Trainwreck TV Interview: Tillis Dogged by Health Care, Hypocrisy of Skipped VA Hearing & That Olympic Gold Flip-Flop

Tillis struggled to defend skipping a VA Committee hearing so he could attend a political fundraiser, bragged about leading the charge to make Medicaid expansion illegal in North Carolina, and admitted he put North Carolina military construction projects at risk

Senator Thom Tillis is reeling from a trainwreck TV interview with Spectrum News yesterday, where he was dogged by questions about his health care record, charges of hypocrisy, his divisive Republican primary, and that “Olympic Gold flip-flop” on President Trump’s national emergency declaration.

Over the course of the interview, Tillis:

• Struggled to defend skipping a VA Committee hearing for a political fundraiser – the same exact attack he leveled at his then-opponent in 2014. Tillis’ incomprehensible answer was that he was “there in the morning”… at a hearing for a different committee.

• Bragged that he had “made it illegal to expand Medicaid” as House Speaker in North Carolina – just as a new report this week found that Medicaid expansion would cover 634,000 more North Carolinians with health insurance and bring jobs to every single North Carolina county.

• Admitted that his flip-flop to support the Trump administration’s emergency declaration came “at the expense of work we’re doing at Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg through military construction.” The Pentagon has listed potential project funding cuts in North Carolina that were threatened by Tillis’ vote.

“The questions are piling up for Senator Tillis, whether it’s hypocritically skipping a VA Committee hearing for a fundraiser, denying health care to hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians, or putting North Carolina military construction project funding at risk,” said DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss. “His re-election has been an unmitigated and self-inflicted disaster for the past six months, and this interview won’t be the last time Senator Tillis is held accountable for his record.”

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