As Republicans geared up for a vote on their bill to repeal and replace Obamacare on Friday morning, despite uncertainty that leaders had gained enough support to pass the bill, President Donald Trump tried to push the conservative Freedom Caucus to back the legislation.
Trump used his favorite communication tool, Twitter, to single out the Freedom Caucus for its members’ opposition to the House bill. The President noted that the bill would defund Planned Parenthood and that the caucus would be forgoing an attempt to block funding for the organization, perhaps in the hopes that he could shame the caucus into backing the bill.
After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2017
The irony is that the Freedom Caucus, which is very pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, allows P.P. to continue if they stop this plan!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2017
It’s not clear that a tweet from Trump would push more members of the caucus to back the bill. They pushed for two major changes to the bill, and only one of those changes, a repeal of Obamacare’s Essential Health Benefits requirement, made it into an amendment.
Despite the uncertainty that there are enough votes in the House to push the bill over the finish line, Trump issued an ultimatum on Thursday night: vote for the bill on Friday or Obamacare remains.
This whole thing would be so damn entertaining if it wasn’t so serious.
Mango is truly exhausting.
Wow. He waited until after 8 a.m.
Do you remember when we thought that McCain or Romney would have been disastrous for America? How little did we know that this was in our future.
He was with Lust Object all night.