Trump on health care vote: ‘We’ll have to see what happens’

President Donald Trump on Friday said “we’ll have to see what happens” with the House’s vote later in the day on the Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Trump, at the conclusion of a press availability in the Oval Office late Friday morning, at first did not respond to reporters’ questions about the upcoming vote, according to a pool report. Then he commented, “We'll have to see what happens.”


The House is scheduled to vote on the measure Friday at Trump’s behest. Republicans had initially scheduled a vote for Thursday, the seventh anniversary of former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, but canceled it after it seemed that they had failed to cobble together enough votes to pass it.

No Democrats are expected to support the bill, called the American Health Care Act, and it has also divided congressional Republicans. It has come under attack from conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus for not repealing enough elements of Obamacare, while moderates have raised concerns that it is too harsh.

On Thursday evening, Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, told lawmakers that the president wanted them to vote on it Friday, and if it did not pass, he planned to abandon the proposal and move on to other legislative priorities and leave Obamacare in place.

Initially, Trump ignored the questions but eventually he responded "we'll have to see what happens." It was unclear which question he was specifically responding to.

When one pooler asked if thought the president rushed into AHCA, he said "no."