President Trump told Republicans at a Monday dinner they would look like “dopes” if the Senate failed to pass a healthcare bill, according to a report.
“If the Republicans have the House, Senate and the presidency and they can’t pass this healthcare bill they are going to look weak,” a source familiar with the meeting told Politico. “How can we not do this after promising it for years?”
According to Politico, Trump did not know during the dinner that the defections of Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., were coming Monday night. Their decision to not support starting debate on the bill, announced after Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, already opposed the legislation, meant Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., did not have the votes he needed from at least 50 of 52 Republicans in the Senate.
In response, McConnell late Monday announced he was abandoning efforts to pass a bill to “repeal and replace” Obamacare and said he would instead push a bill to fully repeal the law and give Congress two years to figure out a replacement.
McConnell said he would take up a House health bill that passed the lower chamber in May, but with the first amendment being a 2015 repeal bill that gutted Obamacare.
“Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful,” he said in a statement.
