an aspect of ADF's efforts that the organization chooses not to tout on its website -- its international work to criminalize homosexuality. After a New Mexico photographer who refused to serve a same-sex couple unsuccessfully appealed to the Supreme Court, Kelly invited ADF vice president Jordan Lorence -- who was representing the photographer in court -- on her show to stoke fears about the case, asking Lorence whether a loss for his client could lead to "a lawsuit by a gay couple” against a Catholic church. [Media Matters, 12/4/13; Nexis, accessed 1/3/17]

Kelly Hosted CIS’ Mark Krikorian, Part Of The “Nativist Lobby,” At Least Twice. Kelly at least twice hosted Mark Krikorian, head of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) -- founded by notorious nativist John Tanton -- which SPLC reports was created to give think tank-like credibility to the anti-immigrant “nativist cause.” SPLC also reports CIS releases studies with conclusions that are often biased to "blame immigrants for all of the U.S.'s problems" and claims that "are either false or virtually without any supporting evidence," noting that "CIS is not interested in serious research or getting the facts straight" and that it has “never found any aspect of immigration it liked.” Kelly hosted Krikorian twice in mid-2014, once to talk about President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, and once to ask him about witnessing a terror attack in Nice, France. Both times she introduced him as “the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies” without noting its problematic ties or studies. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 1/31/09; Media Matters, 1/17/13; Nexis, accessed 1/4/17]

Kelly Hosted Anti-LGBTQ Hate Group Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver At Least Twice. Kelly has at least twice hosted the leader of Liberty Counsel, which is on SPLC’s list of active anti-LGBTQ extremists. SPLC wrote of its leader: “Mat Staver, the group's president, co-founder and former dean at the Liberty University School of Law, has claimed that with full marriage equality, everyone will decide to be gay and society will ‘cease to exist.’ (He also has linked homosexuality to rampant increases in disease, falsely linked homosexuality to pedophilia and claimed that homosexuality is the result of childhood sexual abuse.)” Kelly twice hosted Staver in September 2015 while he was representing Kentucky clerk Kim Davis in her legal battle for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. [Media Matters, 9/11/15; Nexis, accessed 1/3/17]

Kelly Hosted Anti-LGBTQ Activist James Dobson At Least Twice. Kelly at least twice hosted activist James Dobson, who, along with his Focus on the Family organization, is well-known for his extremist anti-LGBTQ views, according to SPLC. Focus on the Family is one of a "dozen major groups" that "help drive the religious right's anti-gay crusade," it's a strong supporter of so-called ex-gay therapy, and Dobson has written that the “homosexual activist movement” is bent on “overturning laws prohibiting pedophilia” and that same-sex marriage would cause the fall of Western civilization. Kelly twice hosted Dobson and his wife in mid-2014 to talk about the National Day of Prayer event. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/22/16, 4/28/05; Nexis, accessed 1/3/17]

Methodology: Media Matters searched Nexis transcripts for guest appearances on Fox News’ The Kelly File by select individuals and representatives of hate or extremist groups that have been profiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The search was filtered by editions hosted only by Megyn Kelly.

Joy Reid nails hypocrite ‘fiscal conservatives’ fine with Trump’s big spending on the ‘Great Wall’

SARAH K. BURRIS/Raw Story

President-elect Donald Trump admitted himself that he never thought his “Great Wall” was going to happen. Just days following his electoral win, Trump revealed that the “big, beautiful wall” will probably just a fence.

Even Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich admitted that Trump’s wall wasn’t rea.

“He may not spend much time trying to get Mexico to pay for it,” Gingrich said. “But it was a great campaign device.”

Thursday, Trump further admitted that when he said that “Mexico will pay for it,” what he really meant was “Congress will pay for it.” Meaning, taxpayers will pay for it. The United States will simply send Mexicio the receipt and they’ll reimburse us. Promise.

Now, Trump’s wall is causing trouble for self-described “fiscal conservatives” in Congress, who are aligning themselves with Trump’s policies, even if it contrasts with their long-held political beliefs.

