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(WASHINGTON) It was a platform most politicians can only hope for: A captivated, 6,000-person crowd and more than an hour of live, prime-time television coverage to hype the Republican vision for a new health care system.

But when President Donald Trump got around to talking about the Republican plan about 15 minutes into his speech he was wildly off message. Instead of preaching party lines about getting the government out of Americans' health decisions and cutting costs, he declared: "Add some money to it!"

The moment captured a major dilemma for Republicans as they look for ways to jumpstart their stalled health care overhaul. A master salesman, Trump has an inimitable ability to command attention, and that could be used to bolster Americans' support for Republican efforts and ramp up pressure on wavering lawmakers. But some lawmakers and congressional aides privately bemoan his thin grasp of the bill's principles, and worry that his difficulty staying on message will do more harm than good.

"You know, he's very personable and people like talking to him and he's very embracing of that, so there will be certain people he'd like to talk to," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. "But I'd let Mitch handle it," he continued, referring to the lead role Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has played thus far.

McConnell delayed a vote on the health legislation this week after it became clear he couldn't muster enough Republican support to offset the unanimous opposition from Democrats. GOP leaders are now hoping to pass a bill in the Senate and reconcile it with an earlier version approved by the House before lawmakers head home for their August recess.

Trump has largely ceded the details to McConnell, deferring to the Kentucky lawmaker's legislative expertise. He has spent some time talking privately to wavering senators, including Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, testing his powers of persuasion. But he's invested no significant effort in selling the American people on the impact the Republican bill would have on their health care coverage, beyond making sweeping declarations about how wonderful he expects it to be.

"We're looking at a health care that will be a fantastic tribute to your country," Trump said during a White House event Wednesday. "A health care that will take care of people finally for the right reasons and also at the right cost."

His approach is a contrast to former President Barack Obama, who delivered an address to Congress on health care and held town halls around the country about the Democrats' legislation in 2009. The Obamacare measure barely cleared Congress and became a rallying cry for Republicans, something Obama blamed in part on a failure by his party to communicate its virtues clearly to the public.

At times, even Trump's largely generic health care commentary has left Republicans fuming. Some lawmakers were particularly irked by Trump's assertion that the House bill which he robustly supported and even celebrated with a Rose Garden ceremony was "mean."

One Republican congressional aide said that comment left some lawmakers worried that the president who had no real ties to the GOP before running for the White House could turn on them if a bill passes but the follow-up becomes politically damaging. The official insisted on anonymity in order to describe private discussions.

Newt Gingrich, the former GOP House speaker and a close Trump ally, said Republicans have struggled to communicate about the complexities of health care policy because "nobody has served as a translator." He said Trump is well-positioned to take the lead, but acknowledged that the real estate mogul-turned-politician would need some help from policy experts in formulating a sales pitch.

"Trump will be able to repeat it with enormous effectiveness once somebody translates it," Gingrich said.

The White House disputes that Trump isn't steeped in the details of the Obamacare repeal efforts. Economic adviser Gary Cohn and other officials on the National Economic Council have convened several meetings with him to explain differences between the House and Senate bills. One senior White House official described the president as "fully engaged" in the process.

During a private meeting Tuesday with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who is strongly opposed to the current Senate bill, Trump said his priority was to increase the number of insurance choices available to consumers and lower monthly premiums, according to an administration official with direct knowledge of the discussion. The official said the president also specifically highlighted the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's projection that average premiums would be 30 percent lower in 2020 if the Senate bill took effect.

To some Trump allies, more public engagement on a substantive policy debate like the future of the nation's health care system would also be a welcome reprieve for a president whose approval ratings have tumbled amid the snowballing investigations into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia.

"I think his numbers would go up if he had a couple of addresses," said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign adviser. "If he communicates directly with the American people, he cuts through the noise."

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Republicans Aren't Sure President Trump Is the Best Person to Sell Health Care - TIME

But it's unclear if that will win him any love from either side.

Democrats who fear he'll flip his vote at the last minute are still attacking him. President Donald Trump's allies are attempting to turn him into an example of the political cost of abandoning his own party's White House, launching television ads targeting Heller on Tuesday. They later backed down after Heller and other GOP senators complained.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's decision to delay the health care vote until after the July 4 recess means Heller will still be viewed by both sides as a potentially dividing vote -- ensuring that the pressure won't subside anytime soon.

Local Republicans, meanwhile, smell blood in the water and are weighing whether to take on Heller -- the only Senate Republican up for re-election in the 2018 midterms in a state that Hillary Clinton won -- in the primary.

Danny Tarkanian, the son of the legendary UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, is considering a run against Heller in Nevada's Republican primary.

"A lot of people are looking to find somebody to run against Heller, so there's a lot of chatter out there," Tarkanian told CNN.

Tarkanian has run for office unsuccessfully five times in recent years in Nevada. But he has won Republican primaries four of those five times and would enter the race as an already widely known figure. He initially wanted a rematch with Rep. Jacky Rosen, who won their head-to-head House race last fall. But when news broke last week that Rosen was set to challenge Heller, that "changed everything," Tarkanian said.

He said he is "probably going to end up" running again for the House seat -- but is "not closing the door on anything."

