WASHINGTON — The morning after Republican efforts to overhaul health care collapsed on Capitol Hill – threatening his ambitious economic agenda along with it – President Trump said Tuesday he now wants to see the current Obamacare law "fail" so that Americans will demand a change.

"We're not going to own it – I'm not going to own it – I can tell you the Republicans are not going to own it," Trump told reporters at the White House. "We'll let Obamacare fail and then the Democrats are going to come to us."

Congressional Democrats said Trump and Republicans will indeed be held responsible for what happens if they repeal the 2010 health care plan without a good plan to replace it. They said that step would, like the proposed Republican alternatives, drive up health care costs and leave millions without insurance.

In calling for bipartisan negotiations, Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer of New York said, "it’s like if our healthcare system was a patient who came in and needed some medicine. The Republicans proposed a surgery. That operation was a failure. Now, Republicans are proposing a second surgery that will surely kill the patient."

Yet Trump appeared undeterred, standing by his earlier tweet Tuesday: "As I have always said, let ObamaCare fail and then come together and do a great healthcare plan. Stay tuned!"

Yet in seeking a way forward on health care – as well as an agenda that includes tax reform and infrastructure – Trump has not "always" endorsed a repeal-only strategy and has instead backed a variety of ways to address the issue.

Just before he took office, Trump said in January he was nearing completion of a plan to replace Obamacare with the goal of "insurance for everybody" and backed a variety of "repeal and replace" proposals in recent months. And as late as Monday night, Trump endorsed a simple repeal of the law President Obama signed in 2010.

Trump's call for a straight repeal of the Affordable Care Act came after Republican senators Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas said they would oppose a Trump-backed plan to repeal and replace the law, leaving the party well short of majority support. Shortly after, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday announced he was pulling the plan.

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The decision appeared to take the White House by surprise. As McConnell made his announcement, Trump was wrapping up a dinner at the White House with a group of Republican senators to discuss health care strategy.

During his morning tweetstorm, Trump generally blamed the other party: "We were let down by all of the Democrats and a few Republicans. Most Republicans were loyal, terrific & worked really hard. We will return!"

Over the course of the debate, some Republicans said Trump himself sent mixed messages. He backed a House health care plan over intense opposition in March, and even staged a high-profile celebration of its passage in the White House Rose Garden. Weeks later, however, Trump described the House bill as "too mean" in a meeting with Senate Republicans, and he urged them to make changes.

Trump also, at times, suggested letting the existing law stay in place, predicting it would "collapse" and generate demand for change — a tactic he readopted after McConnell pulled the Republican bill late Monday night.

"Republicans should just REPEAL failing ObamaCare now & work on a new Healthcare Plan that will start from a clean slate. Dems will join in!" he said.

Taking questions from reporters after a White House meeting on Afghanistan, Trump appeared to criticize Congress in general. The president said he has been hearing about "repeal and replace" of Obamacare for seven years, but "when we finally get a chance to repeal and replace, they don’t take advantage of it."

Asked if he blamed McConnell in particular, Trump said simply: "No."

Democrats and estimates from the Congressional Budget Office said alternative Republican plans would have cut off millions from health insurance because of higher costs. They also said the GOP efforts to repeal Obamacare essentially sabotaged the legislation by creating uncertainty among insurers.

The collapse of health care puts Trump's entire legislative agenda at risk. Trump and aides have repeatedly said that their hopes for tax reform hinged on a new health care law because it included changes to the tax code.

Plans for an infrastructure bill, a budget plan, and raising the debt ceiling may also be in doubt because of bruised feelings left over from the health care fight.

Stan Collender, a federal budget analyst, said Trump's revamped agenda may be little more than whatever the Republican Congress can pass. And that, he said, may be "nothing more than nuts and bolts," from post office namings to a new spending plan that will be needed to replace that one that expires at the end of September.

"I think the Trump 'agenda' – and put quote marks around agenda – is anything the Congress passes," said Collender, an executive vice president at Qorvis MSLGROUP, a public affairs firm. "But the real Trump agenda – the one he promised everybody – is definitely in trouble."

The fate of health care will also affect next year's congressional elections, and Trump sought to rally Republicans politically with another pair of morning tweets.

"With only a very small majority, the Republicans in the House & Senate need more victories next year since Dems totally obstruct, no votes!" the president said in one post Tuesday morning.

While Schumer and other Democrats said voters would punish Republicans next year for their health care ventures, Trump told reporters the issue would help the GOP. "We have to go out and get more people elected that are Republicans," he said.

Throughout the year, Trump has said that health care legislation has proven to be more difficult than he initially thought.

Just hours before Senate Republican leadership pulled the bill, Trump told supporters Monday at the White House that "the Republican senators are great people, but they have a lot of different states. Some states need this, some states need that. But we're getting it together and it's going to happen."