What did Donald Trump do today?

He missed a trillion-dollar cut in his own budget bill and had to be told what was in it.

Trump's budget bill is up for debate in the House, where its immediate future is uncertain. Mostly a vehicle for making Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent at any cost, it contains any number of provisions that are likely to be disastrous both for Republicans seeking re-election and Americans as a whole. Among the most potentially devastating is a trillion-dollar cut to Medicaid, which more than 71 million Americans use quite literally from cradle to grave: it pays for 41.5% of hospital births, and it covers hospice care for the terminally ill. 

Many Americans who rely on Medicaid don't even know that they do, because it is rebranded in the states: BadgerCare in Wisconsin, STAR+PLUS in Texas, Medical Assistance in Pennsylvania, and so forth. Today, it seemed that Trump wasn't exactly clear on what Medicaid was either, as he had to be told by Congressional Republicans that his bill does indeed severely impact it. As a report in NOTUS on Trump's meeting with wavering House members today put it:

But Trump still doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp about what his signature legislative achievement does. According to three sources with direct knowledge of the comments, the president told Republicans at this meeting that there are three things Congress shouldn’t touch if they want to win elections: Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

“But we’re touching Medicaid in this bill,” one member responded to Trump, according to the three sources.

In other words: Trump went to reassure House members that they could vote for his bill because it wouldn't touch the politically dangerous subject of Medicaid, and had to be informed by his own party's Congressional delegation that his bill grabs it with both hands.

This is not the first time that Trump has made this claim; it's a standard talking point for him and one his staff obediently repeated when asked for comment today. For the most part, the media has treated it as a standard Trump obfuscation, noting its falsehood without directly calling Trump a liar.

Today's report was the first strong indication that Trump may have genuinely believed what was on his cue cards, or at least thought there was some truth to it, and that he somehow missed the trillion-dollar cut to Americans' health care budget with his name on it.

Why does this matter?

• A president who can't keep track of a TRILLION dollars in urgently-needed health care spending isn't fit for office. 

• Neither is one who can't be bothered about it. 

• Neither is one who knew but forgot. 

• Neither is one who just lies about it.