President Donald Trump plans to do whatever it takes to earn Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s support of the Senate Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, beginning Friday.
The president reportedly has a strong relationship with Sen. Rand Paul, and he’s making it his “personal mission” to win over the senator’s approval for the bill, an unnamed White House official told Politico.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the details of the Senate’s version of the bill Thursday afternoon, and Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky all quickly indicated that they couldn’t vote for the measure as written.
“Currently, for a variety of reasons, we are not ready to vote for this bill, but we are open to negotiation and obtaining more information before it is brought to the floor,” Lee and Cruz wrote in a joint statement. “There are provisions in this draft that represent an improvement to our current health care system, but it does not appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to Americans: to repeal Obamacare and lower their health care costs.”
Reports indicate that Republican leadership doesn’t want the president involved in speaking with moderate lawmakers, like Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, due to the fact that he has considerably less influence with them as he does with members to the far right of the party.
Trump intends to focus on speaking with Paul and Cruz, and plans to allow other officials to pursue the votes of other potential renegades, according to the report.
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