Spicer Leaves No Daylight Between Ryan, Trump On Health Care Bill

White House press secretary Sean Spicer gestures while speaking to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, March 24, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
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Despite some efforts to pin responsibility for a flailing Obamacare repeal bill on House Speaker Paul Ryan, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer emphasized Friday that President Donald Trump and Ryan had worked closely together on the bill.

Responding to questions from reporters at his daily press briefing, Spicer called the American Health Care Act a “joint effort” between Congress and the President, and mentioned multiple times that Speaker Ryan was updating Trump at the White House.

“I think the Speaker has done everything he can,” Spicer said, when asked if the White House was happy with Ryan’s job performance.

“He’s worked really closely with the President,” Spicer continued. “I think at the end of the day, I said this yesterday, you can’t force people to vote. But I think we’ve given them every single reason to fulfill every pledge that they’ve made, and I think this is the right thing to do.”

Spicer said that the White House had agreed, “in coordination with the House,” to pursue health care as the first major item of Trump’s agenda.

And, asked if Ryan should resign if the bill failed, Spicer referred to Trump’s comments earlier in the day. The President said that Ryan should keep his job, regardless of the bill’s fate.

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Notable Replies

  1. Meanwhile in the Whitehouse Tweetie Room…

  2. Avatar for pshah pshah says:

    What is this good cop, bad cop? You’ve got Drudge and Breitbart already throwing Ryan under the bus.

    The problem is Spicer’s just so incompetent, it’s hard to tease out what’s really going on.

  3. " But I think we’ve given them every single reason to fulfill every pledge that they’ve made"

    Except for one little thing… a decent health care bill.

  4. Meanwhile, while our attentions were elsewhere,

    The Senate voted 50-48 to strike down a rule issued late in Barack Obama’s presidency that requires large employers to keep an ongoing record of health and safety incidents. The Obama administration issued the rule in an effort to solidify what it considered long-standing policy at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

    By doing away with the rule, Republicans are effectively cutting down the length of time that employers in dangerous industries are required to keep injury records ― from five years to just six months. Former OSHA officials say that doesn’t provide enough time to identify recurring problems with particular employers or industries.

    They also say the change gives unscrupulous employers little incentive to keep an accurate log of injuries, since it will be more difficult for them to be penalized for not doing so. When employers have a track record of such injuries, it can lead to higher workers’ compensation costs and more government scrutiny.

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