John McCain’s opposition and the failure of “skinny repeal”
As the bill moved to the Senate for consideration, a number of opinion polls indicated that it was deeply unpopular with the public. Agitated protest over the proposed changes to Obamacare greeted members of Congress when they met with constituents during legislative breaks. Under the direction of majority leader McConnell, the Republican leadership crafted a Senate version of the bill behind closed doors. When the Senate version emerged, retitled the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) of 2017, it took an approach similar to that of the House bill, though it called for earlier and more substantial cuts to Medicaid funding. Meeting with opposition from both hard-line conservative and moderate Republican senators, the BCRA lacked the support necessary to obtain the quick passage McConnell had sought before the congressional recess for the July 4 holiday, and a vote on it was delayed.
When a more modest version of the Senate bill, branded “skinny repeal,” resurfaced at the end of the month, it maintained most of the tax increases that had funded the PPACA, but it allowed states to opt out of pivotal consumer protections such as forbidding insurers from charging higher rates for preexisting conditions. With Democrats in lockstep opposition, the bill failed 51–49 when John McCain returned to the Senate from his battle with brain cancer to join fellow Republican senators Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) in turning thumbs down in a dramatic post-midnight vote. In September McCain—who had come to believe that health care reform required a circumspect bipartisan approach—joined Murkowski, Collins, and Rand Paul in opposing last-ditch repeal legislation offered by Republican Senators Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) and Bill Cassidy (Louisiana). This time McCain’s opposition was less because of objections to the bill’s substance than to the effort to ramrod it through Congress. By February 2018 the Republican congressional leadership had resigned itself to its inability to pass legislation to comprehensively repeal Obamacare, though removal of the “mandate” (the penalty for failing to purchase health insurance) would be part of the sweeping tax reform passed later in the year. Moreover, the Trump administration shifted its attack on the PPACA to support for the lawsuit filed by some 20 states that sought to overturn all provisions of the act on legal grounds.
Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, the air strike on Syria, and threatening Kim Jong-Un with “fire and fury”
Another objective high on the list of Republican priorities during the 2016 election, the selection of a judicial conservative to replace Scalia on the Supreme Court, was accomplished in April with the Senate’s confirmation of Trump’s nominee, Neil Gorsuch. Democrats attempted to employ a filibuster to block Gorsuch’s appointment, but the Republican majority changed the Senate rules to remove the 60-vote minimum required to terminate debate and proceeded to a confirmation vote. In the event, Gorsuch was confirmed by a 54–45 vote that went largely along party lines.
In the meantime, several high-profile foreign policy issues heated up. On April 6, 2017, responding to a chemical weapons attack by the government of Bashar al-Assad that killed some 80 Syrian civilians, Trump ordered an air strike on the Syrian air base at which the chemical attack had originated. Nearly five dozen Tomahawk missiles were launched against the air base from warships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The attack increased the already high tensions between the United States and Russia, which supported the Assad government.
Elsewhere, the regime of Kim Jong-Un in North Korea stepped up its aggressive development of missile-launched nuclear weapons. Departing from the Obama administration’s policy of “strategic patience,” which sought to use sanctions and political isolation to make an impact on North Korean behaviour, Trump attempted to persuade China, which was broadly engaged with North Korea, to use its influence to restrain Kim Jong-Un. At the same time, Trump issued sabre-rattling warnings to Kim Jong-Un while U.S. and South Korean forces undertook joint military exercises as a show of strength. A defiant North Korea responded in early July with its first successful launch test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, which was interpreted by experts as having a range capable of reaching Alaska. On August 8 Trump warned North Korea not to make any more threats to the United States, promising that threats would be met with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
Violence in Charlottesville, the dismissal of Steve Bannon, the resignation of Michael Flynn, and the investigation of possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign
Later in August a firestorm of criticism met Trump’s response to a demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, by members of the so-called alt-right (a loose association of white nationalists, white supremacists, extreme libertarians, and neo-Nazis) that erupted in violence, resulting in the death of a counterdemonstrator. After initially laying blame for the violence on “many sides,” Trump was compelled to more strongly condemn white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, and neo-Nazis. In impromptu public remarks, Trump then reversed his stance, not only agreeing with the protestors’ opposition to the removal of a statue of Confederate icon Robert E. Lee but also stating his belief that there had been “some very fine people” among the white nationalist protestors, remarks that further escalated the condemnation of his response to the incident as racially divisive.
The events in Charlottesville dovetailed with Trump’s dismissal in August of his chief political strategist, Steve Bannon, an anti-globalist populist who had helped engineer Trump’s election, first at the helm of Breitbart News, which provided a platform for the alt-right, and then as the executive director of Trump’s campaign. Bannon had clashed with other members of Trump’s inner circle and belittled them in remarks made that month in a phone conversation with the coeditor of the liberal publication The American Prospect.
All the events of the first portion of the Trump presidency unfolded in a widespread environment of concern over Russian tampering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election and against the backdrop of investigations into the possible connections between Russian officials and operatives and members of the Trump campaign and the Trump administration. Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, was forced to resign in February, having lied to Vice President Pence regarding the nature of Flynn’s telephone conversation in December 2016 with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. Some two weeks before his resignation, the White House had been warned of the Department of Justice’s belief that Flynn was vulnerable to blackmail by Russia. That concern had arisen as a result of the FBI’s examination of the communications between Flynn and Kislyak that had come to the agency’s attention through routine monitoring of the ambassador’s communications.