“We’re going to get reimbursed but I don’t want to wait that long,” said Trump. “But you start and you get reimbursed.” He later added in a tweet, “the dishonest media does not report any money spent on building the great wall for sake of speed will be paid back by Mexico later.”

“Today, the president-elect got slightly more detailed about who will actually pay for the wall and, surprise, it’s you!” MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid said while filling in for Chris Hayes.

Reid explained that the Trump transition and the House Republicans are ready to move forwad paying for the wall with taxpayer dollars. “You’re welcome,” Reid said.

MSNBC contributor Josh Barro told Reid that his fiscally responsible sensibilities have a problem with using $10 billion of taxpayer money on Trump’s wall.

“It felt like shtick, like how could anybody believe this was going to happen?” Barro said. He then cited a poll that The Washington Post conducted in September that revealed only 21 percent of American voters believed that Trump would really build the wall.

“So, on one hand, that’s a lot of people, on the other hand, that’s less than half of the people who voted for him,” Barro said. “So, a lot of the people voting for Trump, they realize that, this was just a thing he was saying. It was not going to happen.”

Barro noted that Trump’s calculations of $10 billion are also a little off. Many calculations anticipate that it will likely cost twice that if it is built to what Trump promised to his voters.

“So, it starts adding up to real money, a billion here, a billion there,” Barro continued. “It’s something that ends up being a non-trivial item in the federal budget if we foot the bill for it.”

Reid cited another report that revealed members of Congress can’t go back to their districts and tell their constituents that there will be no wall.

“So, now you have Steve King, one of these Republicans, … say if Trump can get funding for the wall from Congress, I’m not going to say let’s wait for the Pesos,” Reid quoted.

It’s forcing the GOP into a contorted position to be fiscally responsible while racking up deficits for projects they didn’t even campaign on and Americans (2 to 1) are against.

“I think they have to be worried in both directions!” Barro said. “If they try to not appropriate the money to build the wall they could be attacked in the primary but if they do go along with spending what ends up being $20 billion or whatever on this wall, that’s something they can be attacked for in the general election.”

Check out the full conversation below:

OBAMA SAYS SANDERS, FAR LEFT HELPED UNDERMINE OBAMACARE

BY REUTERS

President Barack Obama said on Friday that criticism from the left wing of his own Democratic Party helped feed into the unpopularity of Obamacare, his signature healthcare reform law.

Obama has been spending part of his last two weeks in office urging supporters to speak out against plans by Republicans - who will soon control both the White House and Congress - to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

At a town hall event with Vox Media, Obama acknowledged the politics have been stacked against his reforms, mainly blaming Republicans who he said refused to help make legislative fixes to Obamacare, which provides subsidies for private insurance to lower-income Americans who do not have healthcare plans at work.

But Obama also said Liberals like former Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders had contributed to the program's unpopularity.

During Sanders' campaign for the presidential nomination, he proposed replacing Obamacare with a government-run single-payer health insurance system based on Medicare, the government plan for elderly and disabled Americans.

"In the 'dissatisfied' column are a whole bunch of Bernie Sanders supporters who wanted a single-payer plan," Obama said in the interview.

"The problem is not that they think Obamacare is a failure. The problem is that they don't think it went far enough and that it left too many people still uncovered," Obama said.

Michael Briggs, a spokesman for Sanders, agreed that many people would rather the government "take on the private insurance industry and the pharmaceutical companies" and play a bigger role in providing healthcare.

"There are many millions of Americans, including many of Bernie's supporters, who don’t understand why we are the only major country on earth that does not provide healthcare as a right and they don’t understand why we pay more but get less for what we spend on healthcare," Briggs said.

Polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation last month showed 46 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Obamacare, while 43 percent have a favorable view. Americans are also split on whether the law should be repealed.

Trump and congressional Republicans have vowed to quickly repeal the law, but Obama and Democrats have argued they should reveal a replacement plan before dismantling the program.

More than 20 million previously uninsured Americans gained health coverage through Obamacare, according to the White House. Coverage was extended by expanding the Medicaid program for the poor and through online exchanges where consumers can receive income-based subsidies.