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Trump Invites G.O.P. Senators to Lunch, With Health Care on Menu Trump Defends Health Care Bill Over Lunch With G.O.P. Senators
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Trump returned to Twitter on Wednesday morning and said that Republican senators must keep their promise to America, but he was not specific about which promise on health care legislation he was discussing. WASHINGTON — President Trump vigorously defended an all-but-dead Senate health care bill on Wednesday, pressing Republicans to stay in Washington and improve the proposal or risk being tagged as supporting the current system, which he called a “big lie.”
Republicans have been promising for seven years to undo President Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act, but that pledge hit a wall on Tuesday when Republicans could not get enough support from their senators to move forward with a proposal. At a lunch at the White House with Republican senators, Mr. Trump gave the latest in a series of shifting reactions to the collapse this week of the Senate’s health care overhaul effort, and what amounted to a belated sales pitch for a measure that Republicans have privately complained he has done little to champion.
To move the effort ahead, Mr. Trump invited Republican senators for lunch on Wednesday to discuss health care legislation. It was a stark turnabout from earlier this week, when Mr. Trump said Congress should let President Barack Obama’s signature legislation fail and blame Democrats.
In another tweet on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said Republicans did not discuss “how good” their health care proposal was and promised it would get better during their lunch. Instead, Mr. Trump said Republicans should get back to work, ignoring clear indications from Capitol Hill that not enough Republicans are willing to support the proposal.
Mr. Trump’s message about health care has changed in the last 24 hours. On Monday night, he tweeted that Republicans should repeal the Affordable Care Act without waiting to agree on what should replace it. “Any senator who votes against starting debate is really telling America that you’re fine with Obamacare,” he said.
Early Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump said on Twitter that Mr. Obama’s legislation should just be left to fail. At that point, he said, legislators would present a better plan. It was a pep talk that could have been more effective in the last several days as Republican leaders desperately sought support.
The prospect of repealing the health care law appeared to be doomed on Tuesday when an 11th-hour effort to force a vote on the matter failed and three Republican senators said they would not vote to repeal the law without a replacement.The prospect of repealing the health care law appeared to be doomed on Tuesday when an 11th-hour effort to force a vote on the matter failed and three Republican senators said they would not vote to repeal the law without a replacement.
Mr. Trump has never been completely engaged with the health care repeal and replace efforts after his initial foray with House members in April failed. Mr. Trump has never been completely engaged with the health care repeal-and-replace efforts after his initial foray with House members in April failed.
He has occasionally cajoled members of Congress, primarily through his Twitter feed, but he has seemed hesitant at best. And his advisers have been divided on how involved to be, leaving Mr. Trump to weigh in sporadically. He has occasionally cajoled members of Congress, primarily through his Twitter feed, but he has seemed hesitant at best. And his advisers have been divided on how involved he should be, leaving Mr. Trump to weigh in sporadically.
With the efforts still stalled, Mr. Trump’s aides say he has not decided how he will proceed on a number of related issues, including whether to continue the payments the federal government makes each month to help subsidize the Affordable Care Act. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump used a combination of humor and thinly veiled threats to pressure wavering senators.
At his last big White House meeting with senators, at the end of June, Mr. Trump told them that he wanted to end the monthly cost-sharing reduction payments but that he had been talked out of it. A handful of Republican senators told him that he would not be able to blame Democrats if he made that move. Sitting beside Senator Dean Heller, a Nevada Republican who has been outspoken about his concerns with the proposal, Mr. Trump said: “Look, he wants to remain a senator, doesn’t he? O.K., and I think the people of your state, which I know very well, I think they’re going to appreciate what you hopefully will do.”
Mr. Trump also alluded to several conservatives who came out against the measure Monday night, saying he had been “surprised” because the senators were “my friends.”
“My friends — they really were and are,” he said. “They might not be very much longer, but that’s O.K.”