Trump said Tuesday that Republicans should do away with the legislative filibuster to advance health care and tax legislation. | Getty Trump urges GOP senators to pass new Obamacare repeal bill that adds saved money

President Donald Trump appeared to backtrack Wednesday after nudging Republicans on Sunday to “add more dollars to Healthcare.”

“Hopefully Republican Senators, good people all, can quickly get together and pass a new (repeal & replace) HEALTHCARE bill. Add saved $'s,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning.


It’s unclear exactly what Trump meant. But Wednesday’s tweet followed a Sunday post in which the president suggested “that we add more dollars to Healthcare and make it the best anywhere.”

Asked to answer for the president’s rhetoric during his first on-camera press briefing in 15 days, White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday pointed to the $119 billion that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the House’s American Health Care Act would save over a decade. (The CBO also projected 23 million more people would be uninsured.)

“Well, there’s a lot of savings that are coming out of the repeal and replace effort right now,” Spicer said, adding that the president “understands how important health care is, and the bottom line is he's going to do whatever it takes to make sure that people have quality, accessible health care.”

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Trump said Tuesday that Republicans should do away with the legislative filibuster to advance health care and tax legislation, a perplexing position given that Republicans are already using budget reconciliation in their efforts to pass both measures with a simple majority. Nevertheless, Trump tweeted: “Dems would do it, no doubt!”