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Trump Suggests He Will Stand Down and ‘Let Obamacare Fail’

President sends mixed messages on working with Democrats

President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in deliver joint statements in the White house Rose Garden on Friday. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in deliver joint statements in the White house Rose Garden on Friday. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump reacted Tuesday to the failure of a Senate Republican leadership-crafted health care bill by saying he is prepared to “let Obamacare fail” then essentially wait for Democrats to beg him to act.

“I’m not going to own it,” Trump told reporters, referring to his long-promised coming “collapse” of Barack Obama’s 2010 law. The president then predicted congressional Democrats will “come to us” insisting to start talks toward a bipartisan health care overhaul measure.

Letting the existing law continue to take on water “will be a lot easier,” Trump said, noting he has “for a long time” talked about dropping GOP efforts to write their own law and waiting.

“I think we’re probably in that position where we’ll let Obamacare fail,” he said. “We’re not going to own it. I’m not going to own it.

“I can tell you the Republicans are not going to own it,” Trump said. “We’ll let Obamacare fail and then the Democrats are going to come to us.”

But Trump, as he often does, appeared to contradict himself when he blasted Democrats, saying he doubted they would work with him and Republicans and labeling them “obstructionists” who “have no ideas.”

He vowed his party eventually will “get something done” on health care, but he did not go into specifics: “It may not be as quick as we had hoped, but it’s going to happen.”

Trump again contradicted his work-with-Democrats message when he said he plans to work “very hard” to get more Republicans elected in the 2018 midterm elections to the Senate, saying the opposition party would not help pass major bills like a health care overhaul.

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