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Except, not really.

Here's what we actually know about attempts to resuscitate the health care law that failed to even make it to a floor vote in the GOP-controlled House last month:

2. The changes being discussed involve the curtailing or, at the least, re-jiggering of one of the most popular elements of Obamacare: Prohibiting insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions.

3. Outside of a very small group of negotiators, the new and improved bill is a mystery to members of Congress who are expected to be briefed on it over the weekend.

4. Congress must pass a government funding bill next week or watch the government shut down -- a result that would be a catastrophe for Republicans in power.

None -- and I mean NONE -- of those things would lead me or any veteran Congress-watcher to conclude that Trump's optimism about the "really, really good" plan that that "people are liking" a lot is based in anything close to political reality.

I get what Trump is up to here. He's trying to fake it until he makes it. If I say the bill is getting way better and that lots of people like it, I'll create a self-fulfilling prophecy and build some actual momentum for the legislation when Congress comes back next week.

It's not the worst strategy and it's born, of course, from Trump's experience as a developer and reality TV star. Create your own reality and then exert pressure to bend other people to believe it. And, if it doesn't work, declare victory and move on.

The problem for Trump is that Congress doesn't work like a business you are the boss of or a reality TV show that, um, you are the boss of. The House is essentially comprised of 435 small businessmen and women, all of whom view themselves as the boss of their own fiefdoms.

Faking it until you make it doesn't work on this crowd. Especially when, like Trump, your approval ratings are mired in the low 40s -- and are even lower in many of the country's swing districts where Republicans need to win to hold onto their House majority in 2018.

Trump simply lacks the political leverage at the moment to turn his happy talk into actual results. No member of Congress worried about their chances of winning next November is going to take a rushed vote on a health care bill they have barely even seen but that fiddles with the pre-existing condition clause -- or any of the other popular elements of Obamacare.

Trump may declare victory no matter what happens in Congress next week. But that won't change the fact that simply saying the health care bill is "better and better and better" doesn't make it true.

Excerpt from:
Donald Trump's 'fake it until you make it' strategy on healthcare won't work - CNN

Donald Trumps chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, pocketed somewhere between $47 million and $235 million by selling his Goldman Sachs stock earlier this year.

The sum was massively fattened as a result of the Goldman Sachs GS, -0.55% stock boom that has followed Trumps election victory.

And it also included somewhere between $4.5 million and $22.5 million that Cohn, the investment banks former president, saved by cashing out just before Goldmans recent stumble.

You can file this under Swamp, Draining of.

Oh, yeah, and Cohn also saved millions more, thanks to a massive tax break, courtesy of his new job at the Trump administration.

Thats Donald Trump for you. Making America Great Again, one Wall Street millionaire at a time.

Government documents

Documents provided to MarketWatch by the federal governments Office of Government Ethics show that Cohn sold his stock between January and March of this year, in a series of transactions, at an estimated average price of $240.

That represented a huge gain in the stock price since Trumps election victory. Early last November, when the stock market expected Hillary Clinton to win, Goldman traded for just $180.

Read: Should Wall Street fear a government shutdown? Heres how stocks fared during past closures

By amazing good fortune, Cohn also managed to cash out just before Goldmans recent stumble, which has taken the shares down to $218.

Nice work.

We dont know the exact figures, incidentally, because the government documents provide only ranges for the value of each transaction.

Lucky man

Cohn is presumably the beneficiary of good fortune, and not of anything nefarious. He sold because he was required to when he joined the administration. The transactions would presumably have been handled by his brokers.

But, as they like to say, its better to be lucky than to be good.

And if you think this is the end to Cohns luck, think again.

Joining the Trump administration is turning into some of the smartest financial planning in history.

When Cohn took the job, the Goldman Sachs board gave him a big, fat, sloppy golden goodbye on the way out the door, and accelerated his future stock and option awards.

And when he sold the stock, he got a wonderful, glorious tax break on his capital gains.

An ordinary schmuck cashing out his company stock would have to hand over 20% of the long-term gains, and up to 43.6% on any short-term.

Cohn? Er ... zero percent.

No kidding.

Tax break for the rich

A special break, available to rich people picked to join the government, lets them cash out and defer their capital gains taxes ... well, possibly forever. All they have to do is sell their stock to avoid conflicts of interest and then invest the proceeds in diversified funds.

