Donald Trump says he gave it "his all" to repeal and replace Obamacare. If that really is his all, this is going to be a rough slog for the guy. In his comments to the press immediately after the bill was pulled, he seemed to suggest he had just learned that there were both moderate and extreme-right factions in the party that he had to deal with. "Lotta different groups. He's got a lot of factions," he said of Paul Ryan, after the speaker let him know how and why the bill couldn't pass.
Enjoy the rest of the quote: "And there's been a long history of liking and disliking, even within the Republican Party, long before I got here, but I've had a great relationship with the Republican Party. It seems that both sides like Trump and that's good," he said. "We learned a lot about the vote-getting process. We learned a lot about some very arcane rules, particularly in the Senate and also in the House. So it's certainly for me been a very interesting experience."
First true thing he's said!
So now that he's given up on trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, what interesting experiences are in store next for him and for the country?
Besides the Gorsuch confirmation fight, Trump now says he's going to turn to "big tax cuts, tax reform." If you want to get up to speed on what's being called a "border adjustment tax," here's a little primer I did on it with Zach Carter.
And here's a piece I wrote yesterday about how the "lotta different groups" in the Republican Party could thwart that effort, too.
A story I meant to write but never got time for was on the role grassroots resistance played in this fight. I talked to a lot of moderate Republicans about it, and all of them acknowledged that they felt a lot of heat back home. And while it was the extreme right that dealt the first blow to Trumpcare, the reason they couldn't get it over the top came down to moderate opposition. The further they moved right, the more moderates they lost. And they lost moderates because they feared that the energy at town halls and protests will translate into losses at the polls next November. And while I never wrote the piece, Dave Weigel over at the Post did -- here's his.
What was my excuse for not getting to it? I was busy yesterday fulfilling a lifelong dream I never knew I had: moderating a panel at the Harvard School of Public Health on weed science and policy. Here's a live Q&A I did with Dr. Staci Gruber, a leader in the marijuana research field, beforehand, and here's the panel itself.
You're getting this email because you either signed up for it or you took a survey and opted in to this newsletter -- or, probably, you declined to opt out. Either way, I hope you're enjoying it. I'm a political reporter and editor with The Huffington Post and I send this several times a week. If you see an ad here, it's there because sending mass emails turns out to be really expensive. I'm not making any money off of it; it goes to the email service provider and just defrays the cost a bit. If somebody forwarded you this note, you can sign up to start getting your own copy here. 
No comments:
Post a Comment