The Republican Congress and the Trump White House faced the first test of their new relationship Friday and it ended in such dismal failure, they probably qualify for Marriage Boot Camp.
The American Health Care Act was pulled from a vote at the last second by both Speaker Paul Ryan and the White House, as it became clear Friday afternoon that there was no way the bill would pass.
It’s not immediately clear who made the final call. Rep. Paul Ryan made the trip down to the White House from The Hill early Friday to plead with President Donald Trump to postpone a vote, pointing out that he was still more than 30 votes shy.
Trump was reportedly pushing for the final vote regardless, but in the last seconds before the 3:30pm roll call, Trump told Washington Post reporter Robert Costa that he’d pulled the bill from the floor. Ryan’s office told reporters that the vote had been “postponed.”
In the aftermath, Trump told Costa that he ultimately blamed Democrats for the failure, saying that they should have been willing to work with Republicans on a bill before Obamacare became completely untenable. He didn’t address the fact that his party had more than enough votes to pass the bill even without Democrats.
Trump went on to tell Maggie Haberman at the New York Times that he’ll now simply let Obamacare fail, in the hopes that that will bring the other side to the table.
He also told the NYT that he “did not fault Mr. Ryan,” but added that he was just “going along” with the bill because the Republican Party was adamant about making Obamacare a legislative priority. He’ll now move on to more important issues, like tax cuts.
Rep. Ryan told reporters that pulling the bill marked a “failure,” but said there simply weren’t enough votes to go forward. “We believed this bill was the right way to go,” he said. “But we didn’t get the consensus to get there.” He added that the team from the White House had been “supportive.”
Ryan, like the President, cautioned that Obamacare itself was “imploding,” and that something needed to be done. He did note, though, that leadership would be examining other options in the coming days—not sometime in the distant future, as the White House seems to want.
Early Friday, reports from within Congress seemed to indicate a falling out between the White House and Ryan, with some sources close to the bill speculating that the White House was pulling support in an effort to force Ryan to stand behind his legislation. Trump’s comments Friday evening seem to indicate Ryan and Trump were on the same page – at least, in terms of helping Republicans avoid a major embarrassment.
Whether the two will work together on legislation going forward remains to be seen.