Donald Trump has blamed the Republican Party’s continued failure to repeal Obamacare on a dizzying array of targets. The president pointed his diminutive finger at Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Arizona Senator John McCain, moderate Republicans, Democrats, and the upper chamber’s filibuster rule, among others. But beginning on Wednesday, Trump shared his most curious excuse for the G.O.P.’s legislative impotence (which persists despite the party’s dominance in both houses of Congress and the White House): a nonexistent hospitalized senator.

“We have one senator who’s a ‘yes’ vote, a great person, but he’s in the hospital,” Trump said during an interview with Fox & Friends that aired on Thursday. “And he’s a ‘yes’ vote. So we can’t do it by Friday. So we have the votes.” According to The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake, Trump went on to reference a hospitalized senator no fewer than five more times during the interview and a Q&A at the White House, echoing a tweet he sent on Wednesday.

While speaking to reporters at the White House, the president confirmed that he was referring to Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran. The thing is, Cochran is not in the hospital. He’s at home, recovering from a urological issue. Cochran himself dismissed Trump’s assertion on Twitter Wednesday, writing that he was “not hospitalized.”

Even if Cochran was in the hospital, however, Trump’s remarks would still ring false. The Republicans hold a slim majority, 52 to 48, in the Senate. Assuming the Graham-Cassidy health-care bill required the support of at least 50 Republican senators, given zero Democratic support and Vice President Mike Pence’s guaranteed, tie-breaking “yes” vote, the Republicans were already out of luck. With Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and McCain opposed to the legislation, the bill didn’t have the support—regardless of Cochran’s health.