Khaleej Times

Healthcare blame stops with Trump

- AFP

washington — Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office on Friday evening in an unfamiliar position — having to own failure.

His health care reform, his very first significan­t legislativ­e proposal, had fallen at the first hurdle in a friendly Congress.

For sure, the 70-year-old businessma­n had faltered before — from bankrupt casinos to shuttered hotels. But until now bravado was enough to keep his brand intact, and carry him all the way to the White House.

Now — in the fiercest spotlight in the world, as president of the United States — there was nowhere to hide. Fittingly perhaps, Trump addressed his failure from behind a desk in the Oval Office. It was in that same spot that Harry Truman kept a sign that encapsulat­ed all the pressures and accountabi­lity of an imperial presidency: “The buck stops here.”

Trump was not ready to take quite that much ownership, although he did profess to be “a little surprised” by the plan’s failure. We got close, he said, as if it mattered.

But Trump offered surprising­ly little criticism for his brothers-inarms. That may come when the dust falls. His criticism of the Democrats — none of whom were ever going to vote for a bill that dismantled Barack Obama’s signature health reform — felt almost formulaic.

At the end of the day Republican­s control the House of Representa­tives, the Senate and the White House, they should not have needed Democratic votes.

There was no avoiding it: the selfprofes­sed “closer” had struck out. “Trump, it turns out, is not actually able to put together any deal that he wants,” wrote Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, on CNN.com. “In this case, he was the loser.”

That leaves Trump, after just two months in office, facing a dilemma that may define the rest of his presidency: can he continue with the bareknuckl­e, alpha male approach that brought him to the summit of global politics.

His erratic tweets have already called his credibilit­y into doubt, most seriously when he accused his predecesso­r Obama — without proof — of wiretappin­g his phones.

His approach to policymaki­ng — all about speed, with little consultati­on — has also shown its limits as his order to curb immigratio­n from some Muslim-majority nations was twice frozen by the courts.

Some lessons from the health care debate offer ominous signs.

Amid threats of retributio­n and orders to “march or die”, more than two dozen Republican­s still refused to back what Trump touted as the “greatest” health care plan. —

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