President Donald Trump likes winning.
But as he stands on the precipice of what may be his first legislative failure — one that would damage the political capital he will need to steer the priorities he truly cares about through Congress — Trump is “pissed,” one source close to the President said.
And he’s not about to take the blame if things go poorly.
The President and his staff began pointing fingers Thursday night, hitting targets in all corners of Capitol Hill and the White House — save for the Oval Office — after House Republican leadership was forced to punt an expected vote on their plan to repeal and replace Obamacare due to lack of support.
It’s also a first test for whether the President can escape any blame should this near decade-long Republican priority collapse.
The vote, now expected Friday, is still not a guaranteed win for Republicans, despite White House attempts to woo conservative party members.
As the White House grew increasingly wary about the bill’s chances, several senior administration officials began blaming a flawed strategy pushed by House Speaker Paul Ryan and former House member Tom Price, now Health and Human Services secretary, for the embarrassing debacle. It was a strategy Trump signed up for when top aides and Ryan presented him with the plan to make good on his Obamacare repeal campaign promise so he could swiftly move on to issues he is more passionate about and familiar with like tax reform and infrastructure spending.
“This was all Ryan and Price,” said one senior administration official. “They agreed upon this plan the day (Trump) hired Price.”
Nevertheless, Trump himself answered affirmatively when asked Friday morning if Ryan should stay on as speaker in the face of failure.
A second senior administration official concurred while a third instead pinned the blame on the House Freedom Caucus, the group of hardline conservatives who have held out support for the bill, demanding a slew of 11th-hour changes that sent the House GOP jigsaw puzzle into disarray.
“There is a growing frustration in the White House over how the Freedom Caucus has handled the negotiations. The President has tried to address their concerns and they keep moving the goal posts,” said a senior White House official. “If this bill goes down, I don’t think the President is going to have any appetite to work with them.”
But a source close to Trump described the President as more frustrated with his staff for convincing him to back the House GOP leadership plan in the first place.
Painting the President as a political neophyte who has only been in Washington for two months, the source said Trump has become “frustrated with his staff’s inability to get this done” and argued that Trump was misled by those staffers who urged him to tackle Obamacare head first and hitch himself to Ryan’s plan.
“He was talked into doing this bill first. It was not negotiated well on his behalf,” the source said. “He’s relied on his staff to give him good information and they haven’t. And that’s the problem.”
The source close to Trump described a president who felt bamboozled by Ryan and his own staff, duped into thinking that passing health care would be the quick victory he needed to make good on a campaign promise central to his election and push forward on other policy fronts.
Trump is likely to blame Ryan and his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, the source said, since he “bought” into Ryan’s plan and helped convince Trump to get on board, according to another senior administration official.
Trump also blames staff for his own late personal engagement in lobbying members of Congress and the lack of presidential travel to key districts that would help flip votes rather than himself, one source said.
But there is plenty of blame to go around, as all factions within the West Wing worked arduously to help craft and sell the bill.
As Trump headed to Mar-a-Lago the first Friday of this month, both Priebus and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon stayed at the White House, working late into the night on tweaks to the bill, according to one senior administration official.
The White House deployed its top conservatives to corral the House Freedom Caucus, with Bannon, counselor Kellyanne Conway and senior White House policy adviser Steven Miller joining Vice President Mike Pence’s already longstanding engagement in the legislative push.
And weeks after Trump pledged the full weight of his presidency and White House officials touted Trump’s personal engagement in selling the bill, the President appears prepared to accept none of the blame if his gambit fails.
In two rallies in the last two weeks, he barely talked about health care and failed to build a consensus among disparate Republican factions.
Talked up as a “closer,” the President who ascended to the presidency on the merits of his negotiating prowess only became intimately involved in the work of wooing and grappling with members of Congress to win their support in the last 10 days.
By that point, Republican senators were becoming increasingly vocal in their objections to the bill while the House Freedom Caucus ramped up its calls for major changes that would unsettle the bill’s delicate balance aimed at appealing to all factions of the GOP.
Now, some Republicans have begun to direct at least some of the blame toward the Oval Office, arguing that Trump failed to follow through on his pledge to put sustained pressure on Republican members of Congress in order to pass the bill.
For that, senior administration officials pinned the blame on the House speaker, who, along with his leadership team, crafted the bulk of the House bill months before Trump even took office.
But as one senior administration official argued to CNN that hardline conservative members needed to pass the bill were not brought into the process until too late, Ryan’s office quickly responded with prepared pushback.
“The speaker and his staff have met with conservative members of our conference nearly every week as the bill has made its way through the four-committee process,” a Ryan aide said in a statement. “The speaker maintains an open door policy for members in his office … He regularly texts with members, including (Rep. Mark) Meadows. The speaker’s senior staff are always available, including our chief of staff.”
Still, more blame is likely to fall. One source wondered late Thursday night why Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and one of the most powerful West Wing forces, was away on a ski vacation with his wife, Ivanka Trump, while other White House staffers toiled away at an increasingly fraught mission.
Trump, though, appeared to press for victory even Friday morning, making calls to House members despite the pre-emptive finger pointing from the White House.
The President is “determined” to pass the bill, a senior administration official said.
He also took to Twitter, making his final appeal to Republicans.
“After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan!” he tweeted.
Hoping to pressure conservatives, he added: “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!”