The president has blamed his predecessor for leaks, protests and even for priming Obamacare to explode after he left office.
By Nolan D. McCaskill
03/10/17 03:25 PM EST
President Donald Trumps administration has been plagued by damaging leaks and marked by protests against him and his policies. And as he tries to sell America on Republicans plan for health care reform, he risks facing humiliation should he fall short.
In his eyes, though, theres one clear person to blame: Barack Obama.
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The former president has emerged as the perfect scapegoat for Trump. The 44th commander in chief is a revered Democratic Party figure who is both loathed by conservatives and, in keeping in line with the precedent of past presidents, unlikely to publicly speak out against his successor.
And while Trump one month ago told Fox News host Bill OReilly that the two get along and that Obama even likes me, hes back to raging against his longtime foe.
In the past week alone, Trump has blamed Obama and his administration for setting up the first meeting between Jeff Sessions and Russias ambassador to the U.S. (Sessions failed to disclose having met with the ambassador last year when testifying about contact with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing to be attorney general), allowing the aforementioned ambassador to visit the White House 22 times in eight years, allegedly wiretapping Trump Tower phone lines during the campaign (an explosive accusation for which no evidence exists), releasing 122 detainees from Guantanamo Bay who later returned to terrorist activity (113 of those prisoners were released two days before Obama became president) and getting run over by a strengthening Russia (in his words).
Trumps White House piled on with fresh accusations Friday, with Trump himself suggesting Obamacare is a ticking time bomb that was set to detonate once Obama left office and his top spokesman endorsing the idea of a so-called deep state full of Obama appointees seeking to undermine Trumps presidency.
During a meeting with House committee chairmen, Trump said 2017 was supposed to be a disaster for Obamacare, which he and Republicans more broadly campaigned on repealing and replacing.
Thats the year it was meant to explode because Obama wont be here, Trump alleged. That was when it was supposed to be even worse.
Trumps replacement plan faces steep opposition from far-right Republican lawmakers as well as powerful conservative groups, raising questions of whether Americas CEO can negotiate a deal that appeases enough factions within the Republican Party to provide affordable, quality health care to Americans or lose the first policy battle of his administration.
And despite the House Intelligence Committees chairman and ranking member telling reporters that after a briefing with FBI Director James Comey theres still no evidence that Obama ordered a wiretap, White House press secretary Sean Spicer refused to say whether Trump would apologize if no evidence emerges during congressional investigations.
Lets not get ahead of ourselves, he cautioned. I think its important to see where that goes, and I don't wanna pre-judge their work at this time.
Spicer later contended theres no question that there are government officials aligned with the previous administration who espouse Obama's agenda.
So I dont think it should come as any surprise that there are people that burrowed into government during eight years of the last administration and, you know, may have believed in that agenda and can want to continue to seek it, he said. I dont think that should come as a surprise to anyone.
Obama more specifically his Affordable Care Act dominated the presidents weekly address Friday morning. Trump panned the health care law, casting it as hundreds of pages full of broken promises that were enacted over Americans profound objections.
I want every American to know that action on Obamacare is an urgent necessity, he said in his address. The law is collapsing around us, and if we do not act to save Americans from this wreckage, it will take our health care system all the way down with it. If we do nothing, millions more innocent Americans will be hurt and badly hurt. Thats why we must repeal and replace Obamacare.
He went on to encourage Democrats to work with us to improve the health care system but maligned Obama about an hour later despite declaring in his address to Congress, The time for trivial fights is behind us.
The House unveiled its Obamacare replacement, the American Health Care Act, late Monday. It has already gone through committee markups and advanced through key panels as Republicans rush to meet an April deadline to enact the first phase of Trumps three-pronged plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. But it faces opposition from both moderate and far-right Republicans over objections to the elimination of the laws Medicaid expansion and a proposal to replace insurance subsidies with tax credits.
The GOP replacement, Trump asserted during his meeting with committee chairmen, is what the American people want.
They want repeal and replace, he said, warning that as bad as [Obamacare] is now, itll get even worse if Republicans dont repeal and replace it.
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There is one issue the Trump administration refused to let Obama take credit for on Friday, though: the jobs report. The economy added 235,000 jobs in February, and unemployment has dropped to 4.7 percent.
Candidate Trump, however, had claimed the Labor Department figures were phony in 2016, surmising with no evidence that they were actually as high as 42 percent.
I talked to the president prior to this and he said to quote him very clearly, Spicer told reporters Friday. They may have been phony in the past, but its very real now.
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Obama is Trump's go-to scapegoat for White House woes - Politico