MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” mocked the White House Monday after news emerged that they downplayed the role of MIT professor Jonathan Gruber during the creation of Obamacare.
After co-host Mika Brzezinski described how Gruber was “in regular contact with high-level Obama administration staffers,” co-host Joe Scarborough and the show’s panel for The White House’s assertion that the MIT professor was not a key cog in the law’s creation. (RELATED: Emails Show MIT’s Jonathan Gruber Had Even More To Do With Obamacare’s Passage Than Previously Thought)
“Wait, wait, that’s not what the White House said,” Scarborough told panelist Mark Halperin. “They said he was a small player.”
“No, and I owe all my Republican sources owe an apology because they say he was hugely involved and the White House played it down,” Halperin said. “They were right. The Republicans were right.”
“Did the White House lie about that?” Scarborough asked.
“I think they were not fully forthcoming. Or they may have had their recollections impaired,” Halperin told the host.
“Howard, did the White House lie about Mr. Gruber?” Scarborough asked former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. (RELATED: Howard Dean To The Daily Caller: ‘Go Away!’)
“I think they were not fully forthcoming,” Dean said while laughing.
“Harold, it appears that some would say — not I, but some would say the White House lied about Mr. Gruber’s involvement, Professor Gruber’s involvement,” Scarborough told Harold Ford, Jr. “Would you say the White House lied about his involvement?”
“I would say they were not fully forthcoming,” Ford said as everyone laughed along.
“Let me see if one person will talk straight,” Scarborough told Brzezinski. “The White House assured us that Mr. Gruber was a bit player. It appears now that was not true. Did the White House lie about Mr. Gruber’s involvement?”
“It certainly appears they did,” Brzezinski said. “The White House sought distance from Gruber after the comments that the administration used a lack of transparency and the ‘stupidity of the American voter’ to pass health care reform.”
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