House Republicans fail to round up enough votes to pass legislation before Trump’s 100-day mark
GOP lawmakers’ hopes had risen this week when Rep. Tom MacArthur (R., N.J.) introduced an amendment that won over many of the House’s most conservative Republicans.
.. “Protections for those with pre-existing conditions without contingency and affordable access to coverage for every American remain my priorities for advancing health-care reform, and this bill does not satisfy those benchmarks for me,”
.. The bill also would significantly cut spending for Medicaid, a major concern of centrist Republicans in both the House and Senate.
.. With federal waivers, states could let insurers charge higher premiums to some people with pre-existing conditions. That would apply only to people who had let their coverage lapse, a measure that aims to ensure people stay insured. And the higher premiums would generally only last for about 12 months before decreasing.
.. House leaders had argued that GOP lawmakers in tight races next year would benefit from having kept their repeated campaign pledges to repeal the ACA.
“We promised that we would do this,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said Thursday. “If you violate your promise, if you commit the sin of hypocrisy in politics, that’s the greater risk, I think, to a person’s seat.”
Tomi Lahren Was Made for the Trump Era
The rising TV starlet might have run afoul of social conservatives. But with her wide reach and trademark sass, her future could be positively Trumpian.
.. she’s pro-choice
.. I’m for limited government, so stay out of my guns, and you can stay out of my body as well.”
.. Beck, Lahren’s boss, questioned Lahren’s libertarian bona fides as a zealous Trump supporter
.. Trump is anything but libertarian.
.. high-speed rant style with “Final Thoughts .. little jalapeño poppers of bravura bile clock in at just 30 seconds, and are perfectly suited to social media
.. Lahren’s departure from TheBlaze might contain clues for the future of conservative media in the age of Trump and beyond, and even for the Republican Party.
.. most in conservative media are impotent to censure the president himself for his betrayal of signature conservative positions, they can flex some muscle by smacking down Lahren
.. a suggestion of what could happen, ideologically, if the GOP is ever emboldened .. to take Trump to task for his disregard of both civil liberties and family values.
.. on track to be the Samantha Bee of the right
.. the ironies that interest her concern “snowflakes” and “participation-trophy” types
.. she admitted that Trump’s on-tape comments about groping women didn’t “look good
.. “Don’t go around acting holier than thou about this, like you’ve never heard anyone say anything like that before.
.. “When will those in black communities take a step back and take some responsi-damn-bility for the problems of black communities? Because it seems to me blaming white people for all of your problems might make you the racist.”
.. grew up in a military family in South Dakota
.. with decades of sass ahead of her, Lahren is rumored (without clear evidence) to be in Fox’s sights
.. Mindful of her senior-citizen base, Lahren has made her home not primarily on Snapchat or even Twitter but on venerable old Facebook.
.. Facebook is a perfect place for her to perform for Tea Partyers and older conservatives, leaning on her love of guns and country to come off as the dream daughter—like Ivanka Trump, but country and not snooty.
.. tacit pact with Beck: He could give her the conservative white-old-man seal of approval and then she would be allowed to be spicy and pro-Trump, which in turn would be evidence of Blaze’s big tent.
.. Beck is a genuinely principled conservative, and his commitments to both family values and libertarianism made Trump—multiply-married, genital-grabbing, pro-choice in some interviews—insupportable, and finally appears to have made Lahren insupportable, too.
.. many uneasy bargains .. are being tested now
.. If Ryan’s tax reform, or Pence’s desired overturn of Roe v. Wade, come to nothing, how much more will they be willing to sacrifice for this rogue president?
.. there are libertarians, who have quarrels with Trump.
There are family-values types, who have quarrels with Trump.
And then there is Trump—a reality star who darkens his skin and lightens his hair and says whatever gets the biggest response
.. She’s trying to be Trump.
Trump Threatens to Withhold Payments to Insurers to Press Democrats on Health Bill
‘Democrats will start calling me’ if turmoil hits insurance markets, President Donald Trump tells The Wall Street Journal
In suggesting that he isn’t willing to proceed with changes to the tax code until health care was addressed, Mr. Trump sent a strong signal to members of his own party.. He didn’t rule out the possibility of a tax bill passing before the congressional recess in August, though many White House officials and lawmakers believe that timeline is unrealistic... Mr. Trump said he had mixed feelings about creating turmoil in the insurance markets… A federal judge in 2016 ruled the government payments were improper but let them continue while Mr. Obama’s administration pursued an appeal. After Mr. Trump’s election, Republicans requested and received an initial delay in the case.
.. “Obamacare is dead next month if it doesn’t get that money,” Mr. Trump said. “I haven’t made my viewpoint clear yet. I don’t want people to get hurt….What I think should happen and will happen is the Democrats will start calling me and negotiating.”
.. House Speaker, Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) has said he would prefer to see the administration continue to fund the payments.
.. Mr. Trump said Mr. Schumer “should be calling me and begging me to help him save Obamacare, along with Nancy Pelosi.”
.. Mr. Schumer said the president was “threatening to hold hostage health care for millions of Americans…to achieve a political goal of repeal that would take health care away from millions more. This cynical strategy will fail.”
Trump Warns House Conservatives: ‘Get on the Team’
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump issued a remarkable warning to conservative Republican lawmakers in Congress, suggesting Thursday he would work against them in the midterm elections next year if they don’t support his agenda.
.. Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), a co-founder of the group, dismissed the president’s threat.
”We’re trying to help the president, but the fact is you’ve got to look at the legislation,” Mr. Jordan said on Fox News. “And it doesn’t do what we told the voters we were going to do and the American people understand that.”
.. Mr. Ryan issued his own warning of sorts Thursday, saying that the president was likely to shift to the left if Republicans can’t come together.