President faces dual clashes in Congress

March 24--President Trump is barrelling down on a double confrontation with Congress -- pushing his own reluctant party to pass a controversial Obamacare fix in the House today, while facing a Democratic filibuster threat over his Supreme Court nominee in the Senate.

It's the combative new president's first real fight with Congress, demonstrating that after all his tough campaign talk, he still has to play D.C. politics.

And his game is brinksmanship. Late yesterday, Trump abandoned negotiations and demanded a make-or-break vote on his health care legislation in the House, threatening to leave "Obamacare" in place and move on to other issues if today's vote fails.

Turning his favorite weapon -- Twitter -- on Republicans last night, the president tweeted, "Disastrous #Obamacare has led to higher costs & fewer options. It will only continue to get worse! We must #RepealANDReplace. #PassTheBill."

The risky move, part gamble and part threat, was presented to GOP lawmakers behind closed doors last night after a long and intense day that saw a planned vote on the health care bill scrapped due to lack of support. But Trump had had enough and wanted action, his budget director Mick Mulvaney told lawmakers.

" 'Negotiations are over, we'd like to vote tomorrow and let's get this done for the American people.' That was it," California U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter said as he left the meeting, summarizing Mulvaney's message to lawmakers. And if today's vote fails, Obamacare "stays for now," Hunter said.

"Let's vote," White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said as he left the meeting.

House Democrats stopped short of declaring victory after the bill failed to go to a vote yesterday, but the party's House leader, Nancy Pelosi, said it was a sign of Trump's political inexperience, despite a campaign that boasted his expert negotiating skills.

"Rookie's error for bringing this up on a day when clearly you're not ready," Pelosi told reporters.

Other Democrats said they are willing to negotiate in an effort to lower costs and increase quality of care, but the White House and GOP lawmakers have not reciprocated.

"The bottom line here is that there are millions of people across the country who are screaming for us to fix the inequities in health care," Massachusetts U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III told the Herald. "The reason Congress cannot pass this bill is that this bill does not address those concerns."

Meanwhile, in the Senate, Democrats are threatening to filibuster Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, forcing GOP leaders to apply the so-called "nuclear option" -- a move that risks permanently changing the confirmation process and reducing the opposition's influence.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) took to the Senate floor and said, "I have concluded that I cannot support Neil Gorsuch's nomination. My vote will be no and I urge my colleagues to do the same."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) retorted, "If you'd filibuster Judge Gorsuch, it's obvious you'd filibuster anybody."

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote in the next two weeks to advance Gorsuch's nomination to the full Senate.

The filibuster threat, ­fueled by anger over Republicans' yearlong block on Obama nominee Judge Merrick Garland, will require Senate Leader Mitch McCon­nell to use the nuclear option to install Gorsuch, lowering the 60-vote threshold to a simple 51-vote majority.

Applied to Trump's potential future nominees, that would give Republicans the ability to easily shift the court's ideology to the right, should more vacancies be created during his term by Democrat-appointed Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Stephen Breyer, or so-called "swing voter" Justice Anthony Kennedy.

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