Make no mistake: the failure to repeal and replace Obamacare, which President Trump had so often promised to do, was a major defeat for his administration.
The beginning of his administration is when President Trump had the chance to accomplish the most. But it’s not looking that way. He has certainly tried but is being thwarted at every turn by leftist activist judges and the RINO establishment.
According to The Hill, “Trump became heavily involved in selling and negotiating the plan, holding at least 17 meetings on overhauling the healthcare system….Those included arm-twisting sessions (in person and on Twitter) with conservative and moderate factions that opposed the plan, as well as invites to the White House bowling alley and a rare personal trip to Capitol Hill. His aides were more than eager to tout ‘The Art of the Deal’ author’s abilities to get people to come to an agreement. ‘He is the closer,’ White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday.”
So what happened? Trump has to take control. Take a page from Obama and clean house. With regard to Obamacare, Trump should take decisive action to salvage the situation now. He should call every GOP congressman into his office and just hammer out a deal.
Here’s the thing: he talks about being a great negotiator, and that may be true. But throughout his career until now, he has been negotiating not with politicians, but with businessmen. We know their motive: profit. Money.
It’s not the same with politicians. Politics is a twisted world, in which power and reelection are the currency in which they trade. The bottom line in business is money, and while money talks for politicians also, the bottom line with these corrupt clowns is not always so easy to discern.
Breitbart News reminded us recently that House Speaker Paul Ryan “was caught on an audio file from October—obtained by Breitbart News and published a couple weeks ago—saying he is ‘not going to defend Donald Trump—not now, not in the future.’”
And Trump was relying on him to repeal and replace Obamacare?
Paul Ryan is also out of his depth. Love him or hate him, former House majority leader Tom DeLay knew how to herd those cats. That’s why the left had to destroy him. Ryan lacks what DeLay had: “bold aggressiveness and quiet maneuvering.”
Ryan has got to go. James Comey, too. What’s with all the Obama holdovers throughout the Trump administration? The Justice Department’s civil rights division must be purged. What’s Eric Treene still doing there? In January 2012, after receiving a huge box (in response to my Freedom of Information Act request) full of documents relating to the Justice Department’s interactions with Muslim groups linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, I wrote:
Even more striking was the servile demeanor of the Civil Rights Division official Eric Treene, Special Counsel for the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, and the demanding condescension of Muslim Brotherhood operatives. Muslim and Arab operatives treat Treene and Co. like an errand boy, asking them for email addresses of other contacts and setting them to perform the most menial gofer duties. The DOJ even takes lunch orders and picks up the tab, and in some cases asks them how much money they need for a little soiree they’re holding. It is astonishing.
Yet Treene is still there, and doubtless still kowtowing. And he is not the only one. A senior Trump administration official said last week: “We have members of the former administration at the highest levels who through their actions after January 20 have demonstrated their refusal to recognize the results of the general election. They have pursued, organized, and managed a comprehensive subversion of the new administration.”
The Washington Free Beacon reports that “in one instance, Trump administration officials found evidence that the administration’s executive order banning travel from certain Muslim-majority nations had been selectively altered to bring it more in line with Obama-era talking points. Several hours before the orders were set to be signed by Trump, officials noticed that language concerning ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ had been stripped from the order and replaced with Obama-era language about countering violent extremism. West Wing staffers quickly scrambled to rewrite the order to bring it back in line with Trump’s rhetoric.”
That’s unconscionable. Whoever did that should have been immediately identified and fired.
It’s not too late for Trump. But it will be soon if he doesn’t remember what got him elected in the first place, and drain the swamp.
Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter here. Like her on Facebook here.