Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell late Monday announced he was abandoning efforts to pass a bill to "repeal and replace" Obamacare and said he would instead push a bill to fully repeal the law and give Congress two years to figure out a replacement.

He announced that major shift in strategy after GOP support for a repeal-and-replace strategy collapsed in the Senate.

McConnell, R-Ky., said he would take up a House health bill that passed the lower chamber in May, but with the first amendment being a 2015 repeal bill that gutted Obamacare.

"Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful," he said in a statement.

Trump and leading conservatives in both houses of Congress had called for a clean Obamacare repeal bill after it became clear the Senate's latest attempt to partially repeal and replace former President Barack Obama's healthcare law did not have the votes to pass. Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., were the two key defections.

Just before that announcement, President Trump tweeted out that the GOP "should just REPEAL failing Obamacare now & work on a new Healthcare Plan that will start from a clean slate. Dems will join in!"