CNN host Alisyn Camerota called out Sen. Tim Kaine's (D., Va.) "dramatic" diatribe on Thursday about how the Republican Party started the process to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
Camerota asked Kaine if congressional Democrats would still be willing to help their Republican colleagues should Obamacare be repealed.
"So, in other words, if they repeal it, because it sounds like they are already taking the steps in terms of budget resolutions to repeal it first and, in fact, that might even happen by mid-February, you're saying, if they repeal it all bets are off, Democrats don't help from that point on?" Camerota asked
Kaine said repealing Obamacare would mean Republicans are "uninterested" in help but then took it a step further.
"They will have shown us by the repeal that they are uninterested in our input and they will have also shown a heartlessness about 30 million people who are going to lose insurance," he said.
He continued by describing the 30 million people who would be affected.
"That's the estimate," he said. "Thirty million people, Alisyn, that's the combined population of 19 states are going to lose health insurance, and then people that have health insurance will lose critical protections like women not being able to be discriminated against in premiums that they're charged. The time to talk about solutions is right now."
Kaine then cited a tweet from President-elect Donald Trump to try to drive his point home.
...time for Republicans & Democrats to get together and come up with a healthcare plan that really works - much less expensive & FAR BETTER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2017
"I noticed a tweet from Donald Trump that said, look, Democrats and Republicans should work together to try to find health care fixes," he said. "That's what we should be doing, not rushing headlong over a cliff. What the Republicans are doing is saying we're going to jump off a cliff and we'll figure out how to land later. We're playing with people's lives right here, the lives of tens of millions of people and that's not acceptable"
"Well, I mean, not exactly," Camerota responded. "They're not phrasing it as dramatically as you are."