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| Keep smiling exercise boy, I am planning to screw you over once your back is turned. |
President Donald Trump told Republican senators Tuesday that the House-passed health care bill he helped revive is “mean” and urged them to craft a version that is “more generous,” congressional sources said.
Trump’s remarks were a surprising slap at a Republican-written House measure that was shepherded by Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and whose passage the president lobbied for and praised. At a Rose Garden ceremony minutes after the bill’s narrow House passage on May 4, Trump called it “a great plan.”
The president’s criticism, at a White House lunch with 15 GOP senators, also came as Senate Republican leaders’ attempts to write their own health care package have been slowed by disagreements between their party’s conservatives and moderates.
Trump’s characterizations seemed to undercut attempts by Senate leaders to assuage conservatives who want restrictions in their chamber’s bill, such as cutting the Medicaid health care program for the poor and limiting the services insurers must cover. Moderate GOP senators have been pushing to ease those restrictions.
Facing expected unanimous Democratic opposition, Republicans will be unable to pass a Senate bill if just three of the 52 GOP senators vote “no.” Alienating any of them could make approving the measure trickier for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who’s been hoping for a vote before Congress’ July 4 recess.
According to the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin this might have repercussions for all of the conservative's future policy decisions:
The Senate was unlikely to come up with its own bill before this episode; now, that possibility becomes even more remote. Trump cannot be trusted to support what Republicans put out, so why go out on a limb for extremely unpopular legislation? If they pass Trump’s tax cuts, they run the risk that Trump will call it a giveaway to the rich, or if they pass repeal of Dodd-Frank, they might get labeled Wall Street pawns by the president. He’s loyal to no one and believes in nothing, so whenever their actions draw criticism, Trump will be among the first to cut and run, decrying the very action he demanded his party take.
Ironically, as Republicans refuse to distance themselves from Trump’s egregious behavior, scandals and ethical shortcomings, he repays them — by creating the perfect soundbite for Democratic ads in 2018.
Gee who could have predicted that an impulsive self absorbed megalomaniac would act this way?
Oh that's right, most of us.
Popcorn anyone?
Source http://ift.tt/2su8sxx
