TRUMP AGENDA: Is it TrumpCare? Or RyanCare?
From NBC’s Andrew Rafferty: “As the battle over what should be in the bill to replace the Affordable Care Act continues in Congress, another vital fight is being waged over just what to call the plan.”
“A Republican proposal to revise the Affordable Care Act claimed its first major victories Thursday amid a backlash that both Republican leaders and President Trump spent the day trying to tamp down,” writes the Washington Post. “Trump met with conservative critics of the plan, signaling both a willingness to negotiate its details and that it does not yet have enough votes to emerge from the House. More acknowledgment of the proposal’s problems came from Senate Republicans, who suggested Thursday that the measure is moving too quickly through the House and in a form unlikely to succeed if it gets to the upper chamber. Yet the plan emerged from two key House committees Thursday, and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), its top booster, insisted that the pending legislation represents the “only chance we’re going to get” to fulfill the GOP’s long-standing promise to undo the Affordable Care Act.”
The Wall Street Journal: “Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) reintroduced late Wednesday a bill to repeal most of the 2010 health law without replacing it, a measure that cleared the last Congress when President Barack Obama, a Democrat, was in office. Conservative groups view that bill, which Mr. Obama vetoed, as a gold standard. GOP leaders’ decision to back away from that bill now that Mr. Trump is president is causing friction.”
POLITICO: “The discord on the far-right is becoming a real problem for Republicans. Allies of GOP leadership say Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his team can’t assemble a bill that can pass the House if conservatives keep moving the goal posts on what exactly it will take to secure their votes. In the end, they might end up getting nothing at all because of the disunity, some GOP lawmakers speculated. And several even believe conservatives will vote for the bill despite their complaints and demands for change this week.”
The New York Times: “[W]ith Mr. Trump’s administration aggressively pitching the House Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Capitol Hill’s official scorekeeper — the Congressional Budget Office — is coming under intense fire.”
And there’s this, from the Washington Post: “House Republicans are advancing a series of bills that would make changes to the civil justice system long sought by doctors and U.S. corporations, including a cap on some medical malpractice awards and new roadblocks for classes of people seeking to sue jointly to address harm.”
From NBC’s Alex Johnson and Ali Vitali: “President Donald Trump's revised immigration order is so ‘blatantly discriminatory’ that it seems designed to divide people into a ‘superior race,’ Hawaii's attorney general alleged Thursday.”
NBC News reports on the fallout after the Kellyanne Conway/Nordstrom kerfuffle.
The New York Times notes how many executives are now eyeing the White House because of Trump’s improbable rise.
From the AP: “In stepping up legal challenges to President Donald Trump's revised travel ban, Democratic attorneys general are trying to use the court system to thwart the executive branch in the same way their GOP counterparts did under President Barack Obama.”
The New York Times looks at how Trump’s golf resort brand is faring.
The Wall Street Journal notes that public broadcasting is under the microscope again as budget cuts loom.
David Ignatius, in the Washington Post: “Rex Tillerson is off to an agonizingly slow start as secretary of state. That matters, because if Tillerson doesn’t develop a stronger voice, control of foreign policy is likely to move increasingly toward Stephen K. Bannon, the insurgent populist who is chief White House strategist.”
The Washington Post notes the way Trump and his team are trying to use language to change politics.
From POLITICO: “Europeans are starting to worry that Steve Bannon has the EU in his crosshairs. Here’s how the White House could genuinely help pull it apart.”