Trump says health care deal will be an "easy one," but has been ignoring top Senate Democrat

The rhetoric is the same as it ever was, but the president hasn't reached out across the aisle

Published March 29, 2017 1:50PM (EDT)

 (AP/Evan Vucci)
(AP/Evan Vucci)

After the GOP failed to garner enough support in the House for their own health care bill, President Trump is assuring lawmakers that a deal would soon be made.

"I know that we’re all going to make a deal on health care. That’s such an easy one. So I have no doubt that that’s going to happen very quickly," Trump said Tuesday at a White House reception for senators and their spouses. "I think it will, actually. I think it’s going to happen. Because we’ve all been promising, Democrat, Republican, we’ve all been promising that to the American people."

Trump also added that he hopes the efforts to fix the nation's healthcare system will be "bipartisan." However, that appears be unlikely, considering some House GOP members have insisted that they are not giving up on the fight to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

“After this morning, the resolve of our conference to repeal Obamacare and replace it has never been stronger,” Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the majority whip, said, according to Talking Points Memo.

But in order to get a bipartisan deal done, Trump will have to reach out to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D- N.Y. But first, he'll have to speak to him. According to Politico, the president has said only a handful of words to Schumer over the past few months — the result of a quickly disintegrating relationship

The Trump-Schumer relationship was supposed to have been one of Washington’s most intriguing this year. Instead, they’ve had virtually no relationship at all, with zero one-on-one meetings or even private conversations on the phone since Trump took the oath of office. . .

How Trump and Schumer went from phone friends to silent strangers in a matter of weeks was described by a dozen advisers and friends of both men, who said the fissures date to almost the moment the calendar turned to 2017.

At the White House, Schumer has been mostly an afterthought. “By the time we got to inauguration, any hope that Schumer wanted to actually work together to find any common ground was clearly gone,” said a second senior administration official.

Still, Schumer has hinted that he would be willing to work with Trump.

“As long as they say no more repeal,” he told "This Week" on ABC Sunday. “Stop undermining ACA. And we’ll work with them.”

“The job of the president is to make Americans’ lives better. And if he, out of anger or vengeance or whatever, starts undermining ACA, it’s going backfire on him because he’s the president and the American people know he’s in charge and they want him to make things better," Schumer added.


By Charlie May

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American Health Care Act Chuck Schumer Donald Trump Health Care Obamacare Trumpcare