The prevailing narrative out of the White House and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan on Friday was that Trump did as much as he could do to get the Republican healthcare bill through the House of Representatives. Ryan said Trump “gave his all” to support the bill. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump “left it all on the field.”
If this is Trump’s best effort, he’s going to have a long four years.
Yes, Trump held several meetings with members of Congress about the healthcare initiative, trying to rally support and negotiate. Clearly, he came up short.
Trump barely tried to take his message to the American people. He held a couple of public rallies in the past few weeks, but even then barely talked about healthcare or told his supporters to tell their members of Congress to vote for the bill.
What’s more, Trump is only on his 64th day in office. It took President Barack Obama more than 14 months to get Obamacare passed, and that was with even larger Democratic majorities in Congress than what Republicans have now.
For Trump to think healthcare was something that could be fixed with a couple rallies and a few meetings in just a couple months was naive.
Welcome to Washington.
Jason Russell is the contributors editor for the Washington Examiner.
