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‘Time to Move On’: Senate G.O.P. Flouts Trump After Health Care Defeat - The New York Times

posted onAugust 2, 2017
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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are not pretending to have missed the tweets anymore. They have abandoned well-worn phrases, like “growing pains” and “sea legs,” that sustained them through the endless winter and spring. And if a few months ago President Trump’s scattershot demands might have sent the chamber into a lather, compelling lawmakers to honor his megaphone, the collective shrugs at his rage over last week’s failed health care repeal vote have signaled a new phase in this shotgun marriage of unified Republican rule. Congressional fear is low. Eyes are rolling with greater velocity. Executive instructions on how to proceed are being ignored as a matter of course. “We’ve got other things to do,” Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said after Mr. Trump insisted that the party refuse to take up other issues with the repeal pledge unfulfilled. “It’s time to move on,” Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, said as Mr. Trump and Mick Mulvaney, the budget director, said that no other votes should be held until lawmakers try again on health care. “I don’t think he’s got much experience in the Senate, as I recall,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said of Mr. Mulvaney, tweaking a former House member. “And he’s got a big job. He ought to do that job and let us do our job.” The Senate has planned non-health care votes all week on the president’s own nominees. After subsisting around the edges of criticism throughout Mr. Trump’s tenure so fa... Link to the full article to read more

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