A Yale University professor may have put all his cards on the table thanks to his terrible poker face.
During the 2 p.m. ET hour of “CNN News Central” on Monday, anchor Jessica Dean was talking about how the White House was about to unveil President Donald Trump’s new health care proposal — when the announcement was abruptly postponed while she was speaking about it on-air.
The moment occurred soon after Dean introduced her guest Zack Cooper, a professor of health policy at Yale University, who was on hand to help her unpack the new proposal in real time.
“Zach, thanks for being here,” Dean began. “As I noted, we are very much still waiting for specifics here, but—”
Dean then paused and briefly looked at the camera, confused. She then looked down and presumably began reading a note from production.
“And I’m sorry, this has actually been — sorry Zach, we’re getting breaking news while I’m talking to you,” Dean said. “I have learned that the White House has postponed its expected unveiling of this new health care proposal.”
Cooper responded with a series of very humorous facial expressions. There’s no way to know what Cooper was thinking in this particular moment, but his face seemed to shift from exasperation with a sigh, begrudging acceptance with a shake of his head and then concluded with a little nod and a slight smirk.
HuffPost has reached out to Cooper for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.
The proposal was expected to center around a two-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, Politico reports. The outlet also reported that the unveiling was postponed yesterday because of pushback from Republicans who were caught off guard by the president’s proposal.
MS NOW correspondent Mychael Schnell backed this up Tuesday when she told the crew on “Morning Joe” that she “spoke to some Republicans who “were not happy” about Trump’s proposal.
“I had one who told me that this plan from the president, which was reported to be a two-year extension of those subsidies with some eligibility changes, was ‘Obamacare Light,’” Schnell said.
She added that the “White House clearly wants to do something” but “when you have push back from Republicans up on Capitol Hill calling it Obamacare Light — which is a program that, of course, has been a boogeyman for Republicans — it’s going to be difficult to thread that.”
And although — again — we have no idea what Cooper was thinking when he rolled out his series of amusing facial expressions, he did note to Dean in their conversation that he was “just happy that President Trump entered the chat.”
“I think it’s great that President Trump leaned in,” he added. “It’s a little worrying that the Republican Congress pushed back so much that they basically delayed this proposal and are just kicking the can down the road one more time.”