In an escalating spat between President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, GOP unity seems to have taken a back seat to public outcries and a game of one upmanship. While reflecting on why GOP efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare failed, McConnell stated that he believed that Trump's "excessive expectations" contributed to the demise of their earnest efforts. McConnell, who also has warned Trump not to trust Russia, stated that Trump's continual demands that the repeal/replace efforts be accelerated made success impossible.

The slowness of the Democratic Process

McConnell stated that, as he sees it, Trump's failure to understand the Democratic process in the Senate, and how long it usually takes, was a factor in the eventual defeat of the repeal/replace effort. As McConnell put it, "Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before," according to The Huffington Post on Thursday. McConnell then attributed the bill's failure, at least in part, to Trump's excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process," according to the Huffington Post on Thursday.

The implication of McConnell's statements is that had Trump been more prepared for the Presidency, and more experienced in dealing with the politics of the Senate, that the repeal/replace health care bill would have been more successful in the Senate.

Conversely, had Trump had more understanding of how the "democratic process" in the Senate works, perhaps he would have been able to navigate the corridors of the Senate better and get a positive vote on the repeal/replace bill. As it was, the GOP health care bill barely failed in the Senate, largely because of three "Nay" votes by GOP Senators: John McCain of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

In the meantime, Trump blames McConnell for the failure of GOP efforts to repeal Obamacare, as exemplified in this tweet on Thursday:

Millions would lose their health care

Although efforts to replace and repeal Obamacare passed in the House of Representatives, Senators on both sides of the aisle realize that millions of people stand to lose their health care if Obamacare is repealed.

Every two years, one-third of the U.S. Senate is up for reelection. In the more moderate states that very easily could vote Democratic in a Senate race, many Senators, including Republicans, could lose their seats. Consequently, the repeal/replace effort failed in the Senate, and McConnell, who never has taken his disappointments easily, can safely blame Republican President Donald Trump while at the same time fighting to get all GOP Senators reelected in 2018.
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