"overhauling health care is far different from building a golf course".

Sources: Trump learned a lesson on dealmaking

Washington (CNN)

Republican sources close to the White House, aides inside the Trump administration, and GOP congressional staff involved in the health care process appear to agree on one thing: President Donald Trump has received a stinging lesson on dealmaking in Washington.

"He didn't care or particularly know about health care," a key GOP congressional aide said about Trump following the stunning defeat of the Republican health care plan Friday.

"If you are going to be a great negotiator, you have to know about the subject matter," the aide said, adding that overhauling health care is far different from building a golf course.


Trump and his top aides also appeared to have moments when they alienated both the conservative and moderate Republicans needed to close the deal.

At one meeting Trump held with members of the "Tuesday Group," an informal caucus of moderate Republicans, the lawmakers went around the room and answered where they stood on the bill. When Pennsylvania's Charlie Dent said he was a "no," Trump replied, "Why am I even talking to you?"

Other GOP operatives close to the more centrist faction of the party complained that the moderates were simply ignored, damaging the bill's prospects more than the White House realized.

Ahead of the vote, Trump slammed members of the Freedom Caucus, who were the most outspoken conservative critics of the bill.

"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!" he tweeted.

White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon had his own run-in with the Freedom Caucus, which features many of his fellow like-minded conservatives.
"I don't give a shit what you guys think," Bannon exclaimed at a Thursday night meeting with the caucus, a source familiar with the meeting said. The sense in the room was Bannon lost his cool.

Trump, for his part, would agree to concessions to the group without thinking about the impact on moderate Republican votes, the same source added.


Two sources in the Freedom Caucus meeting in the White House Cabinet Room on Thursday confirmed that the President, when pressed about some of their policy concerns with the bill, said, "Forget about the little shit." Politico first reported the exchange.

"Some members wanted to talk about the policy aspect of the bill, and that wasn't something he wanted to talk about," said a Freedom Caucus member who was in the room. "He wanted to talk about the big picture."
"I got the sense that he had delegated a lot of the specifics to White House personnel and/or Paul Ryan and/or house leadership, and he was going to support whatever they came up with regardless of good or bad, as long as it was some kind of repeal and replacement," said the caucus member, who asked not to be quoted by name in order to talk freely about the private meeting.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/25/politics/donald-trump-lesson-deal-making-health-care/index.html

Last edited by Goose (3/26/2017 10:12 am)