President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had a phone call before getting into a public tussle over the repeal of Obamacare, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Earlier in the week McConnell, R-Ky., complained about artificial deadlines, lamenting about “excessive expectations.”
It was after those comments grabbed headlines that Trump reportedly spoke by phone with McConnell and expressed his disappointment with the Republican leader, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed person familiar with the call. Trump was described as being animated while on the call and urged McConnell to continue efforts to pass healthcare reform legislation.
After the call, Trump took to Twitter to publicly shame McConnell about the GOP-controlled Senate’s failure last month to pass legislation that aims to dismantle Obamacare.
“Senator Mitch McConnell said I had ‘excessive expectations,’ but I don’t think so. After 7 years of hearing Repeal & Replace, why not done?” Trump tweeted Wednesday.
McConnell made the comments earlier in the week while in his home state of Kentucky during the first week of the August recess.
“Part of the reason I think that the storyline is that we haven’t done much is because, in part, the president and others have set these early time lines about things need to be done by a certain point,” McConnell said while in Kentucky.
McConnell added: “Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before. And I think he had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process.”
At the end of July, the Senate failed to pass a measure that would ultimately lead to the repeal and replacement of parts of former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, which is also known as the Affordable Care Act. Republicans have long sought take apart the law.
McConnell has said the failed Obamacare repeal effort was “disappointing.”
“What we tried to accomplish for the American people was the right thing for the country,” McConnell stated on July 28. “I regret that our efforts were simply not enough this time,” he said.
