The White House News

On the night of April 14, 2014, Boko Haram terrorists attacked the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Nigeria. They broke in disguised as guards, and forced the girls to leave the school and come with them. According to several reports, the terrorists kidnapped between 200 and 300 girls. Tragically, it is widely believed that Boko Haram sold many of the girls into human trafficking rings across Africa.

But approximately 50 of the girls have escaped, including Joy Bishara and Lydia Pogu, who visited President Donald J. Trump, and his daughter, Ivanka Trump, at the White House last Tuesday. The girls are recent graduates of Canyonville Christian Academy in Oregon, and they were accompanied by the school President, Doug Wead.

The President and Ivanka were both deeply moved by the girls’ visit.

Combatting human trafficking is one of the Trump Administration’s top priorities.

This week, the U.S. State Department released its annual Trafficking in Persons Report, the government’s principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking. It is also the world’s most comprehensive resource of governmental anti-human trafficking efforts and reflects the U.S. Government’s commitment to global leadership on this key human rights and law enforcement issue.

This year’s report estimates that there are a stunning 20 million victims of human trafficking around the world.

“As we mark the release of this year’s report, let us remember the victims saved from the unimaginable horrors of human trafficking,” Ivanka Trump said during recent remarks at the State Department. “Let us recommit ourselves to finding those still in the shadows of exploitation, and let us celebrate the heroes who continue to shine a light on the darkness of human trafficking.”

In the wake of the report, the two Chibok schoolgirls’ visit to the White House was a reminder that the survivors of the scourge of human trafficking are heroes whose courage can inspire us all.

During their visit, Joy and Lyida read the President a letter about their experience. An excerpt of the letter is below.

“Mr. President, we urge you to keep America safe and strong.

We know that some people are trying to discourage you.

Do not be discouraged. You are right to keep American safe and strong.

Not only for America. But for the world.

If American is not safe and strong, where can people like us look for hope, when there is danger?

Finally, we urge you to keep making America prosperous.”

On Friday, President Donald J. Trump issued an Executive Order to revive the National Space Council.

President George H.W. Bush established the National Space Council in 1989. The Council was tasked with advising and assisting the President regarding national space policy and strategy. The Council ceased operation in 1993. This Executive Order revives the Council and will reinvigorate America’s role as a leader in space, strengthen America’s economy, and advance the security of the American people.

Vice President Mike Pence introduced the President before the signing of the Executive Order. As the Chairman of the National Space Council, the Vice President will play an indispensable role in crafting America’s space policy.

The Vice President said that he was honored and enthusiastic to act as Chairman of the Council. He stated that the Administration’s commitment to space exploration will “strengthen the American spirit” and inspire the American people to “blaze new trails into the unknown”.

Watch President Trump and Vice President Pence’s remarks below.

This week, President Donald J. Trump hosted President Moon of South Korea at the White House.

At their dinner on Thursday evening, President Trump congratulated President Moon on his electoral victory and thanked him for coming to the White House. Early Friday morning, Vice President Pence and President Moon laid a wreath at the Korean War Memorial to commemorate the American and Korean Veterans who lost their lives to preserve freedom in the Korean Peninsula. Later that morning, President Trump and President Moon met privately in the Oval Office. Afterwards, President Trump led an expanded bilateral meeting in the Cabinet room.

President Trump and President Moon issued joint statements after the meetings, reaffirming the strong ties between America and South Korea.

There were a lot of promises made in selling Obamacare—and it seems like just about all of them have been broken.

They told us if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor . . . and yet so many Americans have lost access to their doctors under new Obamacare insurance plans.

They told us if you if you liked your health insurance plan, you could keep it . . . and yet millions of Americans saw their insurance plans canceled because of Obamacare.

They promised that premiums would go down by $2,500 and that everyone in America would be covered. Here’s what President Obama guaranteed back when he was on the campaign trail:

“Our conscience cannot rest so long as nearly 45 million Americans don’t have health insurance and the millions more who do are going bankrupt trying to pay for it. I have made a solemn pledge that I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family’s premiums by up to $2,500 a year. That’s not simply a matter of policy or ideology—it’s a moral commitment.”

Both those promises have been broken too.

Far from covering every American, Obamacare has left 28 million uninsured.

In fact, despite all the disruption and the billions in spending, as of February 2017 Obamacare’s exchanges cover just 10.3 million people. That’s less than half the number of Americans the Congressional Budget Office estimated back in 2012 would be enrolled.

And premiums didn’t go down by $2,500 for the average family—they went up by nearly $3,000!

Under the healthcare bill currently being considered by the Senate, spending on Medicaid, the healthcare program that covers 75 million Americans, would increase from $393 billion this year to $464 billion in 2027—and that’s adjusting for inflation.

Yet Democrats are claiming this is a “cut” to the program. Only in Washington would anyone have the nerve to claim an 18 percent increase in government spending on top of inflation is a “cut.”

The reality is that the Senate’s healthcare bill, like the legislation passed by the House of Representatives, strengthens and reforms Medicaid.

Medicaid has seen out of control spending growth: twenty years ago, spending on the program was under $200 billion annually; within a decade, it is expected to top $1 trillion in total spending.

The Senate bill would refocus the program on the people it was designed to serve, who need the most help: the disabled, the elderly, and pregnant mothers and their children. It would give states the flexibility they need to serve those populations and come up with cost-saving, quality-improving innovations. It would also fix the flawed incentives that have driven out of control spending on Medicaid, while ensuring states have the resources they need to protect their vulnerable populations.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has consistently failed to accurately predict how legislation will impact health insurance coverage. For example, in 2012, the CBO estimated that 25 million people would have coverage under Obamacare right now. According to a June 2017 report from HHS, only 10.3 million were actually enrolled. CBO’s guess was off by nearly 15 million people. And as the chart shows, CBO has consistently gotten it wrong.

The CBO’s history of inaccuracy is reason enough not to blindly trust its analysis of the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA). In fact, CBO’s past inaccuracies contribute to its misleading analysis of insurance coverage under the BCRA. The starting point CBO uses to score the BCRA says that 15 million people should be enrolled through Obamacare’s exchanges right now – wrong again.

The CBO was wrong when it first analyzed Obamacare in 2010. And it was wrong when it updated its projections in 2012 and 2014. Even today, the CBO is using a starting point from 2016 to predict the impact of repealing and replacing Obamacare that has already been proven, well, wrong.