Political commentator Bill Kristol is predicting that the House GOP legislation to repeal and replace ObamaCare won’t even get a vote.
“It’s going to fall apart,” Kristol, a top critic of President Trump, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday to hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.
“There will not be a vote for it.”
Kristol argued that Republicans were rushing through the legislation.
“You’re going to unveil a huge healthcare bill Monday night at 6 p.m., what do you do the week before? You call in healthcare experts that are more or less on your side and you brief them about it and you try to get them on board,” argued Kristol. “You call in the groups on your own side and try to get them on board.
“And you call in the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, all of the relevant groups. Some of them aren’t going to support it. But maybe they at least don’t oppose as quickly as possible. Maybe they say they have an open mind.”
House Republican leaders on Monday unveiled their long-awaited package to repeal and replace ObamaCare, titled the American Health Care Act.
But the bill faced a rocky rollout, with conservative Republicans saying it didn’t go far enough to undo the law and centrist GOP lawmakers balking at rolling back the Medicaid expansion and defunding Planned Parenthood.
{mosads}Critics also accused leadership of trying to move the bill too quickly, with House committees beginning markups on Wednesday.
Health industry groups also came out strongly against the bill, including the American Medical Association, which represents doctors, and the American Hospital Association.
But Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has said the legislation will pass the House. Trump and Vice President Pence are also helping leadership with their sales pitch, meeting with conservative lawmakers to push them to back the bill.
Kristol, though, said talk of the president’s skill at negotiating deals is overblown.
“This is just Politics 101. I mean, this is not super complicated. Every White House does this. And this White — they are so intoxicated with the notion that Trump is going to bless it,” Kristol said.
“Trump has this magic potion that he just slaps on something and it goes sailing through and everyone’s just going to roll over for it,” he said, mockingly.
Kristol has been a longtime critic of Trump. On “Morning Joe” in 2015, he said he was willing to “bet anyone” that Trump would not be the Republican nominee.
Kristol, 64, served as chief of staff to former Vice President Dan Quayle and is the founder of The Weekly Standard.