TRUMP REGRETS BULL 'SESSIONS'
DT: No vacay till O'Care repeal
President Trump on Wednesday demanded that GOP senators stay put in Washington and forget about their annual August recess until ObamaCare is repealed and replaced.
“I’m ready to act. People are hurting. Inaction is not an option and, frankly, I don’t think we should leave town unless we have a health-insurance plan, unless we can give people great health care. Because we’re close, we’re very close,” the president said at the White House during a luncheon in which he pressed the Republican Senate caucus not to give up.
Trump’s latest stance was an about-face from a day earlier, when he tweeted that Congress should just repeal ObamaCare and then figure out down the road how to replace it.
The president also took a shot at Nevada Sen. Dan Heller, one of the Republican holdouts.
“The other night, I was surprised when I heard a couple of my friends, my friends, they really were and are. They might not be very much longer, but that’s OK. I think I have to get them back,” he said before turning to Heller, who was seated to the president’s right.
“This was the one we were worried about. You weren’t [at the dinner]. You’re going to be. He wants to remain a senator, doesn’t he?” the president added as Heller, who is up for re-election in 2018 and is one of the Senate’s most vulnerable Republicans, smiled gamely.
“And I think the people of your state, which I know very well, I think they’re gonna ap- preciate what you hopefully will do.’’
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to go ahead with a vote early next week on a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, despite signs that the effort would fail after the defections of several Republicans.
Late Wednesday, McConnell’s job got tougher when the Congressional Budget Office reported that a repeal-only plan would leave 32 million more people without insurance by 2026 compared with the current law — the same as the CBO found in January.