(BISMARCK, ND) – Two headlines we’re sure Cramer was not looking for after his ‘set the record straight’ (read: damage-control) press conference:

High Plains Reader: Cramer’s Office Threatens Constituents
By C.S. Hagen
August 23, 2018

Key Points:

• Mary Rennich and a handful of North Dakotans only wanted to listen, perhaps ask a question about healthcare if time allowed during a Republican press conference at the North Dakota Farm Bureau on Wednesday. Instead of having their opinions welcomed, current Congressman Kevin Cramer’s campaign manager, Pat Finken, said they were on private property, and threatened Rennich and others with physical removal from the building if they dared say a word.

• The Republican press conference on Wednesday was in damage control mode, attempting to “set the record straight” on healthcare issues.

• Cramer has voted 65 times against current healthcare laws, and voted to repeal the ACA without a replacement five times. He also voted to dismantle Medicaid expansion.

• If the federal lawsuit [to dismantle the ACA] succeeds, insurance companies would be able to deny, drop, or charge more for coverage for more than 317,000 North Dakotans with pre-existing conditions, 47,000 state residents with health insurance through Obamacare, and 7,500 young adults currently enrolled on their parent’s health insurance plans, according to Dakotans for Health.
• The Graham-Cassidy bill, deeply unpopular [among] Democrats and Republicans including senators John McCain and Susan Collins, will take up to $676 million away from Medicaid. Premiums would skyrocket, could raise costs for seniors slapping them with an age tax.
• More than 150 patient groups, physicians, and hospitals, including American Medical Association, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and others, say that repealing ACA would have devastating effects on insurance markets and the economy.
• Partial repeal of the ACA or eliminating Medicaid expansion would be “catastrophic,” forcing 32 million Americans from their insurance plans by 2026, according to the Public Health Scholars and the American Public Health Association. Additionally, before the ACA protections, discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions, age rating, and annual and lifetime caps were out of reach for many older adults.
• If Mary Rennich and her family lost insurance, she would be facing more than $7,500 a month in medical bills. “Being a citizen of North Dakota, I think we should have a voice,” Rennich said. “I don’t think they should be afraid to hear questions and have some answers ready. I think that’s their responsibility… I would like to ask some questions. And I know there are a lot of other families that would like to ask, too, because we’re really scared. We’re very frightened.”

Read the full article here.

NDxPlains: Misleading Claims at “Set the Record Straight” Press Conference
By Tyler Axness
August 23, 2018

Key Points:

• Yesterday NDGOP candidates and officials attempted to “set the record straight” on their actions regarding health care. The attempt took place at a press conference in Bismarck. Reading the reports from journalists in attendance, there were quite a few misleading claims made by Kevin Cramer, Kelly Armstrong, Wayne Stenehjem, and Jon Godfread. In other words, they weren’t exactly shooting “straight” in their statements.
• Congressman Kevin Cramer has voted to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act over sixty times since taking office. In 2015, he bragged about voting to repeal the law in its entirety. Repealing the law in its entirety would eliminate the protections of people with pre-existing conditions. To now try and claim otherwise at a press conference is election year spin at its worse.
  
• Cramer has also claimed Graham-Cassidy, a replacement plan, would protect people with pre-existing conditions. That’s not accurate. While it technically didn’t gut the entire thing, consumers could be charged more for care or completely priced out of the insurance market because of pre-existing conditions. Directors of Medicaid across the nation also raised flags about the proposal’s shortfalls. 
• To top it off, Cramer accuses Democrats of using health care as, “a theme to try and ride into this election cycle.” Apparently, he delivered that line without a hint of irony nor a level of self-awareness. Recall, he voted over 60 times to repeal the law. When asked about it, he claimed those were “symbolic” meaning for political motives. Now, after years of running on health care, they control the federal government and they don’t want you to talk about health care because it isn’t politically advantageous for them.

Read the full article here.

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(BISMARCK, ND) – Ahead of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ross’s visit to North Dakota tomorrow, a brief reminder that Ross isn’t concerned about the financial hit North Dakota farmers, producers, and manufacturers are taking due to the trade war. In fact, he’s belittled and downplayed the harm it’s causing North Dakotans – just like Kevin Cramer.

Ross: “So I don’t think there’s really a lot for anybody to complain about.”
Cramer: Folks don’t have “a very high pain threshold.”

Ross: “There is obviously going to be some pulling and tugging as we try to deal with very serious problems […] There will be some hiccups along the way.”
Cramer: Agreed with radio host Eugene Graner’s analogy of the trade war that “you know, you got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, nobody said it’d be easy.”

Ross: “Anyone who thinks the economy is being wrecked doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
Cramer: Dismissed farmers’ concerns over the trade war as “hysteria.”

Ross: “You can’t make progress without taking a little bit of risk.”
Cramer: “Some people are saying we need to get out of this trade war. There’s only one thing to do in a trade war and that is win it.”

No wonder he’s flying in to help Cramer ‘save face’ on the trade war – they’ve both been cheerleading it all along.

But why? For Cramer, it’s blind loyalty to the administration, even when it goes against North Dakota’s best interests, in the hopes of gaining a political promotion. For Ross, it’s personal financial gain. Birds of a feather…

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(BISMARCK, ND) – Mike McFeely lays Kevin Cramer’s “political opportunism” to bare and warns that voters don’t want someone who is simply looking to “go from one political job to the next” – something that “should make Cramer nervous.”

• There might be a lesson for Cramer in Pawlenty’s stunning and decisive defeat to grinder Jeff Johnson in last week’s Minnesota primary election: Opportunism isn’t a good political strategy.
• Cramer, by his admission, was a reluctant entrant into the race against incumbent Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, sweet-talked into running by President Donald Trump and billionaire oilman Harold Hamm when Republicans could find no other credible candidates.
• Cramer has yet to cut his own trail, instead preferring to attack Heitkamp and loudly proclaim he’s a willing vessel of Trump. Cramer seems convinced he’ll win because he’s a Trump-worshipping Republican in a state that strongly favors the president. There’s been no talk of whatever Cramer believes he’s accomplished legislatively in the House and no roadmap to what he envisions if elected to the Senate, other than to support Trump’s agenda.
• It looks for all the world like Cramer is running because the pieces were in place to get a better job, even if he wasn’t convinced he wanted it in the first place. Opportunism.
• Cramer has always been the guy to go from one political job to the next, either appointed or elected, so seeking a promotion isn’t unusual for him. The difference this time is that he finds himself in a competitive race and his inability to articulate exactly why he wants the job — other than to back Trump 100 percent — is telling.
• Minnesotans saw Pawlenty’s limp run at governor as opportunism and it was fatal. If North Dakotans see Cramer’s Senate run the same way, it might be just as costly.

Read the full article here.

More on Cramer’s political opportunism:

Politico: “Paying family with campaign funds could dog Cramer in Senate bid.”

KFYR: HEADLINE: Rep. Kevin Cramer’s campaign fund use comes into question

High Plains Reader: “Hamm and his net worth of $19.5 billion became the decision maker for Cramer accepting Hamm as his national finance chairman.

WDAY: “[Cramer] didn’t want to risk losing his seat in the House… It was a call from oil tycoon Harold Hamm, whose net worth is $18 billion, that finally tipped the scales” to him running for U.S. Senate. 

Associated Press: As Public Service Commissioner, Cramer was accused of “taking improper campaign contributions from coal mining officials.”

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(BISMARCK, ND) – The NDGOP is desperately trying to cover up Kevin Cramer’s record of jeopardizing coverage for folks with pre-existing conditions. Their latest attempt? Misleading North Dakotans about Cramer’s support for the MacArthur amendment, to try and prove that he never voted to completely cut protections for pre-existing conditions. But, as this fact check from Axios points out, the NDGOP is once again on the defense and is misleading North Dakotans about Cramer’s record.

Axios:

• Naturally, Cramer doesn’t like [Heitkamp’s latest] ad. The North Dakota GOP accused Heitkamp of telling “repeated lies” about his stance on pre-existing conditions.
• The party pointed out that the House repeal-and-replace bill, which Cramer voted for, included what was referred to as the “MacArthur amendment,” which preserved the ACA’s prohibition on insurers denying coverage based on someone’s health status.
• Fact check: Yes, the MacArthur amendment technically protected sick people’s ability to get coverage. But it allowed for states, in limited circumstances, to waive the ACA provisions that prevent insurers from charging people a higher premium because of their health status and require plans to cover a set of minimum benefits.
• That means that while people with pre-existing conditions couldn’t be denied coverage outright, they could be offered coverage that was too expensive to be attainable or that excluded health benefits that they needed – making the remaining coverage guarantee relatively worthless.

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(BISMARCK, ND) – Kevin Cramer is spiraling after a week of missteps, strange comments, and falsehoods on the issues North Dakotans care most about. See for yourself:

🤔MONDAY: Cramer once again states that we need to “support” this trade war, no matter what – while a farmer from Rugby, ND expresses what’s really happening on the ground: “I’m terrified of this trade thing. I lose sleep over it […] It’s just the uncertainty of it.”

🤔TUESDAY: Cramer is called out for his latest “misleading” TV ad.

🤔THURSDAY: Cramer called Senator Heitkamp “an enemy of our own country” for working to stop the trade war and mitigate harm to North Dakota farmers, leading Politico Morning Score to call him “not so North Dakota nice.”

🤔ALSO THURSDAY: Cramer pens a misleading op-ed that claims he’s always been against tariffs and the trade war in an attempt to rewrite history. In reality, he’s blindly supported this effort from the beginning.

🤔FRIDAY: Cramer compared someone wanting him to stand up against tariffs to “shoot[ing himself] in the head.”

🤔ALSO FRIDAY: Axios fact checked Cramer’s claim that he’s protected pre-existing condition coverage, finding that folks “could be offered coverage that was too expensive to be attainable or that excluded health benefits that they needed — making the remaining coverage guarantee relatively worthless.”

🤔NEXT WEEK: Damage-control mode continues.

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(BISMARCK, ND) – Just days after Congressman Cramer called Senator Heitkamp an “enemy of our own country” for working to stop the trade war and mitigate harm to North Dakota farmers, Cramer is in full damage-control mode: rapidly trying to rewrite history and paper over his long and detailed record of blind support for the trade war. Take a look:

• Just hours after Cramer likened voting against the president to cheating on your wife, Cramer tweeted – then quickly deleted – a tweet stating his “opposition” to the President’s tariffs. Less than an hour later, he replaced it with a new tweet fully supporting the president’s strategy.

And he’s been doubling down on his support for tariffs and the trade war ever since.

See how often Cramer has fully embraced the trade war, fulfilling his promise to be a rubber stamp:

• April 9: Cramer dismissed farmers’ concerns over the trade war as “hysteria.”
• April 20: Cramer’s campaign says he will “support” the president’s position on the trade war in the Senate.
• May 17: Amid soybean tariffs, KNOX reported Cramer told them ‘he doesn’t believe it’s all doom and gloom’ for North Dakota producers because, according to Cramer, “there will always be a pretty good price for soybeans” and if the U.S. loses China as a customer there would be other markets.
• June 7: Cramer said farmers “don’t have a very high pain threshold.”
• July 16: Cramer encourages other DC politicians to “rally behind the administration[‘s]” trade war.
• July 29: Cramer told KVRR: “Some people are saying we need to get out of this trade war. There’s only one thing to do in a trade war and that is win it.”
• August 3: Cramer voiced concern for the trade war only in terms of his own political interests. According to the Grand Forks Herald’s Mike Jacobs, he told the president “I have a timeline of my own,” referring to Election Day.
• August 13: Cramer agreed with KFYR radio host Eugene Graner’s analogy on the trade war: “You know, you got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, nobody said it’d be easy.” Cramer responded, “that’s right.”
• August 13: Cramer reiterates his stance that “it’s essential we support his efforts” on trade.
• August 13: Cramer calls Sen. Heitkamp an “enemy of our own country” for taking a group of North Dakota farmers to the Mexican embassy to discuss trade. Reminder: Mexico is one of our largest trading partners.
• August 15: KVRR and the Associated Press both report that “Cramer has backed Trump’s trade policies [… while Heitkamp] says they threaten North Dakota’s economy.”

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