Posted on 03/24/2017 5:29:43 PM PDT by MaxistheBest
President Trump called me on my cellphone Friday afternoon at 3:31 p.m. At first I thought it was a reader with a complaint since it was a blocked number.
Instead, it was the president calling from the Oval Office. His voice was even, his tone muted. He did not bury the lead.
“Hello, Bob,” Trump began. “So, we just pulled it.”
Trump was speaking, of course, of the Republican plan to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, a plan that had been languishing for days amid unrest throughout the party as the president and his allies courted members and pushed for a vote.
Before I could ask a question, Trump plunged into his explanation of the politics of deciding to call off a vote on a bill he had been touting.
The Democrats, he said, were to blame.
“We couldn’t get one Democratic vote, and we were a little bit shy, very little, but it was still a little bit shy, so we pulled it,” Trump said.
Trump said he would not put the bill on the floor in the coming weeks. He is willing to wait and watch the current law continue and, in his view, encounter problems. And he believes that Democrats will eventually want to work with him on some kind of legislative fix to Obamacare, although he did not say when that would be. ---------------------------------------
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“Ah, that’s the big question,” Trump said with a slight chuckle. “Don’t know. I have a good relationship with them, but I couldn’t get them. They just wouldn’t do it.”
Trump alluded to long-running, simmering dramas on Capitol Hill, which he said had little to do with him, as a reason the Freedom Caucus could not back the bill.
“Years of hatred and distrust,” he said. “Long before me.” Was Trump saying, perhaps, that the inability of Ryan and his team to work well with that caucus was part of why talks stalled?
“Well, look, you can say what you want,” Trump said. “But there are years of problems, great hatred and distrust, and, you know, I came into the middle of it.”
“I think they made a mistake, but that’s okay,” Trump said of the Freedom Caucus.
I asked: Would working on a bipartisan health-care deal a year from now be something he would find more agreeable than whipping the hard right?
“A lot of people might say that,” Trump said, laughing. “We’ll end up with a better health-care plan. A great plan. And you wouldn’t need the Freedom Caucus.”
What about the moderates, the Tuesday Group?
“They were great,” Trump said. “They were really great"
Is this real?
Trump called Bob Costas to say these things?
You added the /s.
...Is this real?
Trump called Bob Costas to say these things...
Bob Costa or Bob Costas?....
“Trump called Bob Costas to say these things?”
I’m sure it is..it would be a stretch even for the Washington Post to run it. BTW..Trump has a few MSM reporters that he trusts..Bob Costa being one of them.
The question is why does he trust Costa. Note the snide comments in this article. Makes no sense to me.
Three steps ahead...
Costa can be a useful idiot. A tool.
Here we go. The Freedom Caucus may have just cut off their nose to spite their face. I heard Trump in the Oval Office too talking about how they can do a bipartisan deal if Obamacare collapses. The Freedom Caucus would not be necessary. Instead of getting something, they will get nothing.
“Makes no sense to me”
Trump has spent the last 40 years dealing with the media...good and bad. He has a natural like for them, the good ones. He understands the role of the reporters in DC and doesn’t hold it against them as long as they are fair with him. Bob Costa is one who, I’m sure hasn’t stabbed him in the back...maybe always calling Team Trump to confirm a story.
He obviously had a message he wanted to get out there and wanted it to be widely heard in DC...hence the Wash Post.
Oh.
I thought it said he called Bob Costas.
Lol. My mistake.
I wish to H*ll that Trump would call my cell phone! I’d like to tell him what a waste this health-care bill was. Why didn’t he just ask Pelosi to draw it up, as this is about what she would do?
Robert Costa was a Robert L. Bartley Fellow at The Wall Street Journal. He was later hired by the National Review as a reporter in 2010. In December 2012, he was promoted to the position of Washington editor for National Review. While at National Review, Costa was a contributor for CNBC, frequently appearing on The Kudlow Report, and for MSNBC.
Wasn’t Bob Costa the guy Trump wouldn’t take questions from early on as he called his network fake news and skipped over him?
“Here we go. The Freedom Caucus may have just cut off their nose to spite their face.”
I’m sure Trump is feeling that they stabbed him in the back. Think about it:
The first thing he does is gives them a solid gold, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee 100% approved Supreme Court justice.
The next he does is write a dozen or so EO’s on immigration
After that he gets the Wall going.
Then they lead him on regarding the health care bill..making him think they were moving in the right direction ...he gave them 80% of what they wanted.
They said no...we want 100%.
Yeh...i’d be done with them too!!
“We couldn’t get one Democratic vote, and we were a little bit shy, very little, but it was still a little bit shy, so we pulled it,” Trump said.”
Not even one Democratic vote.
That shows why it is important for the Republicans to control the House.
“called his network fake news and skipped over him”
Nope...that was Jim Acosta from CNN...a real jerk.
That or Alec Baldwin just did a really slick punked.
>>Instead of getting something, they (Freedom Caucus) will get nothing.<<
There was nothing in Ryan’s bill for the Freedom Caucus constituency to begin with. Nothing now is no different than nothing later.
“We couldn’t get one Democratic vote”
“That shows why it is important for the Republicans to control the House.”
He is saying this to make sure the blame for ObamaCare stays with the Democrats.
That said, you can almost guarantee he will do a bi-partisan bill next time around and the Freedom Caucus will NOT be a part of it. You can book that.
“There was nothing in Ryan’s bill for the Freedom Caucus constituency to begin with. Nothing now is no different than nothing later.”
Trump ended up giving them 80% of what they wanted...then they still said no...you can bet that he will NEVER let them affect the composition or the fate of the next healthcare bill!!
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