White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney emerged from a meeting with House Republicans with an ultimatum. If the House-led effort to replace Obamacare fails, the United States is stuck with Obamacare, according to several Congressional reporters on Twitter.
Mulvaney was joined by a group of administration officials including senior advisors Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, and Kellyanne Conway for an evening meeting with House Republicans in an effort to break the logjam on the bill. Most House Freedom Caucus members refuse to vote for the bill without major changes. Moderate House Republicans have also protested the bill.
But the message from the White House was that, pass or fail, it was time to move the votes forward.
“We’re going to vote,” Bannon told reporters on Capitol Hill as he left the meeting. “Let’s vote.”
When reporters asked if Bannon thought the bill would pass, he said, “We’ll see.”
At this point, both the White House and House Republicans don’t have enough votes to pass the bill. The vote will take place Friday morning.