S*M*A*S*H

“Trump had personally lobbied 120 lawmakers, either in person or on the phone, White House press secretary Sean Spicer reminded reporters on Friday. The president had ‘left everything on the field.'” A day after he issued an ultimatum to House members to move forward with an up or down vote on the GOP’s Obamacare replacement bill, President Trump called reporters to announce there would be no such vote: “We just pulled it.” (Everyone knows the pull it method doesn’t work.) The repeal and replace effort had been a key focus of many Fall campaigns (and has theoretically been in the works for several years). But in the end, even with GOP control of the House and the executive branch, the health bill could not be passed.

+ Ezra Klein gets at the weirdest part of the whole health care debate. The bill being pushed by Trump seemed entirely unrelated to any of the health care goals he’s championed in the past. “He’s spent the past week fighting for a health care bill he didn’t campaign on, didn’t draft, doesn’t understand, doesn’t like to talk about, and can’t defend. Rather than forcing the Republican establishment to come around to his principles, he’s come around to theirs — with disastrous results.”

+ Politico: “The decision is a staggering defeat for Ryan and President Donald Trump in their first attempt to partner on major legislation and fulfill a seven-year Republican promise to repeal Obamacare.”

+ So who will Trump blame? So far, the answer is … the Democrats. “Mr. Trump, in a telephone interview moments after the bill was pulled, blamed Democrats and predicted that they would seek a deal within a year after, he asserted, ‘Obamacare explodes’ because of higher premiums.” Oh well, if he’s hurt in the explosion, at least he’ll still be covered…