JULY 19, 2017
Photo: Getty
It was a simple lunch invitation. President Trump invited all 52 Republican senators to dine with him on Wednesday afternoon at the White House. What could be nicer?
For a few GOP senators, an afternoon in hell might have been preferable.
In the past few days, the Republican health care plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, a GOP plan which Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has confidently said would pass the Senate, has spectacularly gone up in flames, not even being given the courtesy of reaching the Senate floor for a vote.
For days now, the Republican plan was publicly opposed by two senators — moderate Susan Collins (R-ME) and right-winger Rand Paul (R-KY), each for very different reasons — which is the exact number of senators that the Republicans could afford to lose and still pass the bill. Another senator saying “no” would kill the bill. So, feeling safe, Trump gathered Republican leadership for dinner on Monday at the White House to strategize over what they would do after their health care bill passed the Senate.
What they didn’t know while they were enjoying their coffee and dessert was that two other GOP senators, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Mike Lee of Utah simultaneously announced that they were opposed to be bill as well, bringing the opposition to four, thus killing the bill. (They craftily made their announcement together so that no single one of them would carry the blame for the bill’s demise.)
Reportedly, when Trump got the news, he felt blindsided and blew his stack — it’s being said that he’s doing a lot of that recently. Feeling that it was the “replace” portion of the bill that was the source of the defections, Trump then urged McConnell to put forward a bill that just repeals Obamacare — they can then worry what will replace it a couple of years from now.
Sen. Collins then quickly put the kibosh on that idea as she joined two other female GOP senators — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia –in saying that they would vote “no” on even bringing a “repeal only” health care bill to the floor, thus killing that idea. McConnell was stymied.
Hence today’s “Lunch at the White House” extravaganza.
As many of the senators may have suspected, Trump in his public remarks took the senators out to the woodshed to give them a verbal whuppin’ for letting him down in not passing a bill. He even called out a few by name — on-the-fence Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, who was seated next to Trump, was warned to “be with us,” adding “he wants to remain a senator, doesn’t he?” It’s kind of the Trump equivalent of “Nice Senate seat you got there. A shame if something happened to it.”
But several commentators have questioned whether Trump was the appropriate person to do the whuppin’. After all, Trump hasn’t lifted a finger to help this bill get passed. No strongarm phone calls, no nationwide television address, no rallies (which Trump considers his most effective tool). Barack Obama did all of these things and got the Affordable Care Act passed. So many are already seeing Trump’s stern finger-wagging at the Republicans to be hollow. Instead Trump has merely said in a passive threat, “I am sitting in the Oval Office with a pen in hand, waiting for our senators to give it to me.” (No comment.)
The on-the-fence Republicans have been asked to come to a meeting on Wednesday night so that White House officials can hear their grievances — Susan Collins has already said that she’s skipping the meeting — so Trumpcare isn’t dead quite yet. But if Trumpcare does crash and burn, Trump will have no one to blame but himself.
