NEVADA, Ia. – If the health care bill currently before the U.S. Senate fails, lawmakers should immediately repeal the existing law known as Obamacare and then get to work crafting a replacement, U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse told a Republican crowd here on Friday.

The Nebraska Republican’s comments, delivered at a Story County GOP fundraiser, represent a rejoinder to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who suggested this week that if the bill currently under consideration dies the party may have to negotiate with Democrats on fixes to the existing law rather than a wholesale overhaul.

“If we can’t replace and repeal at the same time, then repeal the law and stay and work on replace full time,” Sasse said, suggesting that bill undoing Obamacare should be passed with an effective date a year or two in the future and that lawmakers should work “18 hours a day, six days a week” to write the replacement.

Sasse didn’t call out McConnell by name but said the “Republican Party” was sending “national signals” about cooperating with Democrats on changes to the law. McConnell was quoted Thursday saying “some kind of action with regard to the private health insurance market must occur” should the GOP bill fail.

“That is the exact opposite of what we ran on,” Sasse said. “It’s bad policy, it’s bad politics but it’s also just fundamentally deciding that keeping your word is not something you need to take very seriously.”

The comments came amid an otherwise philosophical speech in which Sasse called on the crowd of Republican Party activists to downplay the importance of political allegiances and emphasize instead their identities as parents, neighbors and citizens.

Sasse, a first-term senator and former university president, has seen his profile rise over the last 18 months in part as a rare Republican willing to break with President Donald Trump.

In February, 2016, he published an “open letter to Trump supporters” in which he accused the then-candidate of “dividing Americans” and “tearing down rather than building back up this glorious nation.” More recently, Sasse has tempered his criticism of now-President Trump, although he has little to say that’s positive or even neutral about him.

That position has drawn the ire of Trump loyalists, including Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann, who at a Trump rally in Cedar Rapids last month attacked Sasse as “sanctimonious.”

“We love Donald Trump,” Kaufmann said, addressing Sasse from the stage at the Trump rally. “And if you don’t love him, I suggest you stay on your side of the Missouri River.”

Sasse did not mention Trump by name on Friday, and only referenced the president to note that he, like other Republicans, ran on repealing the health care law.

Immediately after Sasse spoke, Story County GOP Chairman Brett Barker came to the podium to read a letter from Trump to the audience in which the president praised Iowa’s commitment to his candidacy in 2016 and fondly recalled visits to nearby Ames.

In addition to the Story County dinner, Sasse spent Friday night picking up passengers as a driver for Uber in Des Moines. He has previously driven for the car service in Nebraska, calling it a way to reach his constituents and learn about changes in the economy. His Uber excursion in Iowa, though, was the consequence of a lost bet on last fall’s Nebraska-Iowa football game.

In Nevada, party officials handed Sasse a bright yellow Iowa Hawkeyes T-shirt before his speech, encouraging him to wear it as he drove.

Sasse has made his commitment to Nebraska football part of his political identity. When asked by the Des Moines Register last year if a visit to West Des Moines signaled an interest in running for president Sasse evaded the question by suggesting he was scouting for offensive linemen.