“Failure has to be possible or you can’t have success,” Mitch McConnell said. | AP Photo McConnell on Obamacare repeal: ‘Not easy making America great again’ The majority leader bucks Trump, says the Senate GOP will work on simultaneous repeal and replace.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is sticking to his current plan of trying to simultaneously repeal and replace Obamacare, despite a call from President Donald Trump and some conservative members of his conference to separate the two tasks.

Republicans remain mired in policy differences over how to replace the seven-year-old health care law, but on Friday, even divisions over tactics emerged. Trump tweeted early Friday: “If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!” and senators including Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ben Sasse of Nebraska want to forge ahead with just a repeal-only bill.


But noting that efforts over health care remain challenging, “we are going to stick with that path,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky who asked him about Trump’s tweet, according to the Associated Press.

“Failure has to be possible or you can’t have success,” McConnell told a group of Republicans in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, according to the AP. The majority leader, in a nod to Trump’s famed campaign promise, added: “It’s not easy making America great again, is it?”

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McConnell initially aimed for consideration of his Obamacare replacement bill before the July 4 congressional recess, but was forced to delay a vote after numerous Republicans came out in opposition to the proposal.