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Krauthammer: ‘It’s sort of touching the way Obama believes in the power of his rhetoric’

Brendan Bordelon Contributor
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Columnist Charles Krauthammer told Fox News Tuesday that the president’s last-ditch campaign to save Obamacare won’t work, saying it’s “sort of touching the way Obama believes in the power of rhetoric — his rhetoric — in denying and trumping reality.”

On Fox’s “Special Report,” host Bret Baier spoke with Krauthammer, columnist George Will and NPR’s Mara Liasson about the pileup of problems plaguing the president’s flagship achievement. Each panelist expressed skepticism over Obama’s new campaign to rebrand and remarket Obamacare.

“Well, I suppose it’s fitting that this president, who’s the first president whose campaign for the presidency was his qualification for the presidency, is now campaigning yet again,” said Will. “And as he speaks — the more he speaks — the more carefully you have to parse his sentences.” The columnist rattled off the website glitches, low enrollment numbers and court challenges all threatening Obamacare. “Aside from that, everything’s going swimmingly,” he said.

Liasson said the website was improving and “now the health care law itself gets tested.” She noted that Republicans are no longer talking about repeal. “I think they feel that they’re going to let this law collapse under its own weight.”

Krauthammer told panelists he didn’t “agree that the website issue is over,” calling it a “catastrophe” and the law “absolutely nonfunctional.” He seemed shocked at the president’s hope that a public relations campaign will turn things around.

“Obama — I mean, it’s sort of touching the way he believes in the power of rhetoric, his rhetoric, in denying and trumping reality,” he said. “He can’t. He can issue all the words he wants, but unless he fixes what’s out there — people are experiencing the cancellations, experiencing the pauses, and if they show up on January 1 thinking they are enrolled in a plan, see a doctor at current expense and aren’t, that’s going to be the end for Obamacare.”

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