During an exclusive interview on FOX Business, President Donald Trump said he wants to tackle health care before tax reform.

Continue Reading Below

“I have to do healthcare first, I want to do it first to really do it right,” Trump told Maria Bartiromo.

Although tax reform is critical to economic growth and businesses large and small, the president said “hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars” would be saved on reforming the health care, which would help with tax reform.

“We’re saving tremendous amounts of money on health care when we get this done, number one, and most importantly … we’re going to have great healthcare, and all of that savings goes into the tax,” Trump said. “If you don’t do that you can’t put any of the savings into the tax cuts and the tax reform.”

Gary Cohn, director of the White House National Economic Council, told FOX Business on Friday that tax reform would be finished within the year, echoing the messaging from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who said he hoped to complete tax reform by August.

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer stopped short of committing to an August deadline when responding to a question from FOX Business’ Blake Burman.

“That still would be a great opportunity before they [Congress] left for August recess, but we’re going to make sure that we do this right,” he told reporters at the daily press briefing.”

Similarly, President Trump declined to put a deadline on when the matter would be finished.

“Health care is going to happen at some point. Now if it doesn’t start fast enough, I’ll start the taxes. But the tax reform and the tax cuts are better if I can do healthcare first,” he said.