On CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, former Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel chastised as politically misguided the 2020 Democratic candidates who want to move beyond the Affordable Care Act in favor more robust healthcare reform, even though he “begged” President Barack Obama to abandon the healthcare legislation in 2009 for political expediency.

“I don’t know what the Democrats are doing,” Emanuel said, in response to Colbert’s observation that only one or two Democratic presidential candidates on the debate stage defended or even talked about Obamacare. Emanuel derided the progressive Democrats — though not by name — as being too wonky and unwilling to accept ObamaCare as a political asset. “It is very popular not only with the Democrats, it’s very popular with the country. And ready? It’s working—like breaking news! That’s what legislation is supposed to be doing. I don’t get it.”

A decade ago, however, Emanuel, as Obama’ s chief of staff, was singing a very different tune. According to a Politico report, as early as the summer of 2009, Emanuel was counseling the president to abandon the effort to pass comprehensive healthcare reform. “I begged [Obama] not to do this,” Emanuel told author Jonathan Alter. Like many others on the White House staff, Emanuel said he feared the push for the bill would alienate Republicans and wouldn’t be worth the payoff. Obama overrode their objections, however, and the law, passed in 2010, has helped tens of millions of Americans get access to healthcare.

Watch the video above, via CBS.

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