Repeal & Replace

Senate Republicans joined President Trump for a working lunch today at the White House. The topic was Obamacare. The president once again told senators to cancel their August recess.

"We shouldn't leave town until this is complete," Trump said. "We should hammer this out and get it done."

The president expressed his frustration by telling senators, "I've been here six months. I'm ready to act, pen in hand. . . You never had that before."

If the politicians won't listen to the president, perhaps they will listen to the Wall Street Journal, whose editors spared no quarter in thrashing Senate Republicans for failing to address Obamacare. Consider these excerpts from today's editorial:
 

"This self-inflicted fiasco is one of the great political failures in recent U.S. history, and the damage will echo for years. . . The GOP's liabilities now include a broken promise to voters; wasting seven months of a new administration in order to not solve manifest health-care problems. . . Now they finally have a president willing to sign literally any bill that lands on his desk, but in the clutch they choked."

Malicious Media

It's a new day, so that means there is a new round of breathless media reporting about President Trump and the Russians. Here's the headline from today's Washington Post: "Trump Had Undisclosed Hour-Long Meeting With Putin At G-20 Summit."

Other media outlets ran similar headlines, all intended to leave readers with the impression that the president was up to no good, concealing secret meetings with the Russians.

Here's the truth: President Trump chatted with President Putin at a dinner attended by all the G-20 leaders and their spouses. So what? That is not news, and these stories are not good journalism.

The left-wing media complex is engaged in McCarthyism plain and simple. It is character assassination by innuendo. And the White House hit back hard.

President Trump tweeted, "Fake News story of secret dinner with Putin is 'sick.'"

In a statement, the White House blasted the media's manipulation of the facts, saying, "There was no 'second meeting' . . . just a brief conversation at the end of a dinner. The insinuation that the White House has tried to 'hide' a second meeting is false, malicious and absurd."

Media Malpractice

The media's obsession with Russia amounts to journalistic malpractice. Very few people care about this overhyped nonsense. Meanwhile, the big media complex is failing to report on the things people really do care about.

A recent Bloomberg poll asked Americans to rank the most important issues facing the country. Here's how the results broke down:
 

Health care 35%
Jobs/Unemployment 13%
Terrorism 11%
Immigration 10%
Climate Change 10%
Russia 6%
Taxes 4%
Other 4%
Trade 2%

Only six percent of Americans said Russia was the most important issue facing the country today.

Now let's compare this to the results of a recent survey by our friends at the Media Research Center. MRC crunched the numbers to see what the broadcast networks were covering during a one-month period from mid-May to mid-June. Here's what they found:

The Russia/Comey investigation received 353 minutes of coverage or 55% of the network news airtime. Climate change got 47 minutes. Terrorism received 29 minutes of coverage.

Efforts to repeal Obamacare received 17 minutes. The economy and jobs got five minutes of network news time.

So the left-wing media's most important issue ranked 6th among the public. The second most important issue to the media tied for fourth place among the people. But the people's number one issue -- health care -- ranked fourth in the media's coverage.

It's no wonder Americans are increasingly losing faith in biased big media.

Trump Tackles Voter Fraud

The Commission on Election Integrity, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, held its first official meeting at the White House today. President Trump addressed the commission before the meeting began. Here are some of the president's remarks:
 

"This commission is tasked with the sacred duty of upholding the integrity of the ballot box. . . Every time voter fraud occurs it cancels out the vote of a lawful citizen and undermines democracy. Any form of illegal or fraudulent voting . . . and any form of voter suppression or intimidation must be stopped.

"I am pleased that more than 30 states have already agreed to share information with the commission. . . If any state does not want to share this information one has to wonder what they are worried about. . .

"This issue is very important to me. All public officials have a profound responsibility to protect the integrity of the vote. . . If we want to make America great again, we have to protect the integrity of the vote. . . This is not a Democrat or a Republican issue. It's an American issue."

Taking On Soros

You can never go wrong by taking on George Soros! I am pleased to report that my remarks at the Christians United For Israel Washington Summit were picked up by one of Israel's leading news outlets.

As I noted Monday, I told Summit attendees that a lot has changed since last year's CUFI Summit -- and for the better. A year ago, we had an administration that was not blessing Israel, but cursing Israel. J Street and George Soros were in the White House.

This year, J Street and Soros are out and Christians United For Israel is in!

You can read more at the Times of Israel.