Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh questioned why Congressional Republicans seem determined to inflict pain on Trump’s economically-struggling base with their healthcare bill on Friday:

Well, here’s the Breitbart piece, ladies and gentlemen. And measured against my plan, this is hieroglyphics. Measured against my plan, this is like trying to learn a foreign language. And not just learn the language, but then learn all of the dialects and all the hidden meaning with the use of slang and so forth. It’s impossible.

“Seven Reasons Why Obamacare 2.0 Is All But Guaranteed to Impose Crushing Costs on Voters, Hurt Trump’s Base, and Hand Power Back to the Democrats.” Okay, that’s the headline of the Breitbart piece. Let me ask you a question. I mean, the way I react when I see a headline like this, if it’s this bad, how in the world can the people in charge of it not know it’s this bad? If it is this bad, then why do the Republicans want to hand power back to the Democrats? Why do the Republicans want to hurt Trump’s base?

Now, that I can answer. Why do Republicans want to impose crushing costs on voters? Does any of this make sense? And why do Republicans want to hand power back to the Democrats? And why does Trump want to do that? Trump supposedly signed on to this. Okay, so let’s take this incrementally. Now, at the bottom of this piece is perhaps the most important aspect of story with nothing to do with health care.

“Sixty percent of adults are ‘hopeful and optimistic’ about America’s future.” As asserted in this story, that’s from polling data. Sixty percent of adults are hopeful and optimistic? Now, as the Breitbart writer, Katie McHugh is her name, writer of the story. She says, “That’s a precious opportunity, one that shouldn’t be wasted.” “‘The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f–ed over. If we deliver, we’ll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we’ll govern for 50 years,’ White House Chief strategist Steve Bannon said during a November interview. ‘That’s what the Democrats missed… They lost sight of what the world is about.’” Bannon, chief strategist for Trump…

So Breitbart claims here that this Obamacare repeal and replacement bill actually targets senior citizens in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and makes their tax credits less effective and raises their health care costs. Those are three blue states that Trump won. Why would the Republicans do that? Do you believe that they have? Do you think that’s in the bill? The Washington Post says it is, and Breitbart’s accepting it.

Read Rush’s transcript here.

LISTEN: