The House will not vote on the American Health Care Act on Thursday as planned, Republican leaders have decided. The Republicans’ Obamacare replacement bill, depending on whose tally you’re using, is still somewhere between four and 15 votes short of being able to pass. (It’s not expected to get any Democratic votes.)
Donald Trump met Thursday with the hard-line Freedom Caucus but was apparently not able to persuade enough of its members to get on board—or offer them enough concessions on issues like “essential benefits” and spending—to salvage the bill in anything like its current state.
At the time that the vote was being scuttled—I am not making this up—Trump was playing around and pretending to drive a semitruck in the White House driveway.
He also appears to have told the trucking executives he was meeting with, even after news of the vote delay had been reported, that it was still taking place:
Meanwhile, the White House is saying the vote will take place Friday, but Republican leaders say that no decision on timing has yet been made.
“The president’s engagement [in the legislative process] is unparalleled in the history of our country,” Freedom Caucus leader and North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said at the Capitol moments ago. And given a certain definition of “unparalleled,” he’s not wrong.
