Reports are that Ryan is heading over to tell Trump they don't have the votes

If this was a fake story, I'd hope that getting him deported was all a part of her secret plan to get her husband out of the picture so she could keep her kids and the business. Maybe she has a young lover to move in.

I mean "accidentally" crossing over into Canada could all have been a part of her secret plan.

Hamilton You Don't Have the Votes - YouTube

Never underestimate general gullibility.


Also, pretty sure it's "Beristein."

Sure looks like Mcconnell is the smartest man in Washington at this point.

It was before the Cubs won, that's when we switched to the dark timeline.

so any chance this is a "snow job" by the President and Ryan to make the media look bad after they have said they don't have enough votes to pass? Not sure I've seen anyone in the media say it will pass.

Well 33 Congressmen on the GOP side said they won't vote for it. Anything over 23 and it would fail. So unless Trump and Ryan got Congressmen to lie about their votes...

Also the Hamilton "You Don't Got The Votes" is perfect.

That's funny, because from what I've seen they're going out of their way to avoid making a call on it. They are saying it looks like it'll be close, and that the Reps are worried that it won't pass, but I really haven't seen them outright say it will not pass as if it's fact.

What I heard is that if it passes, it'll be by 1 or 2 votes if they get all 20ish of the wavering GOP Reps . If the vote is held and they begin to see they don't have those few, it'll implode and be 35-40 short as members abandon ship.

What are the odds Ryan is still Speaker a year from now? 100-1?

Who's going to want that job? They had to beg him to take it.

what I saw on cnn and msnbc was the Ryan was meeting with Trump (around noon) to tell him not enough votes, and CNN's Breaking news ticker saying GOP source saying not enough votes to pass.

I'm sure they'll find someone even worse. The last 5 have been Paul "Kegger" Ryan, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Denny "Molester" Hastert, and Newt "Serial Adulterer" Gingrich. It's like the opposite of the 27 Yankees.

God help us if we ever hear the phrase "Speaker of the House, Louie Gohmert".

President Trump just called me. Still on phone.
"We just pulled it," he tells me.

— Robert Costa (@costareports) March 24, 2017

Doesn't have to be a congressmen. Donnie will want Ivanka as Speaker.

Should have grabbed it instead.

Art of the deal, ladies and gentlemen.

Who knew healthcare was complicated? Tricky, even.

This Costa angle is...interesting.

What a convo. I'll type it up quick.

— Robert Costa (@costareports) March 24, 2017

Trump keeps losing so much he must be tired of losing. Move on to tax reform. When the Dems sweep back into power in 2018 because of health care he can work with them on a single payer.

So you had 7 years + to come up with your own plan and strategy to get health care done once a Republican came into office, and this is the result. Well done, GOP, well done.

I don't think tax reform will be much easier.

The problem for the GOP is that income taxes aren't a big problem for most of the population. The 47% bit means that most Americans won't get a tax cut regardless of how deeply marginal rates are slashed. It will be hard to have an income tax cut be seen as anything other than a giveaway to the wealthy.

Most Americans do pay payroll taxes, though. They could cut those, but that will severely cripple the life of Social Security and Medicare. Polling shows most people are willing to pay the payroll tax as long as it means they get SS and Medicare.

They could also try a major reform lowering rates while removing deductions, but that's got a minefield around every deduction they remove.

Maybe a corporate tax reform with a border adjusted tax instead, as has been rumored. That's already being framed as a giant sales tax increase by the Retail Federation, and seems unlikely to have strong public support.

How about just mail people a thousand dollar check the way Bush did? That would be popular, but if the Freedom Caucus lets that happen I'd be amazed.

In the end, while not as difficult as healthcare, tax reform is no golden egg for the GOP either.

Weird he'd turn to the "fake news" Washington Post to spin this.

That sound you hear is Paul Ryan alone after a night of kegging.

I think it's easy. They did it over a decade ago. Huge tax cuts for the rich and throw a bone to the middle class and it'll go through.

