On health bill, Trump blames conservatives

FILE - In a March 23, 2017 file photo, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, right, departs after a Republican caucus meeting on Capitol Hill, in Washington.
FILE - In a March 23, 2017 file photo, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, right, departs after a Republican caucus meeting on Capitol Hill, in Washington.

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Sunday placed responsibility on conservative lawmakers for the failure of the Republican bill to replace former President Barack Obama's health care law, as aides signaled a greater willingness to work with moderate Democrats on upcoming legislative battles from the budget and tax cuts to health care.

In a Twitter posting to his 27 million followers, Trump criticized the House Freedom Caucus, the conservative Heritage Foundation and the free-market advocacy group Club for Growth, which opposed the bill for not going far enough to erase the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the system implemented by Democrats under Obama.

"Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club for Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!" Trump said.

The Freedom Caucus is a conservative group of more than 30 GOP House members who were largely responsible for blocking the bill to undo the Affordable Care Act. The bill was pulled from the House floor Friday in a political defeat for the president, having lacked support from either conservative Republicans or Democrats.

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Trump initially focused his blame on Democrats for the failure.

"If they're applauding, they shouldn't," Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the head of the Freedom Caucus, said of the Democrats on ABC's This Week. "Because I can tell you, conversations over the last 48 hours are really about how we come together in the Republican Conference and get this over the finish line."

"Instead of doing the blame game, let's get to work," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, another Freedom Caucus member, said on Fox News Sunday.

Jordan added, "We did the country a favor. Because this bill didn't repeal 'Obamacare.'"

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Meadows' and Jordan's comments came hours before Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, announced his resignation from the Freedom Caucus. "Saying no is easy, leading is hard but that is what we were elected to do," Poe, who supported the bill, said in a statement.

On Sunday, Trump's aides made clear that he would be seeking support from moderate Democrats, leaving open the possibility he could still revisit health care legislation. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, speaking on Fox News Sunday, rebuked conservative Republicans, explaining that Trump had felt "disappointed" that a "number of people he thought were loyal to him that weren't."

As he ponders his next steps, Trump faces decisions on whether to back administrative changes to fix the Affordable Care Act or undermine it as prices for insurance plans rise in many markets. Over the weekend, the president tweeted a promise of achieving a "great healthcare plan" because the Affordable Care Act will "explode."

On Sunday, Priebus did not answer directly regarding Trump's choice, saying fixes to the health law will have to come legislatively and he wants to ensure that "people don't get left behind."

"I don't think the president is closing the door on anything," he said.

"Stop undermining [the Affordable Care Act], and we'll work with them," Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said on ABC on Sunday.

He said Democrats stood ready to work with Trump to fix the Affordable Care Act if he is willing to drop attempts to repeal the law and not undermine it. He warned that Trump is destined to "lose again" on other parts of his agenda if he remains beholden to conservative Republicans.

"We always said we'd work with them to improve it," Schumer said. "We just said repeal was off the table."

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that it's not possible to fix a broken system and that Trump will return to health care when the Affordable Care Act "breaks." He said there's "probably plenty of blame to go around" for the failure of the bill and that "Washington was a lot more broken than President Trump thought that it was."

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said problems with the Republican bill -- and the rush to pass it -- were to blame, not conservative Republicans.

"To release a bill that was written in secret and then expect to pass it in 18 days I just don't think was feasible," Cotton said on Face the Nation on CBS.

A spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, AshLee Strong, said Ryan and Trump spoke for nearly an hour Saturday and again on Sunday about moving forward on the agenda, saying "their relationship is stronger than ever right now." In their Sunday conversation, Trump "was clear his tweet had nothing to do with the speaker," Strong said.

"[Trump] doesn't blame Paul Ryan," Priebus said. "In fact, he thought Paul Ryan worked really hard. He enjoys his relationship with Paul Ryan, thinks that Paul Ryan is a great speaker of the House."

Trump's agenda

The White House faces a tall task in gaining support for its congressional agenda. Trump, for instance, now lacks the savings anticipated from the health care bill to help pay for tax cuts, while expected legislation to invest $1 trillion in roads and infrastructure and to cut down on illegal immigration will likely need support from Democrats.

Priebus said Trump was looking ahead for now at debate over the budget and a tax plan, which he said would include a border adjustment tax and middle-class tax cuts.

"It's more or less a warning shot that we are willing to talk to anyone, we always have been," he said. "I think more so now than ever, it's time for both parties to come together and get to real reforms in this country."

Meadows acknowledged that he was doing a lot of "self-critiquing" after the health care defeat. On ABC, he insisted that the GOP overhaul effort was not over.

"To put a stake in it today would not be accurate, and nor would it be the narrative that this is a great failure for the president," Meadows said.

"It's incumbent upon those two groups, the conservatives and the moderates, to come together, hopefully in the coming days, to find consensus, to present something to the president that certainly not only gets him 216 votes, but hopefully 235 votes," he said.

Meadows also said he was open to a tax plan that is not fully "offset" so it is revenue neutral. That's a shift for a fiscal conservative concerned about deficits.

Trump left the White House on Sunday morning for the Trump National Golf Course in Potomac Falls, Va., returning in early afternoon. Trump also spent Saturday at his Virginia club.

Information for this article was contributed by Hope Yen and Catherine Lucey of The Associated Press; by Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post; and by Mark Niquette and Ben Brody of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 03/27/2017

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