In other words, it lets them convert a risky, concentrated portfolio into a more stable, diversified one without having to pay any of those icky taxes first.

Those, as we all know, are for the little people.

Yes, Cohn has to pay income taxes on those parts of his rewards deemed income. And he, or his heirs, will eventually have to pay taxes on capital gains when, or if, these diversified funds are sold.

Taxes will also be owed when their kids and grandkids inherit the fortune unless the Republican Party succeeds in abolishing inheritance tax, as it says it wants to.

Deja vu

Wall Street tycoons, incidentally, have begun a sly misinformation campaign to persuade you that this tax deferral is really no break at all, because taxes have to be paid eventually. Sure. Try telling the IRS you dont want to pay your taxes until some distant day in the future, possibly after youre dead, and see what they say.

Gary Cohns windfall recalls a previous Goldman honcho. Hank Paulson was able to cash out his entire stake in the bank just before the financial crisis when he joined the Bush administration as Treasury secretary. Once in office, by an amazing coincidence, his actions just happened to help the bank.

Some people say history doesnt repeat itself, it rhymes. Phooey. When it comes to money and politics, I say it repeats itself. Tell me Im wrong.

Here is the original post:
Opinion: A rich Gary Cohn got even richer by working for Donald Trump - MarketWatch

"I call it political chemotherapy. One of my friends who I always thought was very smart said, Mark, I voted for politicians my entire life. He's in his 50s. Do you know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over expecting (sic) the same results. So I voted for Donald Trump. Is he poisonous in a lot of respects? Yeah. He's our chemotherapy. We hope he's going to change the political system."

"Political chemotherapy." That is a brilliant way to think about Trump.

Here's why: It was clear that even as Donald Trump swept to an electoral college victory on November 8, there were lots and lots of doubts about him even among those who voted for him.

How could Trump have possibly won given that people didn't like or trust him to be president? Again, the exit poll tells the story. Thirty nine percent of voters said the most important character trait for a candidate was that he or she "can bring change"; Trump won that group 82% to 14%.

People knew Trump wasn't ready for the job. That he might do the job poorly. And they didn't care. Or, more accurately, they cared more about sending someone different to Washington than they did about who that person was and what damage he might do.

To extrapolate from Cuban's metaphor: Voters believed that politics was so sick that the only treatment left to fix it was also one that had the potential to kill it.

What's not clear -- at least to me -- is how Trump's version of political chemotherapy is affecting the body politic. His approval ratings are lower than any modern president at this time in a presidential term. Our divisions seem more cemented, not less so. He continues to stretch the bounds of truth and political propriety.

It's possible of course that the patient will get sicker because of this treatment before he/she begins to recover. It's too soon to know that.

But what's for sure is that Trump's "political chemotherapy" is producing some very, very concerning results at the moment.

Originally posted here:
Mark Cuban just coined a brilliant term to describe Donald Trump - CNN

During his campaign, Trump repeatedly blasted China as the root of American economic problems. We cant continue to allow China to rape our country, he once said.

All of that is out the window now, as Trump has been trying desperately to enlist Chinese assistance in getting Kim to curtail his nuclear ambitions.

The latest episode of North Korean grandstanding involves its repeated attempts to test long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and to develop said weapons for itself. The situation has essentially led President Donald Trump to reverse pretty much all of his tough rhetoric against the government of China, the only real ally of consequence that Kim has in the world.

China is very much the economic lifeline to North Korea so, while nothing is easy, if they want to solve the North Korean problem, they will, Trump tweeted on Friday, the second day that he has been hostingXi Jinping, the Chinese ruler at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Getting China to put pressure on Kim has required Trump to go back on some of the things hed promised to do on the campaign trail. Among them was a vow to take steps against China for keeping its current too low in the international monetary market.

This month, Trump reversed himself and explicitly said that it was because he was trying to get China to get North Korea to back off:

Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem? he tweeted on April 16. We will see what happens!

Trumps softer tone toward China and North Korea is also a reversal of sorts. Earlier in the month, the administration has also issued vague threats that America would be willing to do something against North Korea on its own.

Well, if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will, Trump saidin an April 3interview with the Financial Times. He didnt specify just what that would entail.

