Mitt Romney is scheduled to comment on the Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of Obamacare at 11:45 ET. Earlier this hour, his staff positioned this sign at his podium:
But as Andrew Kaczynski asks, what chance is there that Romney will go into any detail whatsoever on what he wants to replace Obamacare with? None. We'll post live updates as Romney speaks and you can join the discussion in the comments.
8:45 AM PT: John Boehner is also just about to offer his reactions. (MSNBC has a live link here.) I imagine Boehner might go before Romney. And then President Obama is scheduled to speak at 12:15 PM ET, but again, I wouldn't be shocked if the various schedules slipped.
8:48 AM PT: One of the things Republicans are starting to do is jumping on the the fact that the mandate was upheld as a tax to try to claim Obamacare is a big tax hike. Keep in mind, however, that Mitt Romney explicitly sold his Massachusetts mandate as a tax enforced through a tax penalty.
8:50 AM PT: Haha! MSNBC says Boehner has bailed on his remarks. Must be crying too hard!
8:51 AM PT: That MSNBC live link above is no longer functional, due to Boehner's bail. I'll post a new one when it's available.
8:53 AM PT: Here's a link.
8:54 AM PT: Romney says he disagrees with court. But he says that while the court may say Obamacare is constitutional, they didn't say it was a good policy. Duh. Neither did they say it was bad. And after that non-sequitur, Romney says he'll do what the court didn't do: repeal Obamacare. Yeah, only if he gets elected.
8:56 AM PT: Now Romney is going on a longwinded tirade against the Obamacare policy. But remember, his objections to Obamacare previously had been rooted in the 10th amendment. He didn't have a problem with Obamacare in Massachusetts'he called it Romneycare. But his claim during the primary was that he opposed Obamacare because it was unconstitutional. Well, it's not. So now he's coming up with new reasons to be against it because, well, he has to be against it or his tea party masters will rebel against him.
8:56 AM PT: Oooh, inspiring: "If we want to get rid of Obamacare, we're going to have to defeat President Obama. My job is to do exactly that."
8:57 AM PT: "Help us defeat Obamacare. Help us defeat the liberal agenda."
8:57 AM PT: And Romney is done after just a couple of minutes.
8:58 AM PT: Romney was standing before a sign reading "Repeal and Replace." He didn't say a single word about what he'd replace it with. Romney just wants Obamacare gone. He wants to go back to the way things were in health care. Crazy.
8:59 AM PT: Good question:
Why is Romney speaking with the Capitol behind him? He's running for POTUS!' @ZekeJMiller via TweetDeck
9:01 AM PT: Romney's ability to say the virtually nothing of substance whatsoever is truly impressive.
9:06 AM PT:
So Mitt Romney doesn't take a single question on one of the biggest SCOTUS cases in years, and one indelibly linked to his own record. #ACA— @swhelman via web
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