Day 65: Trump Takes Big Loss, Blames Everybody Else

Yesterday, the House and Donald Trump saw their signature health care bill — the American Health Care Act —fall on its face as they couldn’t rally enough votes to bring it to the floor for a vote. This was particularly embarrassing as Republicans enjoy a major advantage over Democrats in the House.

The bill — designed to be Step One to repeal and replace Obamacare, a promise seven years old — was a mess from the start. Supported by 17% of Americans, its detractors came in the form of Democrats, moderate Republicans and very conservative Republicans.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was forced to admit that Obamacare was the law of the land and would remain so for the foreseeable future. He also thanked Trump for doing everything he could to get the bill passed.

Thanking Trump is no accident. Ryan wants — needs — Trump to share in this blame. He knows everyone, including Trump would blame him for the bill’s failure as both the bill’s architect and the Speaker. By invoking Trump’s name he attempted to deflect the incoming blame from Trump.

Trump, in turn, blamed everyone:

Democrats.

(As a reminder, in 2009 every Republican in the House and Senate refused to even consider voting for Obamacare; the Republicans enjoy a 44-seat advantage in the House today.)

His son-in-law.

Ryan.

(Who saw that coming? Oh, everyone?)

Trump, of course, never took one iota of blame himself and is now claiming he’ll happily wait for Obamacare to fail. Trump and Congress can essentially force Obamacare to fail by defunding it, the same as if they defunded Medicare or NASA or the National Endowment of the Arts.

If that happens, millions of people will suffer financially and medically. Trump is apparently looking forward to that.

The President of the United States is okay with Americans suffering as long as he can win political points.

65 days in, 1397 to go

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