Cornyn Floats Obamacare Repeal Vote Next Tuesday In Brutal Fox Interview

John Cornyn (R-TX), the second-highest ranking Republican in the Senate, went on Fox News Monday afternoon to assert with confidence that a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act will happen next week. 

“We’ll turn to it perhaps as early as Tuesday, Wednesday,” he told Fox’s Trish Regan. “It’s important we get this done and get it done soon. Next week is my expectation.”

Cornyn also asserted definitively a few weeks ago that a vote would happen before the July 4 recess, and told reporters he was “closing the door” on rumors of a delay. Then, a delay came.

Pressed on this point, Cornyn said: “People said they needed more time to offer their input. They have now had the time. They have offered that input. We have listened and made some modifications in the bill that will be made public here shortly.”

Though Regan enthusiastically agreed with Cornyn on some points, she went after him with sharp questions on both the content of the Senate’s health care bill and how it was crafted.

“I think there’s a lot of folks right now that feel a little exhausted by the process,” she said. “It seems like there’s the deadlines and they creep up and you keep missing them.” 

Later in the interview she asked Cornyn why Republicans are still at a loss to craft a unified vision on health after so many years of railing against Obamacare.

“You guys had, what, nearly eight years to come up with something,” she said. “Why is it that it’s such a struggle right now, given that there was a lot of runway there to work on different ideas and experiment with different things and maybe to gain some consensus? Now you’re down to the wire.” 

When Cornyn argued that Republicans’ choice is now between the status quo of Obamacare and “something better” in their bill, Regan quipped: “There are those that would argue it could be worse than the status quo.”