Donald Trump had a lunch date with uniformed veterans of the Afghanistan war on Tuesday “to find out why we’ve been there 17 years”. On a humid summer day in Washington DC, they sat in the Roosevelt Room, each with a glass of iced tea adorned with lemon wedges, as reporters were ushered in.

Less than 24 hours earlier, the president had been in buoyant form as he toured a pop-up White House exhibition of Made in America products – trying on a cowboy hat, swinging a baseball bat and clambering into the cab of a gleaming fire truck.

Repeal now, replace later? GOP's last-ditch healthcare effort thwarted Read more

“What we’re going to be doing over the next six months will be incredible,” he promised.

And turning to healthcare legislation, Trump said on Monday afternoon: “We’re getting it together and it’s going to happen. Right, Mike?”



“Yes, sir!” vice-president Mike Pence responded.

By Tuesday morning, the optimism had faded. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, had conceded overnight he could not pass the promised repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act, and two days short of six months in office, Trump was staring at the Republican party’s failure to deliver on a central campaign pledge.

Yet the president was in no mood to take responsibility, chiding Republicans: “For seven years I have been hearing repeal and replace from Congress. I have been hearing it loud and strong, and when we finally get a chance to repeal and replace, they don’t take advantage of it.”

He declared himself disappointed, but embraced the failure in the Senate, telling reporters he was ready to let the ACA, commonly known as Obamacare, fail and let Democrats take the blame. “It would be nice to get Democrat support but really they are obstructionists. They have no ideas.”

Speaking to the press in an impromptu gathering before the lunch with four veterans, Trump declared his new plan was “to let Obamacare fail. It will be a lot easier.”

The president added: “I think we’re probably in that position where we’ll let Obamacare fail. 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. We’ll let Obamacare fail and then the Democrats are going to come to us.”

The statement came less than a day after the Senate Republican healthcare bill failed when two conservative senators, Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas, announced they could not support it.

The announcement, which Trump said left him “very surprised”, came as the president was dining on Monday night with Republican senators who supported the bill in an attempt to plot the path forward.

Trump, though, seemed to take consolation in the fact that a majority of his own party supported healthcare reform, even if a majority of the Senate did not. “But the vote would have been, if you look at it, 48-4,” he said, noting that only four of the 52 Senate Republicans had expressed public opposition to the bill, although many had not taken a stand. “That’s a pretty impressive vote by any standard and yet you have a vote of 48-4 or something like that and you need more. That’s pretty tough,” said Trump, apparently pinning his hopes on gaining an increased Senate majority after the 2018 midterm elections.

McConnell announced that he would push a vote on repealing Obamacare without any replacement lined up.

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Although similar legislation passed in 2015, it did so with the justified expectation that it would be promptly vetoed by Barack Obama.

On Tuesday, the White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to rule out Trump signing similar legislation. However, with three Republican senators quickly emerging to say they would oppose such a bill, it is unlikely ever to reach Trump’s desk.

Huckabee Sanders seemed to amplify Trump’s statements about healthcare in the briefing, putting the blame solely on Democrats, who are in the minority in both houses of Congress, for the failure of Trump’s top legislative priority. Sanders also declined to say if Trump would take any steps to further undermine the ACA through regulations, saying: “I think this is already going over the cliff and doesn’t need a push by the president.”

Six months ticks around on Thursday, with no legislative win in spite of Republican control of the House, Senate and White House. “Something will happen and it will be good,” Trump said. “It may not be as quick as we had hoped but it is going to happen.”

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