Upset over health care, McCain compares Democrats to Bernie Madoff
December 21, 2009
Tempers are flying high over the successful health care cloture motion, and the reputedly hot-headed senator on Monday accused Democrats of engaging in a Madoff-like ploy to rip off the American people.
"It's one of a great Bernie Madoff gimmicks that anybody's ever seen," McCain said on ABC's Good Morning America. "Republicans were never brought in to the negotiations. This is what you get — a split country — when American people are opposed to what we're doing."
"That's nutty stuff," McCain added. "And by the way, it's unacceptable."
McCain, who was visibly angry late Sunday night on the Senate floor, said several times that the negotiations were one-sided. His colleagues agreed, but none of his them appear to have taken the accusation so far as to compare Democrats to the greatest financial swindler of all time.
The 2008 Republican nominee for president made the same comparison on Fox News Sunday, telling host Chris Wallace that Democrats are engaging in "budget gimmickry, and we all know it."
"That assumes that the cuts in Medicare, which are to the tune of a half a trillion dollars, are going to take place," McCain said Sunday. "That assumes that things like the doctors fix and others are taken care of, which they haven't been in the past. The fact is that this is -- and of course only Bernie Madoff would approve of this kind of budgeting."
McCain's GOP colleague and friend Lindsey Graham on Sunday accused the Obama administration of giving "bribes" to Democratic Senators in exchange for their votes, calling it "seedy Chicago politics."
"You know, change you can believe in, after this health care bill debacle is now becoming an empty slogan," Graham said. "And it’s really been replaced by seedy Chicago politics, when you think about it, backroom deals that amount to bribes."
"You know, change you can believe in, after this health care bill debacle is now becoming an empty slogan. And it’s really been replaced by seedy Chicago politics, when you think about it, backroom deals that amount to bribes," said Graham.
RNC Chairman Michael Steele on Monday called the successful motion "a grand deception" rather than "a grand compromise."
"Harry Reid and his liberal allies quietly got one step closer to enacting their 2,700-page government-run health care experiment with absolutely no input from Republicans," Steele said in a statement. "I don't know about you but I am sick and tired of it."
This video is from ABC's Good Morning America, broadcast Dec. 21, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
--Video captured and uploaded by David Edwards
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