Fresh off his high from watching the House pass Obamacare replacement legislation in May, President Trump invited all 248 Republicans in the lower chamber over to the White House for an impromptu Rose Garden celebration. “Premiums will be coming down. Deductibles will be coming down. But very importantly: It’s a great plan,” the president, surrounded by rank-and-file members, boomed from the podium.
Two months later, Trump told a roomful of GOP senators the House-passed bill was “mean.” It was a stunning reversal from what he had told Americans on that sunny afternoon in the Rose Garden, and the first of several missteps that many claim contributed to Republican’s ultimate failure on healthcare — and worry about a repeat on tax reform.
“He proved last time to be an enormous liability,” veteran GOP consultant Rick Tyler told the Washington Examiner hours before House Republicans were originally scheduled to unveil their tax reform plans (this has since been delayed until Thursday). “No one was talking about the benefits of what it was they were trying to get done. They were talking about Donald Trump not understanding something or Donald Trump attacking so and so, or ‘Donald Trump said this.’”
As the White House begins plotting an expensive campaign to sell tax reform to the public, some worry there’s only a “50-50 chance” Trump will triumph in his message discipline.
A Republican strategist close to the White House said Trump has shown signs of improvement, citing a series of recent speeches the president has delivered on tax policy in which he put pressure on vulnerable Democrats and spoke only the words on his teleprompter.
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05.17.2025