Trump's America, March 2017: Using His Inside VOICE

damn

"Just remember: ACA repeal didn't fail because so many held the line for taking care of people. It failed because there were enough who thought it was not sufficiently vicious."

Sort of true. OTOH, not to crown the ""moderate"" GOP reps with laurels, the whole thing would have looked very different without them, or the awareness of their counterparts in the Senate. Not that any of these were making a principled stand about taking care of people, but Trump and Ryan got into trouble because they were getting hit from two flanks, the Freedom Caucus bunch and the "Jesus, Paul, you're going to make me vote for killing the pre-existing condition thing, my constituents will eat me alive" wing. For whatever reason they then swung harder to the right, but nothing is ever enough for the FC and in the process they lost even more of those others. ACA repeal failed because the GOP congressional delegation is a seriously shaky coalition that struggled to look unified even when they were the opposition.

Could be that RYAN IS TRYING TO MAKE A POINT. THEY CAN'T BREAK HIS CODE OF ENERGY. THAT IS WHAT HE'S TALKIN'ABOUT

there's a long BBC doc (1 hr) on how obama assembled the votes for ACA.

https://youtu.be/Ej5sxUxDid4

look how persistent, how thoughtful they were. i find it makes for very interesting viewing in light of all this. trigger warning: lots of boehner content

the intransigence of the freedom caucus continues to blow my mind. put aside what the senate would have done had the bill passed, for just a moment. the FC had a bill that was unbelievably cruel, gutted obamacare, AND gutted medicaid. it was 99% of everything they ever wanted. and they refused to vote for it. it's like watching someone successfully double-down on a $2 bet in video poker, over and over, until they were up $524,288. but they wouldn't take the half-million. they wanted $1 million, so they doubled down again. fucking assholes, and so stupid

i'm sure the message going out to the insanity wing of the united states (28% of voters, give or take, apparently) is that obamacare repeal would be headed to the senate right now if only a dozen house democrats would have had the courage to vote their conscience

but isn't the insanity wing the FC, more or less? they never expected/wanted Dem votes

btw some NPR correspondent this morning quoted The Art of the Deal to the effect of "You can't close the deal if you look desperate for it." Or if you look indifferent, seemingly.

Yam dgaf aside from being able to sit in a truck and honk in the WH driveway.

but isn't the insanity wing the FC, more or less? they never expected/wanted Dem votes

yeah, you're right - i forgot that the FC is somehow to the right of the insanity wing. god, what are they even thinking right now? like the hardcore mark meadows supporter sitting down to dinner right now and talking politics, how are they justifying voting against repeal? it's seriously baffling to me

the intransigence of the freedom caucus continues to blow my mind. put aside what the senate would have done had the bill passed, for just a moment. the FC had a bill that was unbelievably cruel, gutted obamacare, AND gutted medicaid. it was 99% of everything they ever wanted. and they refused to vote for it. it's like watching someone successfully double-down on a $2 bet in video poker, over and over, until they were up $524,288. but they wouldn't take the half-million. they wanted $1 million, so they doubled down again. fucking assholes, and so stupid

getting to not associate yourself with a toxic bill because well, unfortunately you're just too darn conservative seems like having cake and eating too. hard to know how many of these guys are showmen vs true believers though.

it doesn't matter how they spin this, america loves a winner.

say half the trump base loves ACA and half hates it. BOTH sides of that base have reason to scorn trump and congressional republicans after this

like how many yes votes are secretly relieved as hell that they won't be held responsible for blowing up american health care? surely not all of them. but at least some. this thing dying at this stage means a lot of GOP reps probably saved their jobs today.

xp

here's Costa's write-through of his phone call with the president

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/president-trump-called-my-cellphone-to-say-that-the-health-care-bill-was-dead/2017/03/24/8282c3f6-10ce-11e7-9b0d-d27c98455440_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_costa-5pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.7a24cef1c99e

from the end:

What was on his mind?

“Just another day,” Trump said, flatly. “Just another day in paradise, okay?”

Think twice.

Don't think twice. It's alright.

But now I'm singing Phil Collins, so…can't be that bad.

😶

you know he's used that line so many times when things go south

Honestly surprised he didn't say 'small potatoes'

Nothing wrong with the size of his potatoes, don't you worry about that.

But it does indicate that Trump has learned a lesson about the importance of party unity - he's not going to go after the FC caucus guys - he actually managed to reign in his ego in an act of self-preservation, which is unusual.

― Οὖτις, Friday, March 24, 2017 3:26 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bruh...there's still a whole lotta weekend left and a whole lotta late night potty breaks with that empty Twitter text field cruelly taunting him. And, if we've learned nothing else at this point, we should at least recognize that new tricks are well out of the reach of this old dog.

There's already plenty of 'WH senior aide blames Ryan' stuff being added to the news pile. Even more than before.

I have a new trick he can learn. it's called "never wake up"

I guess Neanderthal should probably change his DN again now

Also my cat has almost mastered did trick - and he's only like 46 in cat time

The National Review, looking at a tire fire and going "Tsk."

