"You probably know and have been covering that the Graham-Cassidy bill is gaining in support and steam,” Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway said. | Alex Brandon/AP Conway: New Obamacare repeal effort 'gaining in support and steam'

A last-ditch effort to repeal and replace Obamacare led by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy is “gaining in support and steam,” counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said Monday morning, leaving open the possibility that President Donald Trump might be able to make good on a campaign promise that had stalled out in the Senate.

“It could happen. And you probably know, and have been covering that the Graham-Cassidy bill is gaining in support and steam,” Conway said Monday morning on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.” “Many of the governors like it. I'm told we're close to 50 votes or so in the Senate.”


The legislation in question, crafted by Graham (R-S.C.) and Cassidy (R-La.), would take the money spent by the federal government on Obamacare and instead block grant it to states. It’s passage is almost certainly dependent on a Senate procedural rule called reconciliation, which would allow the bill to pass through the Senate with as few as 50 votes instead of the usual 60 required by the chamber’s filibuster rules.

The Senate’s authority to pass legislation via reconciliation expires at the end of September, giving GOP lawmakers two weeks to make good on their longtime promise to undo former President Barack Obama’s signature health care legislation. Republican leaders in the Senate are giving serious consideration to voting on the Graham-Cassidy bill, but a final decision has not yet been made and the legislation does not enjoy unanimous support among GOP senators.

Conway noted in her Fox News interview that Republicans could benefit from the absence of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who is on trial for corruption charges in his home state. “We know that Mr. Menendez is otherwise indisposed up in New Jersey, so that changes the mathematical calculus in the senate,” Conway said.

Republican’s previous effort to repeal and replace the health bill stalled in late July, scuttled by “no” votes from Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). The legislative failure irked Trump, who has been publicly critical of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and has complained that the GOP was unable to follow through on a repeal-and-replace pledge that its lawmakers had made on the campaign trail for the better part of a decade.

“Now, the president keeps saying, and he’s right, he’s been here for seven or eight months, they’ve been talking about this for seven or eight years,” Conway said. “He’s ready. You put meaningful repeal-and-replace legislation on his desk and he will sign it.”