Trump demands Senate not give up on health care; Senate gives up

By Dan Calabrese —— Bio and Archives August 2, 2017

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Remember when it was conventional wisdom that President Trump didn’t really care that much about health care, and just wanted to get it off his plate? It’s clear now that someone in the Republican Party felt that way, but people were looking at the wrong end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump was all over Twitter and appearing in White House videos yesterday, insisting that the GOP Senate not give up on repealing and replacing ObamaCare. He’s also once again renewing his push for the Senate to eliminate the legislative filibuster so Democrats can’t block or water down every good idea conservatives bring to the table.

To put it more simply, Trump wants them to do their jobs and pass good legislation. And they have no interest in doing so:

Unless Republicans are “total quitters,” Trump tweeted, they will revive their yearslong effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare. While they’re at it, Trump wrote, Republicans should get rid of the 60-vote procedural hurdle for legislation, saying they “look like fools and are just wasting time.” 

But Trump’s demands might fall on deaf ears.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) warned reporters Monday not to “leap to conclusions” that Republicans won’t be able to pass a healthcare bill, but he appeared to hint that a second vote isn’t imminent.

“What we do know is next is nominations and hopefully [Senate Minority Leader Charles] Schumer will agree to break the logjam ... and that would be a good use of our next two weeks,” the No. 2 Senate Republican said.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), another member of Senate GOP leadership, said Republicans could circle back to healthcare when they reach a consensus. Until then, “it’s time to move on” and put “wins on the board,” he said.

“Obviously we didn’t give up and we didn’t quit and we gave it our best shot, and we can come back to this at a later time,” Blunt said, asked about Trump’s tweets.

Trump targeted GOP leadership by name in his tweets, saying “Mitch M, go to 51 Votes NOW and WIN. IT’S TIME!” 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) regularly declines to weigh in on Trump’s tweets, except to say he wishes the president would tweet less. 

But he’s shot down previous calls from Trump to end the legislative filibuster.

“That will not happen,” he told reporters after a similar request in May.

Asked if that was still McConnell’s position, a spokesman for the Kentucky Republican said that if Senate Republicans change their mind on the rules, they’d make an announcement.

Changing the rules might not make it easier to pass healthcare — which only needed a simple majority last week — but it would allow Republicans to leapfrog Democrats on other legislative issues like immigration, funding the government and raising the debt ceiling.

But many Republicans have shown little interest in getting rid of the 60-vote threshold. Many fear ending the filibuster would have disastrous repercussions.

Trump is correct that it’s extremely bad for the country if they just quit on repeal and move on to other things, yet they’re moving on. They don’t care.

What they fear is that if and when Democrats retake control of the Senate, they will use the simple majority to pass all kinds of liberal nonsense. And yes they would, but there is nothing stopping Democrats from changing the rules themselves. They already did so on non-SCOTUS judicial nominations when Obama was president, and if they wanted to badly enough they would change or flout the rules for other things.

Democrats do whatever they have to do to advance their socialist agenda. Republicans are milquetoast wimps who fret about the “disastrous repercussions” of the majority winning the day. This is why we are where we are today.

Much of the media’s spin on this is to paint Trump as ineffective because senators don’t “fear” him. But what Trump is imploring them to do is the right thing. If they refuse to do the right thing because Trump lacks political capital and thus they have no reason to fear him, you’re still left with the fact that they’re refusing to do their jobs. The Washington way of looking at things is that this reflects badly on the president, but normal people would say it reflects badly on the people who won’t do their jobs.

The same is true of Blunt’s insistence that they “obviously didn’t give up” on health care. No. They obviously gave up. They’re letting ObamaCare stay in place after refusing to repeal it. It’s true that Blunt, Cornyn and others voted for the repeal bill, such that it was, but they all seem quite happy now to let the status quo prevail. Trump is correct that it’s extremely bad for the country if they just quit on repeal and move on to other things, yet they’re moving on. They don’t care.

It’s not Trump who’s being unreasonable here. He simply wants them to do their jobs. They don’t want to do their jobs

The story here is not the political weakness of the president, however much the political class wants it to be. The story is the Republican Senate doesn’t care how much the country is hurting because of this awful law. They also don’t care that, because of their own rules (which they’re perfectly capable of changing), they can’t actually pass the kinds of legislation this country needs them to pass.

McConnell always defends his refusal to act on the filibuster by saying the votes aren’t there to do it. Right. That’s the problem. Republicans are sent to the Senate to enact conservative legislation, yet these same Republicans insist on keeping a rule in place that prevents them from doing so. Trump wants them to change that position and get rid of the rule. They refuse.

It’s not Trump who’s being unreasonable here. He simply wants them to do their jobs. They don’t want to do their jobs.

Don’t get this backward when you’re deciding who to hold accountable for the mess we’re in, and I’m not talking about palace intrigue at the White House. I’m talking about messed up health care markets, a screwed up tax code and $20 trillion in debt. Say what you want about Trump, but the things that will solve these problems, he is willing to do. Look to the people who say they want to solve problems, but every single time, find an excuse not to.