While lawmakers would love to head home for the weekend, a busy Friday has delayed their plans. The Republican health care plan received such little support that Donald Trump was forced to pull the bill from a vote, which resulted in even conservative-friendly media to lash out.

Fox News on GOP

The American Health Care Act was supposed to be the big alternative to replace the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. For nearly eight years, Republicans vowed to "repeal and replace" Obamacare, making it their number one talking point for the better part of the last decade.

During the 2016 presidential election, all 17 Repubican candidates were in agreement that they wanted to change the direction of the American health care system, which appeared like a sure thing once Donald Trump won the nomination and later the presidency with a shocking win over Hillary Clinton. After it became clear that Trump would have a GOP-controlled House and Senate to work with, the consensus was that Obamacare would soon become history. However, the new bill received a negative response from Democrats and many Republicans, and despite the best effort of Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, the plan is now dead in the water. During a Fox News segment on March 26, one host was quick to declare that the GOP bill was RIP.

(Smith's comments start at 00:50 secs, and 6:50 in the above video.)

On Friday afternoon, the news broke that Donald Trump had pulled the health care bill and that no vote would take place, resulting in a devastating blow to the Republican Party. After announcing the news during his broadcast, Fox News host Shepard Smith ripped into the GOP.

"The new Republican version is dead,” Shepard Smith said of the Republican's efforts. "Republicans voted to repeal Obamacare more than 50 times when they didn’t have a president in the White House who would ever sign it," he continued, before adding, "now they have a president in the White House who will sign it, and they can’t get the one thing they’ve been screaming about for seven years done." Later in the segment, Smith spoke to fellow Fox News host Bret Baier who was also critical of the GOP, before stating, "Today is a win for President Barack Obama."

(Baier's comments in the above video)

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Following the news that the bill was officially pulled, Donald Trump spoke to reporters at the White House.

While it was Republicans who were responsible for getting their own members on board to support the plan, the former host of "The Apprentice" attempted to deflect from the issue at hand and actually blamed Democrats for not working with the GOP. As of press time, the president is now looking to put health care to the side, and work on tax reform and immigration.
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