Support But No Urgency for Health Care From Trump

On Thursday morning, after the Senate Republicans unveiled their version of the bill passed last month in the House of Representatives, four conservative senators expressed their opposition to the bill as written (while leaving open the option to eventually support an amended bill). At least publicly, the White House seems to want to let that amendment process play out naturally.

“The president is pleased to see the process moving forward in Congress and he looks forward to seeing a finalized bill on his desk so that we can finally repeal and replace Obamacare before it completely collapses,” deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said to reporters Thursday.

But the White House isn’t a passive player. Administration officials, if not the president himself, engaged with Senate Republicans on the details of the bill before its unveiling and will almost certainly continue doing so during the amendment process.

While Senate leadership, particularly Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is anxious to pass the bill before Congress’s July 4 recess, there was no such public push from the White House.

“I don’t think we’re as focused on the timeline as we are on the final product,” said Sanders. Even if that final product includes cuts to Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion? Republicans have long argued that this expansion, which added lower-middle-class Americans to a program designed for the poor, is a costly and ineffective way to expand coverage. But Trump, nevertheless, pledged during the campaign he would not make cuts to Medicaid.

“I don’t believe that the president has specifically weighed in that it’s right to cut Medicaid,” Sanders said. “The president hasn’t weighed in specifically on any specific measure in this bill and as he said earlier today, this is a negotiation between the House and the Senate, we’re going to play a part in that.”

Trump Says No Comey Tapes

President Trump ended weeks of speculation on Thursday afternoon over the question of whether or not he had recorded his private conversations with former FBI director James Comey. (It was Trump who first suggested that tapes of their White House interactions might exist.)

“With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information,” Trump tweeted, “I have no idea whether there are ‘tapes’ or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings.”

Trump first mentioned the possibility of tapes on May 12, one day after the New York Times reported that Trump had asked Comey in a one-on-one conversation to pledge loyalty to him and to make the FBI “let go” of former national security adviser Mike Flynn, who was under investigation.

“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Trump tweeted then.

Trump’s admission came a day before the June 23 deadline that a House committee had set for the release of any such tapes. During recent weeks, White House officials have repeatedly declined to discuss whether recordings existed, saying only that the president would make a statement about them when he was ready.

Asked several times at the Thursday briefing at the White House, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she had nothing more to add to Trump’s tweet. “I think the president’s statement via Twitter today is extremely clear,” she said. “You guys asked for an answer. He gave you one.” Sanders also said she was “not aware” if there ever were any recordings of Trump’s Oval Office conversations.

Trump’s original tweet on the “tapes” from May has had lasting consequences for the president. According to Comey’s testimony before Congress earlier this month, it was this tweet which prompted the former FBI director to provide his notes of his meeting with Trump to a friend, who then relayed them to the Times. Comey said he did this in the hopes that the Justice Department would appoint a special counsel to investigate Russian influence in the election—which DOJ did shortly thereafter.

So given all that has transpired since then, does Trump regret the suggestion there are “tapes” of his conversation with Comey? “I don’t think so,” said Sanders.

Floating Some Immigration Ideas in Iowa

In his first trip to Iowa since his inauguration, President Trump announced on Wednesday that he would ask Congress to pass legislation banning new immigrants’ access to welfare programs.

“I believe the time has come for new immigration rules which say those seeking admission into our country must be able to support themselves financially and should not use welfare for a period of at least five years,” Trump said at a rally in Cedar Rapids.

What Trump didn’t mention is that such a law already exists. As the Hill reported, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which President Bill Clinton signed in 1996, says that an immigrant is “not eligible for any Federal means-tested public benefit” for five years after entering the country.

While in Iowa, Trump also returned to the idea of equipping a future wall on the Mexican border with solar panels.

“We’re thinking of building the wall as a solar wall. So it creates energy and pays for itself. And this way Mexico will have to pay much less money, and that’s good, right?” he said. “Pretty good imagination, right? My idea.”

In her briefing Thursday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to a question about a solar-powered border wall. “I think it’s something he’s considering, certainly nothing final,” she said. At least one company had previously submitted a proposal to the Department of Homeland Security to equip the wall with solar panels.

A Message from White House Watch

I’ll be on vacation next week and my colleague Andrew Egger will be filling in for me on White House Watch. I’ll be back in the saddle on July 3.