Trump’s team fails to close the deal with House conservatives in Mar-a-Lago meeting

The meeting also exposed internal divisions within the White House over what direction the GOP healthcare bill should take.

North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, joined Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend to discuss the American Health Care Act and his voting bloc’s opposition to it as written.

Two sources with the Freedom Caucus told the Washington Examiner that the discussions did little to assuage Meadows’ concerns about key provisions of the AHCA and said negotiations with the White House will likely continue until the bitter end of the legislative process.

“We are still open to negotiating but we need significant changes before we can get on board,” one congressional aide said. “House leadership has not been open to those changes.”

This source said White House officials suggested they understood the objections raised by Meadows and the two senators, but indicated that “the horse is already outta the gate” when it comes to the Obamacare repeal and replacement plan.

“I imagine we’ll be in constant communication with the [White House] in the coming days,” the source said. “Our members are still opposed.”

Another congressional source said “things are very fluid” when it comes to negotiations over what conservatives see as stumbling blocks in the AHCA.

“Broadly, the biggest objection is a belief that it will do too little to bring down costs,” the source said.

Meadows, Cruz and Lee “discussed the implications this bill could have on midterms and 2020 if not changed. They continued to push for full repeal and stripping the insurance regs,” the source said of what conservative lawmakers conveyed to Trump at the Mar-a-Lago meeting.

Six skeptical Republican senators huddled with Bannon and legislative affairs staffers on Monday to chart the bill’s path through the Senate.

A White House official called their meeting “productive.”

A Senate source told the Examiner that the Mar-a-Lago meeting revealed the White House’s internal divisions over healthcare reform. On one side, Andrew Bremberg, a top domestic policy adviser to Trump, and chief of staff Reince Priebus wanted to push the AHCA “as is,” while on the other side chief strategist Steve Bannon indicated during the meeting that he was open to promoting conservative changes to the bill.

Bannon “was much more receptive to what we wanted to do and how we wanted to change it,” the Senate source said.

Marc Short, Trump’s director of legislative affairs, also attended the meeting Saturday, according to the source.

Trump is doubling down on his personal role in brokering a deal between factions of the GOP as the floor vote for House Speaker Paul Ryan’s healthcare bill draws closer. He gathered skeptical members of the Republican Study Committee to the Oval Office on Friday to confront each about their opposition to the AHCA, converting them all to “yes” votes, and then had his senior staff conduct the less-successful talks at his Palm Beach, Fla. estate over the weekend.

A White House official confirmed to the Examiner that the president will head to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to address the House Republican Conference about the Obamacare reform legislation.

The official noted that the Trump administration “will continue to do direct outreach to ensure we deliver on the promise that Republicans have campaigned on since the 2010 election cycle — to repeal government-run healthcare.”

Lee and Cruz both expressed concerns about the legislation Ryan introduced in the House on March 6. Led by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a small group of Senate Republicans have signaled that the AHCA presently does not have enough GOP support to survive in the upper chamber.

Republicans can only afford to lose two votes if they hope to get the AHCA on Trump’s desk.