Obamacare will ‘explode’ vows Trump after bill humiliation

plans for a new healthcare policy were not sufficiently different from Obamacare.

All week officials suggested Mr Trump, whose best-known book is

was the man to find a historic compromise “He is the closer,” is how Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, put it.

By his tally, Mr Trump met 120 Congressmen and women as he tried to muster the necessary votes.

Doubters were treated to pizza and bowling at the White House, lasagne dinners and phonecalls laden with celebrity anecdotes as part of the charm offensive.

But at the centre of negotiations was a major flaw.

Mr Trump had pledged to protect popular elements of Obamacare, such as forcing insurance companies to offer coverage to anyone with a pre-existing condition. Every time he weakened his stance to placate conservatives, he lost moderates who knew their voters were worried about losing benefits.

“There’s no natural constituency for this bill,” said Raul Labrador, a co-founder of the Freedom Caucus.

Mr Trump’s response was to tell Republicans not to worry about the details but to focus on the win. Without a grasp of the specifics, critics said he was unable to offer a true compromise and the use of threats forced some opponents into a corner.

“Trump is a business executive. When he tells his lieutenants to get something done, he’s used to it getting done,” one senior House Republican aide told Politico. “He’s really not used to getting involved himself.”

Insiders said Mr Trump was intent on forging ahead with the vote on Friday if only to be able to tally up the names of people who defied him, but eventually agreed with Mr Ryan’s assessment that the effort was futile.

“We had no votes from the Democrats,” said Mr Trump in the aftermath. “I’ve been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode.” Harrison Ford, top, with one of his aeroplanes at an airshow and above, the wreckage of a plane he crash-landed on a golf course