President Trump is no longer playing games as he works to convince conservative holdouts to back the American Health Care Act before it hits the House floor for a high-stakes vote Thursday evening.
More than two dozen conservative members have publicly revolted against the administration’s healthcare legislation, claiming it does little to eliminate the worst elements of Obamacare like rising premiums and reduced competition in the health insurance sector. Trump was supposed to close the deal in a pitch to GOP lawmakers on Tuesday morning.
But in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, the president instead behaved like a playground bully, injecting notes of fear into the proceedings.
“Oh Mark, I’m gonna come after you,” Trump told House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., a steadfast critic of the current healthcare bill, during the early morning confab.
“Some [members] laughed. I really couldn’t tell you if the president was joking, but I certainly took it more as being a thinly veiled threat,” a source in the room later told the Washington Examiner.
“The president is very adroit at putting somebody on the spot,” added Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., in comments to reporters after the meeting.
The White House later claimed Trump was yanking Meadows’ chain.
In the same sitting, Trump told Republicans who are dissatisfied with the direction of healthcare reform that they could cost their party its congressional majority if they block the current effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.
“Honestly, a loss is not acceptable folks,” Trump declared. “Many of you came in on the pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare [and] I think many of you will lose your seats in 2018 if you don’t get this done.”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer echoed the president hours later in his daily press briefing, telling reporters that GOP opponents could “pay a price” in their home districts if they vote against the legislation later this week.
“To go and make a promise and a pledge of this magnitude and not to follow it though, I’m sure that voters would be upset,” he said, adding that Trump had described a “political reality” earlier in the day.
Threatening political fallout seemed a rather significant departure from the wheeling-and-dealing Trump was eager to partake in during meetings with conservatives earlier this month.
The president was quick to tout his dealmaking skills after a meeting with Republican Study Committee members last week, during which he promised to give states greater flexibility on Medicaid by working two provisions into a manager’s amendment to the AHCA.
“These folks were mostly ‘no’s’ yesterday and now every single one is a ‘yes,'” the president stated proudly.
Now the “nays” who have refused to become “yeas” face stern warnings from the White House.
Tax reform, infrastructure spending and a host of other issues will be delayed, Trump has said, until Republicans accomplish their healthcare goals.
Congressman Dave Brat, R-Va., who remains “firmly opposed” to the healthcare bill, told the Washington Examiner after Trump’s Hill visit that the president “made a strong case about the need to pass [the healthcare bill] so we can move on to tax reform.”
Trump had tested that argument at an evening rally in Louisville, Ky., less than 24 hours before he strolled through the Capitol on Tuesday. Applying a measure of guilt about the consequence of not support the AHCA, Trump said Republicans must get the healthcare bill through Congress “so we can pass massive tax reform,” he told the crowd.
“We can’t do [that] until this happens,” Trump said. “We’ve got to get it done for a lot of reasons, but that’s one.”
Proponents of the legislation, many of whom are working alongside the White House to get their colleagues on board, have defended the current White House strategy. Making strides on healthcare will increase the ease with which Republicans can then execute tax reform.
Oklahoma Congressman Steve Russell said “it’s not a mistake” to hang tax reform over the heads of lawmakers who oppose the AHCA.
“Until we uncouple tax burdens from the Affordable Care Act, we can’t move forward with tax reform,” Russell told the Washington Examiner.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, making the same argument during a recent Fox Business appearance, said the current legislation makes tax reform “easier” by significantly reducing federal Medicaid expenditures.
“The Obamacare tax increases are taken out which makes it $900 billion easier to reform the tax code afterward,” he said. “That is why this is really important.”
Trump will “continue to engage” with lawmakers all the way up until they vote on Thursday, according to the White House. Spicer has said the administration feels “very good going into the final stretch.”
