Gruber: We Have to Ask ‘What Is Heroic Here?’ About McCain – Heroic Thing Would Be to Vote Against GOP Bills

On Tuesday’s “MSNBC Live,” Obamacare architect and MIT Economics Professor Jonathan Gruber stated that it was ironic that Senator John McCain returned from surgery to vote to take away health insurance and that while McCain making the journey back to Washington is heroic, the heroic thing for McCain to do would be to oppose the GOP’s healthcare bills.

Gruber said, “I have as much respect for John McCain as the next person. I actually worked with John McCain when I was in the Clinton administration. But I think it is ironic that John McCain is returning from a surgery that virtually no American could afford without health insurance to vote to deny 15 million Americans health insurance, at least. So, we have to step back and ask, what is heroic here? I mean, it’s heroic he’s making the trip. He has a heroic history, but really, the heroic thing to do would be to stand up and say, look, I just realized that I was the beneficiary of insurance and that Americans could not afford this without insurance, and why should we support a bill that’s going to take insurance away from millions of Americans?”

Later in the interview, he also stated, “[W]e are used to a history of politicians bending the truth, but now we get politicians breaking the truth. That’s a new thing. We haven’t had politicians explicitly lying in the way they do now. That’s really new.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett