After he let his education secretary get flamed by every single person on the planet with compassion in their heart, y’all little “president” has decided to dial back his decision to cut funding for the Special Olympics from the federal budget.
As the Washington Post reports, Donald Trump made the decision after he let Betsy DeVos spend three whole days taking the heat for the decision and defending it on Capitol Hill.
“The Special Olympics will be funded,” Trump blustered on the South Lawn in front of a group of reporters. “I just told my people, I want to fund the Special Olympics. . . . I’ve been to the Special Olympics — I think it’s incredible, and I just authorized a funding.”
He claimed that he had just heard about the proposed cut—which has been a part of all three of the budgets he has proposed to Congress—on Thursday, and said that it was those other guys in his administration who were responsible for that idea, not him.
“I have overridden my people,” he lied.
The truth is, the cuts would have to go through Congress anyway, and considering the outrage on both sides of the aisle, there is no way the budget would have gotten the approval it needs with a cut to the Special Olympics included in it.
Like, what kind of heartless dick wants to cut funding to the Special Olympics?
DeVos herself had nothing to do with the cut; it was not her decision either and not one that she was in particular favor of. She made that clear even as she defended the decision as a “tough choice” and said that Democratic attacks over the issue were “disgusting” and “shameful.”
She told Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) “As you know, [the] budget process within the administration is a collaborative one, and it’s been my responsibility to present the budget here on behalf of the administration, the president’s budget. We had to make tough choices and decisions around the budget priorities.”
They are probably not as “disgusting” and “shameful” as the comments made by the deputy communications manager for the Trump campaign, Matt Wolking.
Wolking decided the building controversy over the proposed cut was the perfect time to tie the Special Olympics to his anti-abortion rhetoric.
“I’m sure Democrats who see abortion as the cure for Down syndrome and other disabilities are sincerely concerned about kids having the chance to be in the Special Olympics,” Wolking wrote on Twitter Thursday morning.
After Trump walked back his stupid decision, DeVos released a statement in which she said: “I am pleased and grateful the president and I see eye to eye on this issue, and that he’s decided to fund our Special Olympics grant. This is funding I have fought for behind the scenes over the last several years.”
However, it was Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) who had the quote of the day. He aptly summed up the way this situation played out, who was behind it and who took the fall for it.
“Someone has to pull Betsy out from under the bus. This isn’t fair to her,” he said. “At some point, she’s got to decide, do you really want to be the secretary of education so badly that you let your boss do this to you?”