| | | | "Nobody knew health care could be so complicated." | | | Trump confronts the hard realities of health care politics | | On the eve of his first prime-time address to a joint session of Congress and to the nation, President Donald Trump is finding out just how difficult repealing and replacing Obamacare can be.
Trump met with insurers and congressional GOP leaders today. But Republican governors say they don't want their citizens to lose coverage. And on Capitol Hill, the bills House Republicans are getting close to introducing are already facing huge obstacles: House Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows and Republican Study Committee chairman Mark Walker -- the leaders of two influential conservative groups -- both said they opposed the bill because of its inclusion of refundable tax credits that they labeled a new entitlement program. CNN's MJ Lee has more.
These are the stakes for Tuesday night. Republicans want to hear Trump use his joint address to try to bring some order to a chaotic process, using the skills that carried him into office to sell conservatives on his vision for the future of health care.
About Trump's claim that "nobody knew health care could be so complicated" ... actually, everybody knew it. That's why the GOP has never coalesced around its own plan. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer predicted that "the discord in their party will grow" and that "the odds are very high" the Affordable Care Act won't be repealed despite the GOP's promises to do so. A good read: CNN's Phil Mattingly on how House Speaker Paul Ryan is trying to help Trump, including in-the-room details on a series of meetings Ryan convened.
Also on tomorrow night's agenda:
$54 billion in new defense spending. That's what Trump wants -- and he sees it being offset by cuts to federal agencies like the EPA and to foreign aid. Some Republicans like Arizona Sen. John McCain say that's not enough of an increase for the military. Retired generals, meanwhile, are arguing against cuts to the State Department. | | | This is a picture (and caption) President Donald Trump might one day wish he could have back: Per Gallup, just 34% of Americans have a positive view of the health care industry, while 54% see it negatively. | | Trump unites a divided GOP as Democrats bicker | | CNN's Gregory Krieg emails ... If you want to know where politics is headed, you go to the grassroots. This past week, I got to to spend a few days with buoyant conservatives at CPAC outside D.C. and anxious Democrats at the party's winter meeting in Atlanta.
There was a lot to digest, but here's the big takeaway: Republicans may be all over the map ideologically right now, trying to reconcile Trumpism with other more familiar strains of conservatism, but they are circling the wagons around the new president.
Meanwhile, the Democratic gathering had an air of dread. Former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile groaned and sighed through her final day on the job -- the Saturday when DNC members voted for former Obama administration Labor Secretary Tom Perez (photo, above) to take the reins. Perez edged out Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the Berniecrat choice, after an unusually long and occasionally nasty (at least among Perez and Ellison's proxies) campaign.
But here's the thing: Perez and Ellison are friendly and, more importantly, almost identical ideologically. If Hillary Clinton had won in November, the same progressive groups that jeered his win in Atlanta would have pushed for and cheered his (likely, many believed) nomination to be the next attorney general.
So what gives? The White House is what. If eight years of Obama kept a lid on Democratic infighting, then his giving way to Trump has opened the floodgates. As for Republicans, Trump might not have always been their top pick, but he's the President and, for now at least, that's more than enough. | | Note the date on this Marco Rubio tweet: August 2009, when he was just a candidate for the Senate, and was playing up the surge in town hall attendance by anti-Obamacare protesters.
It's gotten new traction on the left today. Why? Because of this Politico headline: | | 3 things you might have missed | | Spicer says "there's nothing there" on Trump and Russia: White House press secretary Sean Spicer suggested there's no need for a special prosecutor to lead an investigation into contact between President Donald Trump's associates and Russian officials. More from Politico's Nolan D. McCaskill.
Bush offers muted criticism of Trump: Former President George W. Bush said, "We all need answers," regarding an investigation into reported ties between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government. More from CNN's David Wright.
Trump green-lit Spicer's phone checks. The President signed off on Sean Spicer's decision to check aides' cell phones to make certain they weren't communicating with reporters by text message or through encrypted apps, multiple sources confirmed to CNN. Spicer denied that Trump was involved in that decision or Friday's move to block reporters from the White House briefing. "(Trump) did not sign off or even know what I did. That is not accurate," Spicer said. | | | The Judicial Crisis Network is airing a pro-Neil Gorsuch ad on CNN and NBC around President Donald Trump's address to the joint session of Congress Tuesday night. ...This writer did Ruth Bader Ginsburg's workout and it nearly broke him. ... Newly-elected Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez promises to be President Donald Trump's "worst nightmare." | | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Check out Five Things for Your New Day, CNN's morning newsletter. Give us five minutes, and we'll brief you on all the news and buzz people are talking about. | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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