(CNN) — Calling Vice President Kamala Harris “a liar,” former President Donald Trump claimed that he never wanted to terminate the Affordable Care Act – an accusation Harris has repeatedly levied against him on the campaign trail. “Lyin’ Kamala is giving a News Conference now, saying that I want to end the Affordable Care Act. I never mentioned doing that, never even thought about such a thing,” the former president posted on X Thursday.
Facts First: Trump is trying to rewrite history. Repealing and replacing the landmark health reform law, popularly known as Obamacare, was among his top campaign promises when he first ran for president in 2016, and he spent the initial months of his term pushing Congress to pass legislation to do just that. Trump revived the idea early in the current campaign before backtracking.
At September’s presidential debate with Harris, he called the Affordable Care Act “lousy” and said “we” are working on “things” to replace it. Even before he ran for office, Trump was crusading on Twitter, now known as X, to repeal the law signed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. During his 2016 campaign , he promised supporters that he would quickly dismantle the Affordable Care Act.
Within hours of taking office in January 2017, he issued an executive order aimed at rolling back the law. After the GOP-led House of Representatives passed a repeal bill in May 2017, Trump called them to the White House for a celebratory appearance and said.