America First Policies, a super PAC run by former Trump campaign aides, on Tuesday pulled ads targeting Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) on health care after other GOP senators complained to the White House that the ads could hurt both their attempt to pass an Obamacare repeal bill and Heller’s re-election chances.
“America First Policies is pleased to learn that Senator Dean Heller has decided to come back to the table to negotiate with his colleagues on the Senate bill,” the group said in statement, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “We have pulled the ads we released earlier today in Nevada, and we remain hopeful that Senator Heller and his colleagues can agree on what the American people already know: that repealing and replacing Obamacare must happen for America to move forward and be great again.”
The television and radio ads that began airing Tuesday called out Heller for opposing the latest draft of the Senate’s bill to repeal and replace Obamacare and urged the senator to support the legislation.
The ads were pulled after Republican senators reportedly scolded the White House for the attack on one of their own.
Heller himself brought up the ads at Senate Republicans’ Tuesday afternoon meeting at the White House, a spokesman for Heller told Politico. Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, also told reporters that the ads came up at the meeting, per Politico.
Before Heller brought up the ads on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had called White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to complain about the ads, according to the New York Times. McConnell told Preibus that the ads could hurt Heller’s re-election chances, as well as the Obamacare repeal effort’s chances, per the report.
