DONALD TRUMP, Raging at his own cabinet

President Trump, discussing repealing Obamacare, February 28: “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”

A comment attributed to the president on infrastructure, earlier this week: “The president — echoing his ill-received remarks about repealing the Affordable Care Act — has told people around him that he did not expect the process to be this difficult, according to one longtime adviser.” bold
“If [Attorney General Jeff Sessions] was going to recuse himself he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,” President Trump said in a New York Times interview last week.

“So why aren’t the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?” — President Trump on Twitter yesterday.

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Yesterday: “Trump was asked by a reporter if Sessions should resign. As interns laughed around him, Trump shook his head, rolled his eyes and smirked.”
President Trump on Twitter this morning: “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign – ‘quietly working to boost Clinton.’ So where is the investigation A.G.” and, moments later, “Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!”

President Trump, turning to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price at yesterday’s event with the Boy Scouts: “By the way, you’re going to get the votes? He better get ’em. He better get ’em. Ah, he better — otherwise, I’ll say, ‘Tom, you’re fired!’” (Why is the president counting on his HHS Secretary to persuade those final reluctant Republicans? Didn’t he tout himself as the ultimate dealmaker?)

Everything is so much more complicated than he thought… and yet the president insists upon publicly attacking the people whom he selected to help enact his agenda.

The Outlook for Veterans Choice Suddenly Darkens

Remember yesterday when the House of Representatives was going to allocate another $2 billion to keep the Veterans Choice program going? The vote failed. Not because of a lack of support, as 219 Republicans voted for the bill, but it was brought to the floor of the House under rules that required a two-thirds majority. House Republicans thought they had an agreement with House Democrats to pass the additional $2 billion and then go back to reevaluate the program with an eye on the long term, but apparently too many House Democrats see Veterans Choice as a backdoor effort to privatize veterans care… so they’re willing to let money run out in early August.

Quite a few Democrats seem strangely eager to declare the program a failure; Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., said, “The VA Choice program has failed to deliver on the promise of shorter wait times.” (Gee, do you think demand for the program increasing 50 percent from last year has anything to do with it?)

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