Rounds, Thune: Trump’s Twitter antics unproductive

June 30--WASHINGTON -- South Dakota's U.S. senators are keeping the health care reform rhetoric optimistic, but both acknowledged President Donald Trump's social media outbursts aren't doing the American public any favors.

During separate media calls Thursday, U.S. Sens. Mike Rounds and John Thune expressed disappointment in Trump's early morning attack of MSNBC personality Mika Brzezinski, noting Trump's continued social media assaults distract from the more important issues at hand.

"It most certainly is not helpful," Rounds said.

As both senators push for major reforms to the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as "Obamacare," Thune said Trump's Twitter posts are unproductive. Thune said Trump needs to focus on the important issues facing Americans like health care and tax reform, infrastructure and the economy.

"Those types of tweets are not only very unproductive, they're just very inappropriate," Thune said. "And I tire, I get exhausted reacting to the president's constant use of Twitter."

Trump's Twitter post about Brzezinski stole headlines across the internet Thursday morning after he targeted the MSNBC morning show host for "bleeding badly from a face-lift."

His posts came two days after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delayed a vote on the GOP-backed Better Care Reconciliation Act. McConnell's decision followed a Congressional Budget Office report showing 22 million people would lose health insurance over the next decade under the proposal.

Despite the tweets and the delayed vote getting in the way of dialogue regarding the proposal, both Thune and Rounds spoke highly of the health care reform plan. Thune, however, mentioned the plodding progress of the bill.

"It's three steps forward and two steps back," Thune said. "We're meeting on a daily basis and I think we've made some headway, but I also think there are still a few outstanding issues. But the bottom line is we need to get this done."

Rounds spoke in favor of the plan's "guaranteed renewability" and ability for children to remain on their parents' health insurance until age 26, both popular holdovers from Obamacare. He also sees the Senate Republican plan as a way to allow states to innovate and adapt unique health insurance models to each state.

But the Senate has until the end of September to pass the bill to impact the health insurance marketplace in January, he said.

"We really need to have the agreement done, completed and agreed with the House and signed by the president sometime in September, and our leadership recognizes that," Rounds said.

The Senate bill is not expected to gain any Democratic Party support, and some Republicans in the Senate have expressed concern with the proposal's Medicaid rollbacks.

Under the Senate bill, the insurance mandate would be cut, there would be sweeping Medicaid cuts and Planned Parenthood would face funding cuts. But Rounds said the ultimate goal of the plan is to lower health insurance premiums that have shot up in states like South Dakota.

To achieve that goal, Rounds, Thune and other Republicans will have to rise above Trump's social media posts to maintain focus on health care reform and other important issues.

"I guess my response on this has simply been that, you know, we're disappointed," Rounds said about Trump's tweets. "And when the president of the United States speaks, people really do listen, and the president needs to be aware of that."

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