“Too much positive news,” was an administration official’s deadpan response when New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman asked why, after William Barr published a letter purporting to clear Donald Trump’s name, the president turned around and declared open war on the Affordable Care Act, which provides health care for millions. “We needed to change the subject.” Mitch McConnell, it seems, is similarly frustrated. On Thursday, the Senate Majority leader intimated to Politico that he would stay as far away from the health-care fracas as possible, having learned from his mistakes in 2017. “I look forward to seeing what the president is proposing and what he can work out with the speaker,” he told the outlet. “I am focusing on stopping the ‘Democrats’ Medicare for none’ scheme.”

McConnell’s fellow Republicans were similarly disenchanted. “I’m not sensing a whole lot” of enthusiasm in the leadership for a new health-care debate, Senator Ron Johnson told Politico, while McConnell ally John Thune put forth a seemingly innocuous ask: “What they need to do now is tell us what their plans are.”

This, of course, may prove difficult, considering the administration likely has little to no idea what its next steps will be. Reports indicate that Trump directed the Department of Justice to throw the first punch this week, filing a briefing in D.C.’s 5th Circuit that calls for the law to be thrown out completely, over the heads of two of his own Cabinet officials. Republicans have expressed doubt that they can become, as Trump tweeted on Thursday, “the Party of Great Health Care” in time for the 2020 elections, particularly with Democrats in control of the House. Trump’s plan has faced stumbling blocks in court, too, with two federal judges striking down the White House’s latest attempt to kneecap the law just this week.

McConnell and his Senate allies have repeatedly asked that the White House give them marching orders, or at least maintain a coherent message. “The leader is sort of anxious to see what the president and his team put forward in terms of a proposal,” Thune told Politico. He was echoed by Republican Mike Braun, who said the caucus “need[s] to see what President Trump means. He’s throwing a lot of stuff out there.” But if the past is any guide, Republicans will end up empty-handed. Trump himself often undercuts their strategizing, from blowing up a debt ceiling negotiation by caving to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to blocking McConnell’s attempts to keep the government open late last year, seemingly on a whim. “It doesn’t help with the messaging because we’ve spent the last 20 years trying to figure out how not to get labeled with the blame for a shutdown,” a Republican senator told The Hill at the time. That he would derail Republicans’ attempts to keep the focus on Medicare for All, as espoused by several Democratic presidential hopefuls, is par for the course.

McConnell, of course, knows this. His attempt to keep Trump at arm’s length is designed to insulate himself, as well as those in his caucus who are up for re-election, from the chaos of a shambolic executive branch. After all, the last time he tried to help Trump repeal Obamacare, he was rewarded with the president berating him for not accomplishing an unpopular task quickly enough. (”Can you believe that Mitch McConnell, who has screamed Repeal & Replace for 7 years, couldn't get it done,“ he tweeted at one point.) McConnell sniped that the president had “excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process.” This time around, McConnell is pre-emptively pointing fingers. And, failing that, he has Nancy Pelosi to take the blame.

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