Newt Gingrich on Thursday called it "absurd" and "goofy" that President Donald Trump is blaming Senate Republicans for the failure of healthcare reform, saying the president has to shoulder some of the blame himself.
The former House speaker turned Fox News contributor told the "Fox & Friends" morning program that there is only one group to blame for the failure of passing healthcare reform — the Democrats.
"This whole thing is absurd," Gingrich said when asked about Trump's tweets and the tension with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
"For every Republican who voted no, there were 16 Democratic senators who voted no," Gingrich said.
Conservatives should aim their fire on the "10 Democratic senators" from states that Trump carried who voted no, not McConnell.
"The fact is, with a very narrow margin, Mitch McConnell got 49 out of 52," Gingrich said. "I think the president can't disassociate himself from this. He's part of the leadership team; he's not an observer sitting up in the stands; he's on the field. It was a collective failure; both the Trump administration and Republicans in the Senate failed.
"But to get involved shooting at each other when there were 16 Democrats voting no for every single Republican who voted no, is goofy."
Gingrich said a bigger loss is ahead for Republicans if they don't learn a lesson from failing on healthcare.
"What bothers me is, we have a lot of things we need to learn how to do if we're going to be an effective governing majority party, and I'm frankly equally afraid they're going to mishandle the tax cuts exactly the way they mishandled healthcare, and if that happens, we'll be at the end of the year with a disaster," Gingrich said.
Part of that lesson is a theme Gingrich has been saying all along in a warning to Republicans who are poised to start work on tax reform — quit setting deadlines.
"Setting these deadlines, when you don't have a clear plan, when you don't have an absolute majority … these kind of deadlines create these expectations and then it becomes a crisis and then somebody has to have failed. …
"Replacing Obamacare … may take three or four or five years and it may take 10 or 12 different bills," Gingrich said. "I'm not sure anybody's smart enough to write a single bill to replace Obamacare in one giant step, and I'm not sure you'd get a majority in the House and Senate if you could."
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