Trump’s Own Party Hands Him Health Care Defeat
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One extra day could not buy President
The cancellation followed a chaotic Thursday when the leadership postponed a vote in the hope that 24 more hours could win a long-promised repeal and replacement of President
Ryan delivered the news
House Speaker
The once-certain health care bill victory threw into question the rest of the Republican agenda addressing tax reform, government spending and infrastructure funding. Even though
A grim-faced
Other members looked visibly uncomfortable with questions about the next steps for
"It's unchartered territory, but it certainly doesn't bode well as our first attempt out of the box to govern," said Congressman
Trump tweet
In a tweet Sunday morning, Trump suggested
Tense moments
Many
"I will not sugarcoat this, this is a disappointing day for us," Ryan told reporters Friday afternoon. "Doing big things is hard. All of us, all of us, myself included, we will need time to reflect on how we got to this moment, what we could have done to do it better."
The uncertainty of those final moments as Trump, Vice President
Trump supporters such as Congressman
"The anger in our conference would be palatable if they pull the vote," Collins told VOA during those tense afternoon hours when a vote was still expected.
"I'm not going to blame leadership, I'm not going to blame the president, I'm not going to blame the speaker, the leader, or the whip. I'd say we line up 237
"There's no way that it's anything but an absolute, mitigated disaster, both for the president and for Speaker Ryan,"
Spicer: Health Care Tackled First to 'Achieve Savings' for Tax Reform
The challenge of governing
But many
"My guess is that he has learned through this process that politics is different than business," said Congressman
"For me, we're all independent contractors that have 700,000 people that hire us every two years for our job review. So I don't hold to him for my job or my policy or my direction. I just think philosophically I'm going to work with the guy where I can work with him," Huizenga said.
Other
"A lot of people in this building, they talk and everything is potentially catastrophic, cataclysmic - well we know that's not the case. If you want to do health care reform, do it on a bipartisan basis," Congressman
Dent is a member of the so-called
Despite today's loss, Dent told VOA there's still a way forward for the next items in the president's policy agenda.
"We should be doing tax reform and infrastructure absolutely," Dent said.
Empowered
Those efforts could be complicated by a newly empowered
"We were very close to doing it," he told reporters Friday afternoon. "But when you get no votes from the other - meaning the
"Did he blame us for the defeat of his flagship issue?" elated Democratic Minority Leader
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