On Senate Health Bill, Trump Falters in the Closer’s Role
But the Trump team’s heavy-handed tactics have been ineffective in the Senate, and White House officials determined
that deploying Vice President Mike Pence, a former congressman with deep ties to many in the Senate, was a better bet than unleashing Mr. Trump on the half-dozen Republicans who will determine the fate of the Senate bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
By GLENN THRUSH and JONATHAN MARTINJUNE 27, 2017
WASHINGTON — President Trump began his all-hands meeting with Republican senators at the White House on Tuesday by saying
they were “very close” to passing a health care bill, just as efforts to fast-track a vote this week collapsed.
Mr. McConnell, who kept the president at a polite arm’s length while he oversaw negotiations over the bill, asked Mr. Trump to arrange the meeting with all 52 Republican
senators during a morning phone call, in part to show senators the White House was in fact fully engaged, according to two people with knowledge of the call.
Over the weekend, Mr. McConnell made clear his unhappiness to the White House after a “super PAC” aligned with Mr. Trump started
an ad campaign against Senator Dean Heller, Republican of Nevada, after he said last week that he opposed the health care bill.
The move against Mr. Heller had the blessing of the White House, according to an official with America First, because Mr. Trump’s allies were furious
that the senator would side with Nevada’s governor, Brian Sandoval, a Republican who accepted the Medicaid expansion under the health law and opposes the Republican overhaul, in criticizing the bill.
