Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that he had told President Trump that Republican senators won’t be taking up comprehensive health care reform this year, despite Trump’s surprise calls for the GOP to take another shot at replacing Obamacare.
McConnell also denounced a threat by Trump to close the border with Mexico if the Mexican government doesn’t stop throngs of illegal immigrants from reaching the U.S. border. McConnell said that such an action “would have a potentially catastrophic economic impact on our country.”
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McConnell, R-Ky., who often acts as a strong advocate for Trump’s agenda, has been at odds with the president lately.
McConnell said he talked to Trump on Monday about Trump’s renewed quest to replace Obamacare, which the GOP attempted but failed to accomplish in 2017 after months of effort.
“I made it clear to him we were not going to be doing that in the Senate,” McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters. “He accepted that.”
Trump stunned GOP lawmakers last week when he visited the Capitol and urged them to try again to replace the health care law.
McConnell said he told Trump on Monday the GOP would not author a comprehensive healthcare bill while Democrats control the House. Instead, McConnell said, he wants Republican senators to continue working on legislation to lower prescription drug prices. “So we don’t have a misunderstanding about that,” McConnell said, explaining his conversation with Trump. “We will not be doing comprehensive in the Senate.”
Trump tweeted later Monday that Congress would vote on a new healthcare plan “right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win the House.” McConnell said Trump would develop his own healthcare reform proposal and campaign on it.
McConnell said he agrees with the president that “we certainly have a crisis at the border,” where thousands of immigrants are crossing in to the United States daily in a new and growing surge of mass migration from Central America.
But McConnell discouraged the president from following through on his threat to shut the border, which would stop commerce between the two countries. “I would hope we would not be doing that sort of thing,” he said.
The Senate has twice rebuked Trump in recent weeks. It voted to revoke his national emergency declaration used to spend federal money to build a border wall, and it voted to end U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
