Donald Trump had quite a Friday the 13th. After tiring of Congress' inability to repeal Obama Care, President Trump came out with what can only be called a 'strong arm' tactic in order to move Congress to act on a health care bill. The President is betting that each member of Congress does not want to hear directly from their constituents about an astronomical rise in monthly insurance premiums. However, this is exactly what will happen - via the ACA marketplace - after the President pulls the plug on some $7 billion in subsidies currently offered through Medicaid expansion.

The details of the plan were announced by President Trump, Thursday night and then in person, seen on CNBC, at his speech to an evangelical and conservative values group Friday.

Donald Trump and Health Care vs. Congress

This effort by President Trump is a thinly veiled attempt to corner all Republicans and Democrats and force them to come together and across the aisle to work out something better than his suggested annihilation of the Affordable Care subsidies. Realizing that this defunding of Obamacare will be catastrophic for individual states, Trump has gambled that Congress will act.

Iran Deal - 'my way or the highway' says Donald Trump

In the second half of Trump's 'doubleheader' he announced, as promised, that if Congress and our allies do not work to tighten up the Iran deal, he will simply pull out altogether.

Tighten up, in his vision, as heard on CNN's coverage of his speech, means he would 'blow the whole deal up' according to Bill Richardson former Governor of New Mexico and U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

What Trump actually said about the iran deal, was that:

1) The nuclear weapons restriction needs to be forever

2) The development of ICBM's needs to stop

3) They have to cease their aiding and abetting terrorists around the world

In his indubitable way, Donald Trump said that he will leave it up to Congress and our Allies to work something out, or, with his Presidential powers, he will just terminate the whole agreement.

Richardson said that the U.S. pulling out is virtually the same as blowing up the whole deal. After all, the U.S. is really the 'big Kahuna' in this deal.

Art of the deal?

As Richardson intimated, de-certifying the Iran deal would not only anger Iran, and allies, Germany, France, and Britain, but send a message to N.Korea, that if they signed a nuclear agreement - the U.S.

may pull out! Richardson went on to say that he did not see President Trump's self-proclaimed deal-making skill at work. To the contrary, he feels that the U.S. loses leverage on almost all of the issues that we have with Iran, including nuclear weapons and terrorism funding. It is totally unclear to anyone, what these strong-arm tactics will produce.
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