Kayleigh McEnany, a frequent Trump-backing guest on CNN, said on Wednesday that House Republicans’ Obamacare repeal bill “was intentionally put forth as being less conservative than what it will end up being” because President Donald Trump wants to negotiate its terms.
“This is why President Trump was elected by the American people, because he can negotiate,” McEnany said. “And I think this bill was intentionally put forth as being less conservative than what it will end up being because President Trump plans on giving carrots to various conservative entities.”
She cited the bill’s omission of a provision to sell insurance across state lines, something Trump promised on Tuesday would come in “phase 2 & 3.”
“Why wasn’t that put in there? President Trump has said that repeatedly on the campaign trail,” McEnany said. “It wasn’t put in there because President Trump plans on offering that as a gift to conservatives along with negotiating for prescription drug pricing.”
She said that Trump “has reason to be very confident” about the bill’s success, which has faced criticism from the all sides.
“I think if you look at his first tweet about this bill, the interesting word he used was negotiation,” McEnany said. “All of these conservative proposals I think were left out intentionally because these are going to be the carrots given to Republicans in exchange for them accepting tax credits.”