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446098/republicans-health-care-bill-debacle-start-over

This basic approach would be compatible with a variety of legislative tactics. House Republicans could try to pass an aggressive bill without much regard for whether it can pass the Senate: At least they would have outlined and stood for a set of health-care policies that make sense, that offer something for conservatives and moderates, and that can serve as the basis for future action. Or they could work with the parliamentarian and with senators to see whether they could get a bill better than this week’s past the finish line. If they went this route, Republican leaders would not spring a new bill on their followers and allies and tell them they have to vote for it posthaste. There would have to be more patient cajoling and less last-minute bullying. We know many Republicans on the Hill and inside the White House feel that they have already spent enough time on this issue. But we have no sympathy for this complaint. They have spent seven years saying they were going to replace Obamacare. They didn’t say they were going to spend a few weeks on a half-baked plan and then give up. Back to work, ladies and gentlemen.

Meanwhile, much more entertainingly, a Cato Institute/Federalist guy unloads:

https://twitter.com/scottlincicome/status/845408471885500416

But are they really? https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/844950037016731648?s=09

It'll be anecdotal but it'll happen bit by bit. I idly amused myself looking at some of Bill Mitchell's tweets and saw a few responses going "I dunno Bill, I had faith but this was pretty dumb."

And hyperbole in the URL but one of the bigger RW Obamacare critics vents...a lot

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gop-cave-on-obamacare-repeal-is-the-biggest-broken-promise-in-political-history/article/2618413

Best quotes from the W Post piece imo

“I’ll fix it as it explodes,”
“Look, I’m a team player,” Trump said of the Republican Party. “I’ve played this team.

You certainly have!

Frum with the I told you so https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/the-republican-waterloo/520833/

this is all just glorious

This was a good day.

maybe start-a-new-trump-thread good

Yeah, I don't expect it to last, but this is the first day since November that thinking about the federal government didn't fill me with dread. I'll enjoy the reprieve as long as I can.

Trump strategy of "let it fail" also seems like a boon to Democrats. Because now they can run saying they stopped the GOP from not just taking the ACA away but making it worse. And then if it does start to fall apart they can run as the only party with the ideas to fix it without breaking it, pointing to this GOP debacle as proof of Republican ineptitude.

Oh but the fire still burns among the true believers

https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/845384523349196800

This one's hliarious:

https://twitter.com/NewtTrump/status/845368675351871488

RETWEET if you think Newt Gingrich could have gotten a GREAT healthcare bill passed if he had been in Paul Ryan's place!

Just think: the final bill was a statement demanding that people die -- the lame and the old -- for the sake of a balanced budget principle that the party would've eschewed like it did during 2004-2005 under Bush

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/325698-flynn-discussed-how-to-whisk-away-cleric-wanted-by-turkey-report

Hey guys

man what a gift-wrap for the Dems, didn't even really have to do anything to earn it

well it's their only victory strategy of late

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Friday, March 24, 2017 3:55 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

morbz otm

In other news, CA to Trump: "go fuck yourself"

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/business/energy-environment/california-upholds-emissions-standards-setting-up-face-off-with-trump.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&referer=https://t.co/CI885zN6aT

http://i.imgur.com/k79Jk0y.png

Ah, Mr. Hannity. So nice of you to try.

https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/845456044356751360

Saw a great suggestion that Democrats sound start running ads in red states highlighting all the things Trump and the GOP were pushing to cut from the ACA, and that it failed because some didn't think it went far enough.

Plenty of fun here:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/obamacare-vote-paul-ryan-health-care-ahca-replacement-failure-trump-214947

The ending:

Earlier, as Ryan's motorcade was zipping toward the White House, I spoke with Kevin Brady, the Ways and Means chairman whose committee sits at the intersection of health care and taxes. I’ve known Brady, one of Congress’s truly decent people and a reliably cheerful spirit, for years; never had I seen him looking so despondent and defeated. Positing that health care was about to die, I asked Brady if re-writing the tax code would be any easier. “Tax reform is the hardest lift in a generation,” he told me, shaking his head. “So that would be a big challenge.”

“If you couldn’t get health care done,” I ask him, “how can you get tax reform done?”

Brady thought for a moment. “Every Republican is all-in on tax reform. We still have a lot of work. But it’s just a natural issue for us in a very positive way.”

But every Republican was all-in on repealing and replacing Obamacare, too, I told him. “Won't the devil be in the details?”

Brady stared back at me. “It always is,” he said. “It always is.”

From the Freedom Caucus types:

The president had been working on many of them individually in recent days, typically with what members described as "colorful" phone calls, littered with exaggerations and foul language and hilariously off-topic anecdotes.

Always with the dick jokes.

I notice the anecdotes aren't of-topic & hilarious, but hilariously off-topic.

"a toupeed moon ape just called & said some crazy shit. so i'm rethinking my position on the health care thing."