"Art of the Deal President couldn't close," Chuck Todd summed it up on "Meet The Press" today with regard to the Republican's failed attempt to repeal Obamacare and replace it will the House Speaker Paul Ryan's engineered plan instead.
The man who is on record as saying that Donald Trump is a "tremendous closer" and who also happens to be the White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney didn't do the administration any favors in his appearance today. (The consolation being the didn't do any further damage, but how much more could you do really?)
Mr. Mulvaney said that there was plenty of blame to go around, but he said, "Washington won, and the folks back home lost."
He kept on this tact, not realizing how "deep the difficulty" was and how it was "a lot more rotten than we thought" in Washington, etc. But the fact is that Republicans lead by Mr. Ryan, backed by the White House, tried to jam a bill through in 17 days that would change the dynamic of 18 percent of the American economy. And they couldn't get it done with the biggest majorities in all branches of government since 1928. Mr. Mulvaney, once a member of the Freedom Caucus, said he would have voted for the bill, but he has the luxury to say that because he's not in that position. Mr. Mulvaney, like Speaker Ryan, is about tax cuts and dismantling social programs. He can blame Washington but the Republicans are Washington so they only have themselves to blame.
Hugh Hewitt thought The Washington Examiner overstated it when they said that not repealing Obamacare was the biggest broken promise in political history. A matter of perspective to be sure, but Republicans ran on this repeal three times and held over 50 repeal votes along the way. The biggest? Maybe no, but pretty damn big broken promise. (Mr. Hewitt's drunken euphoria about possibly getting a hard-right conservative Supreme Court justice, that he's blind to any rationale thought on any thing else, a shame really.)
When Chuck Todd asked Mr. Mulvaney why he could bring his former Freedom Caucus colleagues around to vote for the bill, he said, "I have no idea."
When asked why Republicans could put over 50 repeal bills on fmr. President Obama's desk but couldn't put one on President Trump's desk, he answered, "I don't know."
Being a 'yes' man is essentially good for nothing.
Mr. Todd also asked Mr. Mulvaney, "Why the rush?" And the director's explained that it was because there's so much to do. No... that's not the answer. The answer as to why the Administration is in such hurry was answered by Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) who said, "This is the most important thing I've done in my political life."
Of course he was referring to the Senate investigation into potential ties between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, but by each passing day the situation is getting worse and worse and more and more individuals are lawyering up. That's why the rush on legislation.
There are two last things that caught my attention, discussed on today's "Meet The Press," and both concern House Speaker Paul Ryan. First, the Speaker's position is safe despite the failure to push a health care repeal bill through because as The Wall Street Journal phrased it, "No one want's to be Henry VIII's next wife." Ouch. But what does that say about Republicans? They own the majority throughout government and as Chuck Todd accurately assessed, no one wants the top leadership job so Mr. Ryan is safe.
And lastly, the president gave his vocal support to Paul Ryan in the face of this defeat on health care, but then tweeted this weekend to watch Jeanine Pirro's 9PM program on Fox, where her lead editorial was about how Speaker Ryan should resign or step down or be removed or whatever.
If the president... The president mind you... has a problem with the Speaker of House, he have the backbone to just come out and say it instead of playing these passive aggressive Twitter games promoting surrogates' programs to get across what you really want to say. So NOT the character trait of what we would define as a leadership quality.
Panel: Joy-Ann Reid, NBC News; Eliana Johnson, Politico; Hugh Hewlitt, Salem Radio Network; Tom Brokaw, NBC News
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