Washington: President Donald Trump scolded his own party’s Senate leader on Wednesday for the crash of the Republican drive to repeal and rewrite the Obama health care law, using Twitter to demand of majority leader Mitch McConnell, “Why not done?”
Mr Trump fired back at the Kentucky Republican for telling a home-state audience this week that the president had “not been in this line of work before, and I think had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process.”
The exchange came less than two weeks after Senate rejection of the GOP effort to scuttle President Barack Obama’s health care law, probably McConnell’s most jolting defeat as leader and Mr Trump’s worst legislative loss. The House approved its version in May, but its Senate failure - thanks to defecting GOP senators - marked the collapse of the party’s attempt to deliver on vows to erase Obama’s statute it’s showcased since the law’s 2010 enactment.
“Senator Mitch McConnell said I had ‘excessive expectations,’ but I don’t think so,” Trump tweeted. “After 7 years of hearing Repeal & Replace, why not done?”
Mr Trump had repeatedly used Twitter to pressure McConnell to find the votes to approve the health care bill, even saying hours after its failure that GOP senators “look like fools.” Trump will need him to guide the next major Republican priority, a tax system overhaul, through the chamber.
