ANALYSIS: Trump, Republicans confront limits of slogans
Trump's reputation as a dealmaker and closer hasn't come through on health care.
— -- The dealmaker didn’t cut any deals. The closer didn’t close.
With the Senate’s failure to meet its own deadline on health care overhaul, President Trump and GOP congressional leaders are left picking up the pieces from the latest legislative setback that exposes the limits of Trumpism, as well as the stark divisions that remain inside the Republican Party.
“Repeal and replace” has again revealed itself to be easier said than done; a slogan, not a policy. And health care has again proven to be a legislative buzzsaw, an issue that has ended careers and tipped the balance of power, and could well do so all over again.
Today, less than 24 hours after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky bowed to the inevitable and pulled the bill, the president spun the setback as a chance to make the bill even stronger.
“I think we’re going to get it over the line,” Trump said. “We’ve given ourselves a little more time to make it perfect.”
Then, pressed by ABC News’ Jonathan Karl to address policy details around cuts in Medicaid, Trump declared, “This will be great for everybody.”
Except health care bills won’t and can’t be great for everybody, not in terms of policy, and certainly not in terms of politics. Trump and his fellow Republicans are losing the political battle over health care, and it’s still unclear that all of them want to actually win.
McConnell’s image as the consummate process guy who seldom stumbles has taken a hit. Ditto the president’s image as a deal guy; if this is “The Art of the Deal,” it’s nothing that’s worthy of a gallery.
Trump’s involvement in the Senate bill has been haphazard and ham-handed. His policy interest is such that he has been for virtually every iteration and amendment that’s been brought forward.
Famously, at least among senators, he privately declared the House-passed bill to be “mean” after praising it in the Rose Garden weeks earlier. The super PAC most closely aligned with his White House – staffed by former presidential and campaign aides – announced an ad buy against perhaps the most vulnerable Republican senator, only to pull back when that drew rebukes from other senators.
Asked by reporters over the weekend about the president’s role in the process, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas cracked a smile: “We're trying to hold him back a little bit,” he said.
The next day, when Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was asked about the president’s comments about the House bill, Graham smiled as well: “Here’s what I would tell any senator: If you’re counting on the president to have your back, you need to watch it.”
Senators will now be watching the political fallout of inaction, even while gauging the potential fallout of action. A Quinnipiac poll released today found just 16 percent approval for the GOP health care plan; even among Republicans, approval is just 37 percent.
Trump’s push will continue, and senators are scrambling to patch together a revised bill. But now nine Republicans have come out against the bill, ranging ideologically from the most conservative to the most moderate members of the caucus.
Their concerns are broad: over too much Medicaid spending and too little, over Planned Parenthood funding and opioid treatment, over perceived unfair treatment for wealthier states as well as poorer ones.
It may be that Republicans will be stuck with an option McConnell is pitching as a threat: “Either Republicans will agree and change the status quo, or the markets will continue to collapse and we'll have to sit down with [Chuck] Schumer,” the Senate Democratic leader, McConnell said after a meeting at the White House Tuesday.
Bipartisanship on health care remains unlikely. Trump is promising a “great surprise.” But the legislative morass is actually not all that surprising, and few senators are counting on the president or any slogans to bail them out.