Donald Trump Asks Paul Ryan to Pull GOP Health Care Bill Before Vote


Donald Trump and Paul Ryan have officially pulled The American Health Care Act from consideration after it became clear that the bill would not pass. Now, the president is looking forward and considering the ramifications of the failure.

House Republican leaders decided to pull their Obamacare replacement bill at the last minute at the request of President Donald Trump — capping a rocky series of weeks since the controversial measure was introduced and an order from the president for legislators to put their cards on the table today.

A GOP aide tells ABC News that Trump called Speaker of the House Paul Ryan at 3 p.m. to tell him to pull the bill. The next House votes are scheduled for Monday, so no further votes are expected in the House for the day or the week.

“We’ve got to do better and we will,” Ryan said at a hastily arranged press conference this afternoon. “This is a setback no two ways about it,” but GOP leadership is emerging from the day “motivated to step up our game and deliver our promises.”

Ryan said they pulled the bill because they couldn’t get enough “yes” votes for the bill to succeed on the floor. He said “I’m really proud of the bill we produced,” but later in his speech called it a “fundamentally flawed” piece of legislation.

“Obamacare is the law of the land,” Ryan said. It’s going to remain the law of the land until it’s replaced… And, so, yeah, we’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.”

The Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, has been in effect since President Obama signed it in 2010. Republicans have vowed to get rid of the bill since then.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called today’s developments a “victory for the American people.”

Trump blamed the failure on the Democrats, and said in a press conference that they will come to him when Obamacare “explodes.”

“It’s imploding and soon will explode and it’s not going to be pretty,” Trump said.

The Obamacare implosion is no doubt inevitable, but without Democratic support, a full repeal is highly unlikely. Will the Democrats finally admit that their health care experiment is a failure and work with Trump? Probably not. But if Obamacare fails completely, the Senate may soon have enough Republican members to proceed without any Democrats at all.

Source: ABC News



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