Moments after the health bill was pulled, Trump told NYT that he blamed Democrats, not Paul Ryan, for its failure https://t.co/Mb50twDt9C

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 24, 2017

Maybe, but unless they're willing to kill the filibuster the tax cuts will have to expire after ten years in order to get around the Byrd Rule, and the Freedom Caucus will, at least initially, be opposed to that.. Even if it passes, it's hard to come up with a broadly popular tax cut bill that can actually pass.

That's the spirit. Let's make people suffer instead of trying to fix things, that will show them.

How in hell is the debt limit going to get extended?

In this press conference, Trump is doing as well as he possibly could under the circumstances. Given that he's speaking extemporaneously, I'd say that THIS is the most Presidential that he has been.

It isn't. Not unless socially regressive legislation is attached so that the Freedom Cock-Us can crow about how they stuck it to whomever and McConnell dispenses with what remains of the filibuster.

He's so full of shit. I mean, he's the leader of the governing party with both houses of congress. Now he's blaming the minority party and trying to pin it all on them like he is totally helpless. Newsflash, democrats owned ACA prior to the election.

Why isn't he getting heat for lying about saying that he was going to have healthcare for everyone? It's so funny when the serial complainer has to actually do some shit and can't.

did he really expect the Dems to roll over just because their candidate lost the Presidential election?

No way the Dems filibuster. They'll vote against, probably with a few defections, but they won't stop it from passing. They probably will, though, make the GOP own it, especially after the shenanigans of the past few years.

I'm happy to see this insufficient bill die. It should have never been proposed in the first place.

Its the first significant misstep of his Presidency, having come woefully short on the repeal concept. If he misfires as badly on everything he attempts, he actually might not make it to the end of his term.

GOP Rep. Joe Barton

I think he is getting heat. The WSJ editorial recently, Time's 'Truth Is Dead' interview and cover was anything but subtle(and appropriately so, I might add). One of the problems is that it's hard to keep up with them all.

Times like this I wish we had a tradition like the prime minsters questions in Britain. At least the PM has to be able to deal with defending his own policies and statements, even if sometimes they lose something when it comes to decorum.

Here's the things that has me confused: Trump's base is decidedly anti-establishment. He runs on being anti-establishment. He gets in office, and he has his first major legislation penned by...the establishment.

Wait... Trump initiated the interview with the New York Times? Doesn't he supposedly hate them? Then again, not like you can trust anything he says. What the odds he proposes single payer now? ;)

That's the problem with a WH full of people with no experience. He doesn't have anyone capable of writing legislation.

Yeah. It kinda does beg the question of the whole, whaddyacallit ... the thing where he was actually just a bait-and-switch guy.

(forgive me, there's a specific term for it, it's just been an indescribably long week & I lack the braining to come up with the stupid word)

Bzzt. That presumes it would have had to be / needed to be written internally at the WH.

They would have to have it written in a way that was acceptable to either Ryan or Mcconnell, though. The WH can't simply introduce legislation. It would have to be done in a way that included congressional leaders. They don't have the people in the WH to make that work, and their staffing is so incomplete there aren't people at cabinet agencies that could do it either.

Ready for the tax plan.

Although I voted for HRC, now that the election over and Obamacare is safe (for now), I wanna get my taxes lowered.

I believe there are members who could have gotten something to the floor without involving those two worthless sacks (edit to add) in the actual writing.

Trump would merely have needed a willing partner for the right piece of legislation. Ryan blocking it just because he wasn't involved in the writing could have very well gotten him dragged out for a tarring & feathering if not worse.

Instead, we get this lightweight flop. That's either the worst miscalculation of Trump's past couple of years OR it's an indication that he never had any intention of passing anything on this subject at all (not for 2 years anyway).

It was a weird piece of legislation. I mean if you want to repeal Obamacare, repeal it. This kind of kept Obamacare in place but neutered aspects and gave a tax cut for rich people. Like a weird in-between that benefited no one.

Part of that is because they were trying to pass something through reconciliation. Just repealing the ACA would be subject to a filibuster and would never pass. In retrospect, that would have been a better political move, but the plan was to craft something that couldn't be filibustered and would be easy to pass with GOP votes.