The Slatest

Today in Conservative Media: What the Hell Just Happened to Trumpcare?

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) leaves the the Senate chamber at the U.S. Capitol after voting on the GOP ‘Skinny Repeal’ health care bill.

Getty Images

A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.

Conservatives sounded off Friday about the failure of Trumpcare in the Senate. National Review’s Alexandra DeSanctis placed the blame squarely on President Trump’s shoulders:

Last night’s epic collapse of Obamacare repeal on the Senate floor was the death knell for what has been, from the beginning, a highly disorganized and ineffective effort. Democrats, who deserve plenty of blame for the failures of the current health-care system, were undoubtedly wrong to refuse to even discuss reforming it. Republicans, meanwhile, promised for over seven years to repeal and replace Obamacare, and they had all of that time to craft a workable plan for doing so. Instead, they developed one that split the caucus into irreconcilable wings.

But the failures of the Senate do not excuse Donald Trump’s shameful lack of leadership throughout this process. With a more competent, more popular Republican president, some kind of agreement almost surely could have been brokered.

National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty recommended that Republicans in Congress move on to either immigration reform, tax reform, or infastructure. “Notice a commonality in all these suggestions?” he asked. “Trump ran on them as signature issues. The president may actually get involved and bring some executive leadership to the cause. He may be a dysfunctional babysitter, but he’s the one this Congress deserves.”

In a Facebook post, Bill O’Reilly wrote that he was deeply surprised Sen. John McCain had cast the deciding vote. “John McCain apparently does not trust the House or Speaker Paul Ryan and did not want to risk the skinny bill winding up on President Trump’s desk without further tweaks,” he wrote. “McCain wants much more in the health care bill. So, Obamacare lives on in full thanks to John McCain, and the Democratic Party wins a major victory.” At Breitbart, Joel Pollak argued that McCain had cast a vote “against bipartisanship”:

Throughout the past seven months, Democrats had every opportunity to propose improvements to Obamacare. They had the same opportunity for the past seven years.

And they refused, because backing Obamacare became a point of pride — not only to defend Barack Obama’s legacy, but to justify their original decision to ram the bill through, bypassing the filibuster rule, gaming the Congressional Budget Office, and losing control of Congress afterwards.

The task of replacing Obamacare could have been bipartisan, but the task of repealing it had to be done by the Republican Party alone.

In other news:

Voices across conservative media mourned the death of Charlie Gard. “The U.K. high court and The Great Ormond Street Hospital denied Chris Gard and Connie Yates their last wish Thursday to take 11-month-old Gard home to die in peace,” the Daily Caller’s Joshua Gill wrote. “Ultimately, over the course of two separate trials, Charlie Gard was sentenced to die in hospice and has since passed away, according to Daily Mail. He never made it to his first birthday, only seven days away.” In National Review, Congressman Brad Wenstrup wrote that Gard’s passing offered a “a reminder that every human life — no matter how great or small, young or old — has inherent dignity.” RedState’s Caleb Howe called his death a “sad, tragic,” finish to the Gard family’s saga:

We’ve written extensively at RedState about the many horrors in this awful situation. But no horror, and no preparation, can make his family and those who loved him ready for what is now the reality: his absence.

There is to be justified outrage. There will be further discussion and argument about this awful and dark chapter in the story of government and medical care. But first, today and for at least a moment, remember the very real pain and anguish that his family is now enduring. Every pain from diagnosis to now, relieved, and the terrible reality that this struggle is at end and he is unthinkably gone.

A number of conservative commentators offered their thoughts on Twitter: