Obamacare Lives To Die Of Natural Causes – Ep. 237
* Earlier I talked about the Trump honeymoon, and my belief that it wouldn't last long, in fact I thought it might have ended before the marriage began with the inauguration
* It did carry on a bit after that, but it seems to me that the honeymoon is ending now
* Today, the attempt to repeal and replace ObamaCare went down in flames
* That's something I had predicted a while ago; I said that I doubted that they would be able to repeal Obamacare and it turns out that I was right
* They didn't do it
* In fact, President Trump threw a Hail Mary late in the negotiations by threatening the Republican holdouts: "Pass this bill or else."
* He basically said, it's this or nothing - If you don't replace ObamaCare, you're stuck with the consequences
* I think that was a bad gamble for the President to have made, in fact as soon as he issued that ultimatum
* I thought that was going to be a problem because I didn't think the conservatives were going to buckle as a result of that threat
* And they didn't
* Now, not only has the bill been pulled, President Trump is in a very awkward position because he's already said
* Take it or leave it
* And Republicans left it
* Now how does he come back to the negotiating table?
* Now, if he comes back, he doesn't have a lot of credibility
* I still think it would be better if he went back to the negotiation table
* I think it was a bad tactic for Trump to say, "It's my way or the highway
* I think that if this bill doesn't succeed, they should try again
* They should recognize the problems in the replacement bill and work harder to fix them
* The problems is a lot of Republicans don't have the stomach for real reform