Joan Walsh:  Trumpcare Is a Political Disasterfor Trump

[riversedge]

 Trumpcare Is a Political Disaster—for Trump

https://www.thenation.com/article/trumpcare-is-a-political-disaster-for-trump/

Failure to pass a bill reveals the White House’s weakness. But passing the bill will ravage Trump’s base.


By Joan Walsh Twitter
Yesterday 11:54 am



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Majority leader Kevin McCarthy, Speaker Paul Ryan, and Representative Greg Walden hold a news conference on the American Health Care Act, March 7, 2017. (Reuters / Eric Thayer)


Donald Trump has slapped his name on all kinds of things over the years, but he’s met an edifice he’s hesitating to brand, and that’s the House GOP’s Obamacare replacement. The president has sent mixed messages over the last few days about how hard he’s going to publicly sell the disastrous House bill. So far, only the Democrats are calling it “Trumpcare.”


But this is shaping up to become Trumpcare, and the neophyte president’s behind-closed-doors wheeling and dealing with the bill’s conservative critics are making sure that it either can’t pass—or if it does, that it will wallop the white working-class voters who are his base.

The image-conscious White House has vacillated on how involved the president should appear to be with the House bill. Trump hailed it with an enthusiastic tweet on Tuesday as “our wonderful new Healthcare Bill.” Several follow-up tweets defended the bill from its Republican critics, while reassuring them that all will be well. On Wednesday night, administration officials were telling reporters that Trump would “barnstorm” to win over recalcitrant Republicans—or rally their constituents against them. The Huffington Post reported he was going to ride Air Force One straight to Kentucky—home of Senator Rand Paul, the only senator who has said flat-out that he opposes the bill.

But by Thursday morning, the White House had pulled back on that claim, deciding to send Vice President Mike Pence to Kentucky, a move not likely to set Paul to shaking in his boots. Trump was back to tweeting that the media once again were lying about discord over the bill; negotiations would result in “a beautiful picture.”



Trump’s role, instead, became private lobbying. .........................