Brash In The Face Of Defeat, Trump Says ‘Let Obamacare Fail’
But President Donald Trump is making one more push to get senators to come together on health care. He'll hold a lunch on Wednesday in hopes of finding a path forward.
The New York Times:
‘Let Obamacare Fail,’ Trump Says As G.O.P. Health Bill Collapses
Mr. Trump declared that his plan was now to “let Obamacare fail,” and suggested that Democrats would then seek out Republicans to work together on a bill to bury the Affordable Care Act. If he is determined to make good on that pledge, he has plenty of levers to pull, from declining to reimburse insurance companies for reducing low-income customers’ out-of-pocket costs to failing to enforce the mandate that most Americans have health coverage. “It’ll be a lot easier,” Mr. Trump said at the White House. (Kaplan, 7/18)
Politico:
Trump To Pitch GOP Senators One Last Time To Repeal Obamacare
President Donald Trump is trying to save the GOP's near-dead effort to repeal Obamacare. The president has invited all 52 GOP senators to the White House for lunch on Wednesday to see if he can revive the GOP's moribund plans to repeal and replace the 2010 health law. (Everett, 7/18)
The Associated Press:
Analysis: Trump Unlikely To Avoid Blame For Health Care Loss
It was a far cry from "The buck stops here." President Donald Trump, dealt a stinging defeat with the failure of the Republican health care bill in the Senate, flipped the script from Harry Truman's famous declaration of presidential responsibility and declared Tuesday, "I am not going to own it." He had tweeted earlier, "We were let down by all of the Democrats and a few Republicans." (Lemire, 7/19)
The Washington Post:
Senators Pushed Trump To The Sidelines. He Happily Stayed There. Republicans Are Paying The Price.
In early May, when Senate Republicans began working on health-care legislation, they quickly turned away from two spectacles: the unpopular House bill and the president of the United States’ premature White House Rose Garden celebration of its passage. Instead, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) decided to work up a different bill inside his Capitol office — and left Trump on the sidelines, where he happily stayed. (Kane, 7/18)
The Washington Post:
Trump’s Grand Promises To ‘Very, Very Quickly’ Repeal Obamacare Run Into Reality
One week before the election, Donald Trump traveled to the Philadelphia suburbs to deliver a health-care policy speech that was light on details and heavy on grand promises and dramatic warnings. In a hotel ballroom in King of Prussia, his running mate, Mike Pence, introduced him as a dealmaker, fighter and winner “who never quits, who never backs down.” Trump promised to “convene a special session” of Congress as soon as he was sworn in — an idea that confounded many, as Congress was already set to be in session — so that lawmakers could “immediately repeal and replace Obamacare.” All of this would happen “very, very quickly,” he said. (Johnson, 7/18)