White House chief of staff Reince Priebus is mostly to blame for the implosion of the GOP healthcare replacement bill, the New York Times reported. But other groups and individuals factored into the bill's doom as well.
Priebus coordinated the original legislative strategy on the American Healthcare Act, which was pulled from a floor vote Friday because of a lack of support in the Republican-led chamber. The move was a bit surprising as President Donald Trump made a strong push to get the bill backed and House Speaker Paul Ryan continued to make changes to the legislation. Outsourcing the job to Ryan was another mistake, an aide told the Times.
"Mr. Trump’s team was privately stunned by Mr. Ryan’s inability to master the politics of his own conference," wrote Times reporters Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman.
Another source of contention for Trump and his White House team was the fight put up by the House Freedom Caucus, a group consisting of conservative Republican members of the House of Representatives that argued the House bill didn’t go far enough.
Trump sat down with the group for two hours on Thursday night but left frustrated with the demands set forth by the group’s leader, Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina.
White House aide Jared Kushner and secretary of health and human services Tom Price also drew Trump's ire. Kushner was out of town on a family ski trip during the vote wrangling.
The president also placed blame on the Democrats.
"We had no Democrat support," he said. "We had no votes from the Democrats.
"They weren't going to give us a single vote, so it's a very difficult thing to do.
"I've been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do, politically speaking, is to let Obamacare explode," Trump said. "It is exploding right now."
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