President urges senators to craft a kinder version
WASHINGTON — President
Donald Trump told Republican senators Tuesday that the Housepassed health care bill he helped revive is “mean” and urged them to craft a version that is “more generous,” congressional sources said.
Trump’s remarks were a surprising slap at a Republican-written House measure that was shepherded by Speaker Paul Ryan, R-wis., and whose passage the president lobbied for and praised.
The president’s criticism, at a White House lunch with 15 GOP senators, also came as Senate Republican leaders’ attempts to write their own health care package have been slowed by disagreements between their party’s conservatives and moderates.
Trump’s characterizations seemed to undercut attempts by Senate leaders to assuage conservatives who want restrictions in their chamber’s bill, such as cutting the Medicaid health care program for the poor and limiting the services insurers must cover. Moderate GOP senators have been pushing to ease those restrictions.
Facing expected unanimous Democratic opposition, Republicans will be unable to pass a Senate bill if just three of the 52 GOP senators vote “no.” Alienating any of them could make approving the measure trickier for Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell, R-KY., who’s been hoping for a vote before Congress’ July 4 recess.
Trump’s comments were described by two GOP congressional sources who received accounts of Tuesday’s White House lunch. They spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal a closed-door conversation.
Their descriptions of Trump’s words differed slightly.
One source said Trump called the House bill “mean, mean, mean” and said, “We need to be more generous, more kind.” The other source said Trump used a vulgarity to describe the House bill and told the senators, “We need to be more generous.”
Two other congressional GOP officials confirmed that the general descriptions of Trump’s words were accurate.
The sources say the president did not specify what aspects of the bill he was characterizing.
White House aides declined to talk on the record about Trump’s words. One said, “We aren’t going to comment on rumors about private conversations that may or may not have happened.”