Spicer on Obamacare Replacement: ‘The Speaker Ultimately Decided It Was Better to Pull the Bill’

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “First 100 Days,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer stated that House Speaker Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) “ultimately decided it was better to pull” the American Health Care Act.

Spicer said, “Speaker Ryan came and updated the president where the votes were. His team, including Majority Leader [Representative Kevin] McCarthy (R-CA) and Congressman [Steve] Scalise (R-LA), the Whip in the House, had been spending a lot of time talking to members, as well as the president and his team, the vice president, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Mick Mulvaney, and Tom Price, had all been working the phones, been up and down on Capitol Hill. And frankly, we had about 10 or 15 people that we weren’t sure that were going to be with us. And the speaker ultimately decided it was better to pull the bill.”

Spicer further characterized the bill as “the opportunity to repeal and replace Obamacare. So, to hear people talk about starting a process. I think that process did start. It did happen, and we had that opportunity.”

He also stated that “the agenda moves on.” And President Trump’s “view on health care is that this is going to collapse on its. Democrats, and some of these other members, are going to come crawling back…once the system fails on its own.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett