If the Republican #nevertrump establishment’s goal was to damage President Donald J. Trump’s presidency by denying him an early victory in repealing and replacing Obamacare – a core campaign pledge – they failed: Most Trump supporters are defending the president and blaming the RINO faction of the GOP instead.
As reported by Reuters, Trump supporters are livid over the failure to pass an Obamacare repeal measure, but they are loathe to blame the president himself:
The day after the flaming out of U.S. President Donald Trump’s first major legislative initiative, his supporters across America were lashing out – at conservatives, at Democrats, at leaders of his Republican Party in Congress.
Only Trump himself was spared their wrath.
Many voters who elected him appeared largely willing to give him a pass on the collapse of his campaign promise to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, stressing his short time in office.
That said, other supporters were confident that eventually, Trump will deliver on his promise. (RELATED: Read The top 5 biggest Obamacare fails and why Republicans and Trump should try again to repeal and replace.)
“Being a businessman, he’ll not take ‘no’ for an answer,” Tony Nappi, a 71-year-old from Trinity, Florida, told Reuters. “He’ll get the job done.”
Others understood plainly that as president, Trump can only sign legislation that is sent to him by Congress; he can’t, as one person upset with how things turned out put it to Reuters, “wave a magic wand” and get done what he wants to get done.
And while the president has not directly laid blame at the feet at House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-WI, he may have done so in a subtle way. As noted by The National Sentinel, on Saturday morning – the day after the American Health Care Act was pulled by Ryan after GOP leaders realized they would not have enough votes for passage – Trump tweeted out a teaser to followers of his personal account, asking them to watch Fox News’ Judge Janine Pirro’s program Saturday night:
Watch @JudgeJeanine on @FoxNews tonight at 9:00 P.M.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2017
Perhaps not so ironically, Pirro led her show with this declarative statement:
Paul Ryan needs to step down as speaker of the House. The reason? He failed to deliver the votes on his healthcare bill, the one trumpeted to repeal and replace Obamacare, the one that he had seven years to work on, the one he had under lock and key in the basement of Congress, the one that had to be pulled to prevent the embarrassment of not having enough votes to pass.
Later in her opening monologue, Pirro said: “I want to be clear, this is not on President Trump. No one expected a business man to completely understand the nuances, the complicated ins and outs of Washington and its legislative process. How would he know which individuals upon which he would be able to rely?”
So it would seem that while Trump was making public statements that he didn’t hold Ryan accountable for the failure, he was subtly sending just the opposite message. There is no other way to read this. (RELATED: Read White House prepared to cast blame on Ryan for failed Obamacare repeal.)
While Trump signaled on Friday that he was ready to move on to tax cuts, Republican rank-and-file members – perhaps already feeling the sting of failure from angry constituents – were quick to note that Obamacare repeal is not a dead letter. House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., despite being called out in a separate tweet by the president for his caucus’ failure to support the bill, praised Trump and said that members were already discussing a replacement for the Ryan bill, the Washington Examiner reported.
“To put a stake in it today would not be accurate,” the North Carolina Republican said on ABC News’ “This Week.”
He went on to assure viewers that in the end, “The most valuable player will be Donald Trump on this. He will deliver.”
If not, it’s apparent his supporters won’t be blaming him. They will instead blame those who thwarted him. Learn more at Conservative.news.
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
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