With the simultaneous defections of Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran Monday night effectively killing the current version of the GOP healthcare bill, President Donald Trump is finding his young presidency in a quagmire, and Republicans could face backlash in 2018, observers warn.
"It is a debacle. I think this is Donald Trump's Vietnam," The Daily Beast's Matt Lewis said on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360." It is basically a boondoggle. They thought they could do it quickly. They thought they could just go in surgically. This is not Trump's war. He didn't want this."
GOP strategist Jeffrey Lord told CNN that House and Senate Republicans will face the ire of their conservative base in the 2018 midterms if Obamacare isn't repealed and replaced.
"They should have been ready the day after the inauguration with this, and they weren't," Lord said, noting that Republicans passed "countless" repeal bills during the Obama administration, all of which were vetoed.
With off-year elections already tough for the party of the sitting president, conservative voters will be asking their own members of Congress why they should vote for them when they failed to do what they promised, Lord said.
Republicans could gain six seats in the Senate if they follow through on their Obamacare repeal pledge, Lord said, but that could all be out the window if they fail.
"They're not going to blame the president," Lord said. "They're going to blame members of the House and Senate who didn't get this done. … They really think he is up against the denizens of the Swamp and they're more inclined to go after the Republican members of Congress."
Trump himself weighed in via Twitter, saying Republicans should repeal the Affordable Care Act now, then work on the replacement.
Fox News Channel's Jesse Watters blasted Senate Republicans on "The Five," saying, "They have one job, repeal and replace Obamacare. And they can't do it." If that happened in the corporate world, they'd be "out on the street," he said.
"Five" co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle called it a failure of leadership.
"There were promises made and they have not been delivered on," she said, noting the multiple complaints about Obamacare from people who said their policies became unaffordable or they lost their preferred doctor or coverage.
"And, yet, they can't come together to put something excellent forward to the American people," Guilfoyle said.
The Washington Post's Paul Kane suggested Lee and Moran made their simultaneous announcement so neither would take the heat as being the official 51st vote to kill the bill.
And while conservatives met the news with remorse, Democrats were gleeful.
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