Cheney falsely claimed Obama admitted “he hasn't read the bill,” asserted as fact that he hasn't

From the August 30 edition of ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

CHENEY: On an issue like will you be able to keep your own health insurance if you like it, the president is out there asserting in these townhalls, yes, you can keep your own health insurance, but then in a conference call with liberal bloggers, when he's asked about a particular provision in the legislation that sounds like it wouldn't allow to you keep your own insurance, he had to admit he hasn't read the bill so there's a deeper problem here.

From the August 31 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren:

CHENEY: [Obama] ought to stop making assertions about what is going to happen when this reform is passed before he's actually read any of the legislation.

Obama actually said he was “not familiar” with provision opponents falsely said would make private insurance illegal. During a July 20 conference call, a blogger asked Obama to comment on the claim made in a July 15 Investor's Business Daily editorial -- which is false -- that the bill, in the blogger's words, “will make individual private medical insurance illegal.” Obama responded, “You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you're talking about.” The provision to which the editorial referred establishes the conditions under which existing private insurance plans would be exempted from the requirement that they participate in the Health Insurance Exchange.

Cheney's falsehood echoes Drudge, Fox News, Heritage, and Limbaugh. On July 21, the Drudge Report, the Heritage Foundation's blog The Foundry, and Rush Limbaugh all falsely claimed that during the July 20 blogger conference call, Obama, in Limbaugh's words, “admit[ted] he doesn't know” what's in the House health care bill. Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, Steve Doocy, and Brian Kilmeade followed suit.

Cheney previously advanced falsehoods on TV

Cheney given lots of air time to spread misinformation. Media Matters for America documented that between May 12 and June 10, Cheney appeared on television 25 times, giving misinformation-filled interviews. She has since appeared on television several more times, falsely attacking Obama and his policies and coming to the defense of discredited “birther” conspiracy theorists.

Cheney falsely claimed Obama has “not been willing to say ... I believe in American exceptionalism.” Responding to Cheney's June 11 remarks, MSNBC's David Shuster noted on June 12 that in fact, Obama stated in France on April 4, “I believe in American exceptionalism,” and, “I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.”

Cheney baselessly suggested military personnel are Mirandizing detainees immediately upon capture. On the July 23 edition of Fox News' Hannity, Cheney stated, “We're also now capturing guys on the battlefield, and the first thing we say to them is, 'You have the right to remain silent.' ” In fact, reports have said that FBI agents, not military personnel, had been ordered to read Miranda rights to detainees, and the reading of the Miranda warning to detainees held in Afghanistan reportedly began during the Bush administration.

Transcripts

From the August 31 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren:

CHENEY: I think that the White House has got a real problem. I think that they have put the president out there, and he's got a lot of rhetoric about being able to keep your own insurance and about costs going down, and the American people are seeing that the reality doesn't match that rhetoric and you're seeing the response in the townhalls. People are very concerned, and I think that they're going to have to make a tough choice here about whether they're going to ram something through that's not good for the nation, it's not good for the American people, with only Democratic votes. And if they do that, I think there'll be a pretty significant price to pay.

VAN SUSTEREN: You know, I have a different view of this, is, like you said, the reality -- I don't know how we can have a reality because this bill is just so confusing that I don't have a clue what -- I know sort of general principles about what they want, but I'm not even sure that anything that's proposed in there -- first of all, you can't figure it out -- if they mean carried out to what cost. I mean, it is the most -- I mean, we're fighting about something that's -- it's strange because it's -- it's incomprehensible.

CHENEY: But the problem is, the president is trying to push this legislation through. Now, he's --

VAN SUSTEREN: Which is -- I -- I agree.

CHENEY: -- doing it by saying, not my bill, in the same way he seems to be saying, not my interrogations and not my investigation. But he's the commander in chief. He's the president, so --

VAN SUSTEREN: And he said at a townhall meeting that he'll go line by line when Congress gets back to go through it. And I -- I hope that they go line by line through it because when they finally sit down and actually read it, maybe they'll have a different view on whether this is a bill that they want --

CHENEY: But in the meantime, he ought to stop making assertions about what is going to happen when this reform is passed before he's actually read any of the legislation.

VAN SUSTEREN: I think they all need to do some reading. We ought to have a literacy group.

CHENEY: I'm with you on that.

VAN SUSTEREN: Anyway, Liz, thank you.

From the August 30 edition of ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

CHENEY: On an issue like will you be able to keep your own health insurance if you like it, the president is out there asserting in these townhalls, yes, you can keep your own health insurance, but then in a conference call with liberal bloggers, when he's asked about a particular provision in the legislation that sounds like it wouldn't allow to you keep your own insurance, he had to admit he hasn't read the bill so there's a deeper problem here.

SAM DONALDSON (panelist): Which bill?

CHENEY: The American people -- this was H.R. 3200 they were talking about.