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Obama Flashback: 'I've Stolen Ideas' From Jonathan Gruber 'Liberally'

November 17, 2014

During a Brookings Institution panel in April 2006, then-Sen. Barack Obama claimed he had "stolen" ideas from a gang of liberal economists and academics, including the now-infamous Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber.

"You have already drawn some of the brightest minds from academia and policy circles, many of them I have stolen ideas from liberally," Obama said. "People ranging from Robert Gordon to Austan Goolsbee; Jon Gruber; my dear friend, Jim Wallis here, who can inform what are sometimes dry policy debates with a prophetic voice."

Despite Obama's attempt to distance himself and his unpopular signature health care legislation from Gruber, it is clear that 2006 Obama never anticipated videos of his once-trusted adviser calling American voters 'stupid' would surface in 2014.

Published under: Jonathan Gruber