Im not going to tell you, he said when asked about possible strategies.

You know, I am not the United States of the past where we tell you where we are going to hit in the Middle East. Where they say I used it in the speeches We will be attacking Mosul in four months. A month later, We will be attacking Mosul in three months, in two months, in one month. And why are they talking? There is no reason to talk.

Just a few days ago, Vice President Mike Pence was dispatched to the North/South Korean border to essentially challenge Kim. He echoed those sentiments in a Washington Post interview on Wednesday.

I think the path of negotiations with North Korea has been a colossal failure now for more than 25 years, Pence said.

Should some sort of hostilities break out, theres no doubt that the recent chorus of hawkish fans that Trump suddenly accrued when he launched missile strakes against Syria would almost certain approve.

I am like the happiest dude in America right now, Sen. Lindsey Graham proclaimed in an April 19 interview with Fox & Friends.

I am all in. Keep it up, Donald, Graham added. Im sure youre watching.

Read more here:
Donald Trump keeps changing his mind on who's responsible for dealing with North Korea - Salon

If Donald Trump and Tom Brady are really best friends , Trump has an awkward way of showing it.

During the Patriots' visit to the White House on Wednesday, Trump managed to completely snub Brady by not mentioning the quarterback's name a single time during his 10-minute congratulatory speech to the team.

Now, you could try and argue that maybe Trump didn't do this on purpose, but you'll have a hard time winning that argument. When you're congratulating a team for pulling off the greatest comeback win in Super Bowl history, you almost have to go out of your way not to mention the man who threw for 466 yards, three touchdowns and eventually won the game's MVP award.

Everyone on Twitter seemed to think it was a little weird that Trump didn't mention Brady.

For the record, Trump mentioned players like Marcus Cannon, Malcolm Mitchell and Nate Ebner; however, there was no mention of Brady. If you're thinking that maybe Trump just decided to not mention any of the players who skipped out on the White House visit, that doesn't seem to be the case because Danny Amendola -- who wasn't in attendance -- got a shout-out during the speech.

If Trump did snub Brady on purpose, it's possible that the president was slightly upset at Brady's decision not to attend the White House ceremony . Just hours before the event on Wednesday, Brady announced that he wouldn't be going to the White House due to a "family matter."

Later in the day, Brady gave us clue of what that family matter might be: He shared a picture on Instagram in honor of his parents' 48th wedding anniversary.

Just as a refresher, the Patriots' Super Bowl win was the only game all season where Brady's mom, Galynn, was able to attend.

In the months leading up to the Super Bowl, Galynn had been undergoing chemotherapy and radiation .

It's also within the realm of possibility that Gisele just put her foot down. Back in November, Gisele went on Instagram and said Brady wouldn't be supporting Trump .

Whatever the reason for Brady's absence, Trump's snub might mean that their bromance is finally over.

Anyway, not everyone on the Patriots' roster backed out of the White House visit. For instance, Rob Gronkowski was in Washington D.C., and we know that because he crashed Sean Spicer's press briefing .

Patriots coach Bill Belichick and owner Robert Kraft seemed to have a good time at the event.

Here's Belichick and his girlfriend, Linda Holliday, posing in the oval office with Trump.

One person who definitely won't ever be skipping the White House ceremony is Belichick. The Patriots coach has shown up every year no matter who's in office. As a matter of fact, by meeting Trump, Belichick became the first NFL coach ever to visit with three different presidents following a Super Bowl win.

Belichick ended the ceremony by presenting Trump with his very own Patriots jersey.

That's a pretty nice gift for a guy who left his Super Bowl party early because he thought the Patriots were going to get blown out.

Anyway, Brady wasn't the only one who didn't make the trip to D.C. on Wednesday.

Pretty much half the Patriots' roster decided they had better things to do than meet Trump. If you're keeping score at home, here's a list of everyone who had something better to do:

In all, a total of 34 out of 68 invited players attended the ceremony on Wednesday.

It seems that the team was slightly more enthusiastic about their White House trip after the 2014 season, because a total of 50 players attended the D.C. ceremony while Barack Obama was president.

Link:
Donald Trump doesn't mention Tom Brady in speech during Patriots' White House visit - CBSSports.com