Tuesday on ABC’s Good Morning America, anchor George Stephanopoulos interrogated Mick Mulvaney, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director, over President Trump’s proposed budget plan. The ABC journalist and former Clinton staffer downplayed the fiscal effects of the plan as inconsequential in balancing the budget while at the same time touting Democrats’ criticism that Trump was taking a “wrecking ball” to programs “that help the middle class.”
Stephanopoulos began the interview by hyping Democrats’ Chicken Little dramatics that the budget was going to “take a wrecking ball to programs that help the middle class,” like “clean water and food safety.” Not only that, but the budget proposal would basically be “dead on arrival” when it came before Congress, so isn’t this just “symbolism,” he asked?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, Cecilia, thanks very much. Let's bring in the man in charge of President Trump's budget, Mick Mulvaney, he joins us right now. Mr. Mulvaney, thank you for joining us this morning. You are already getting a lot of reaction to the plans we saw yesterday, big increase in defense spending, cuts in domestic programs and Democrats say, that's going to take a wrecking ball to programs that help the middle class like clean water, food safety, education and even Republican budget experts believe the cuts like this are going to be dead on arrival on Capitol Hill so is this all symbolism?
Mulvaney responded that Trump was keeping his campaign promises with the budget. “The budget is nothing more than the manifestation through expenditures of policy and what you see in this budget is exactly what the president ran on,” he responded.
Using that response, Stephanopoulos tried getting Mulvaney to slip, asking if Trump was going to keep his promise to “pay down the debt and balance the budget.”
“This doesn’t bring down deficits at all,” Stephanopoulos complained, adding that Trump needed to “take on Medicare” and Social Security to balance the budget.
Mulvaney responded by snarkily noting where the anchor started off before he worked for ABC.
"Sure George. As you know when you were here this is a budget blueprint, the first year of a new administration,” Mulvaney explained before assuring George that this was just the start of the Administration and that progress was hindered by delays in getting confirmed by Senate Democrats. But Stephanopoulos was not satisfied and asked again if Trump could “keep his promise” to “move the budget towards balanced and pay down the debt and not touch Medicare and Social Security?”
Like a broken record, Stephanopoulos kept pressing Mulvaney throughout the interview on Trump and the GOP’s ability to balance the budget and come up with an Obamacare replacement that “covered everyone at lower costs.”
Where was this fervency when President Obama was in office?
STEPHANOPOULOS: The president promising something special tonight on health care. But it looks like his plans to repeal and replace Obamacare are kind of stuck on Capitol Hill right now so is the president going to come forward tonight with a specific plan of his own and will it meet his promise to cover everyone at lower costs?
When Obama rolled out the Affordable Care Act, a plan built on broken promises, ABC didn’t press the democratic president whether or not he could actually keep his promises of “keeping your doctor” and lowered premiums.
Mulvaney answered that Trump has kept his promises, but Stephanopoulos asked again:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But is the president standing by his promise not to sign a replacement bill that will cause people to lose coverage?
Stephanopoulos ended the interview by again downplaying any effect this proposed plan would have on the budget. “What you're talking about now is a small, small fraction of what it's going to take,” he lectured Mulvaney.