Heller's critics in Nevada argue he could suffer from the same fate as Rep. Joe Heck in his 2016 Senate race against Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto. Heck criticized Trump in October, weeks before the election, only to back away from that criticism later once it became clear he was at risk of alienating Trump's core supporters. Heck narrowly lost the race.

Wayne Allyn Root, a conservative talk radio host, said during a radio interview Sunday he had received more than a dozen emails urging him to run against Heller in the primary -- though he said he didn't have time for such a run.

"He needs to be primaried. We can't take him anymore," he said.

Heller's office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The political pressure being heaped on Heller comes after a Friday news conference alongside the popular Republican governor Brian Sandoval, during which Sandoval railed against the Senate GOP health care bill, saying it would harm the 210,000 Nevadans who gained health insurance through Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid.

Sandoval provided political cover for Heller that could ease the nerves of moderates in Nevada -- if not in Washington.

But Heller was already endangered headed into the 2018 midterm elections. In 2012, Heller won less than 46% of the vote in a razor-thin Senate race. Headed into 2018, Democrats have identified him as their best pickup opportunity on an otherwise challenging map.

Heller is still facing attacks from Senate Democrats' campaign arm, Emily's List and other progressive organizations that say they do not trust him to maintain the opposition to the health care bill.

The pro-Trump super PAC America First Policies launched digital advertisements against Heller over the weekend and said it would spend a total of $1.3 million on a campaign that included television and radio ads attacking his position. In the end, it pulled the ad buy, but not before repeatedly hitting Heller for his actions.

The 30-second narrated television ad depicted Trump and Heller -- and does not mince words: "Call Senator Heller. Tell him America needs him to keep his promise: Vote 'yes' to repeal and replace Obamacare."

The Trump-aligned super PAC's decision to wade into the race -- a move that started over the weekend with a digital ad saying Heller is "now with Nancy Pelosi," a hated figure among conservatives -- crystalized the tightrope Heller must walk headed into his re-election bid.

The decision to aggressively target Heller appeared to mark a major tactical difference between Trump's allies and Senate Republican leadership.

McConnell called White House chief of staff Reince Priebus over the weekend to express his displeasure, a source familiar with the call told CNN Tuesday.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican, told CNN's Manu Raju, "I think the more constructive thing for me to do is to continue to talk to my friend and colleague and convince him that this bill is not perfect, but it is much better than the status quo and it is also much better than a meltdown of the Obamacare exchanges, which will put million of people at risk."

Read more:
Sharks circle around Republican Sen. Heller in Nevada - CNN

As every publication and individual person who has been following this story also simultaneously noted/realized, GOP House leaders famously canceled a planned health care vote earlier this year before passing a slightly modified version of their bill about a month later. So this does not mean that the Obamacare replacement effort is dead. It does, however, seemingly mean that the objections that many Republican senators raised to their chamber's billespecially after its CBO score was released Mondaywere not just empty posturing. (As Nate Silver notes, a GOP health bill was going to always be more difficult to pass in the Senate than in the House because the party holds a smaller majority in the upper chamber.)

For the bill's opponents, the delay means a chance to exert more pressure on vulnerable Republican moderates, who will (presumably) be returning to their states to march in parades and whatnot over the Fourth of July holiday. On the other hand, as Politico reported, Monday's CBO score also indicated that the bill would be $188 billion cheaper than Republicans had planned forwhich in practice means that the party's leaders now have $188 billion to give out to placate wavering members.

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Republican Senate Leaders Will Delay Vote on Health Care Bill That Everyone Hates - Slate Magazine (blog)

East Room

4:08 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I thought I'd ask you folks to come say hello, and we'll discuss healthcare. We have really no choice but to solve this situation. Obamacare is a total disaster.

It's melting down as we speak. Rates are going up. In fact, it's very interesting, Lisa, that you're sitting next to me because, in Alaska, it was 206 percent -- a 206 percent increase in Alaska. And I used to use Arizona as the standard; that was 116 percent. So it's really meltdown, and we're going to try and solve the problem.

So I invited all of you, and I think we have either 52 out of 52, or 50 out of 52. And John, either one is pretty good, I think, as a percentage.

So we're going to talk and we're going to see what we can do. We're getting very close. But for the country, we have to have healthcare. And it can't be Obamacare, which is melting down. The other side is saying all sorts of things before they even knew what the bill was. This will be great if we get it done. And if we don't get it done, it's just going to be something that we're not going to like. And that's okay, and I understand that very well.

But I think we have a chance to do something very, very important for the public -- very, very important for the people of our country that we love.

So I'll ask the press to leave. I greatly appreciate you folks being here. We love you very much. You're very kind and very understanding. (Laughter.) But we will now ask you to leave. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

Q Mr. President, what do you think of the Senate bill?

THE PRESIDENT: I think the Senate bill is going to be great. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Such an understanding lot.

END 4:10 P.M. EDT

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Remarks by President Trump at a Meeting with Republican Senators - The White House (blog)

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he had picked an employment lawyer who has represented companies and business groups for a vacancy on the National Labor Relations Board.

The selection of William Emanuel, 75, to fill one of the two vacancies at the agency brings it closer to having a Republican majority, which is expected to undo a series of recent decisions seen as favoring unions.

The five-member NLRB oversees union elections and disputes between workers, unions, and employers.

Emanuel, a Los Angeles-based partner at law firm Littler Mendelson, has worked with Republicans in Congress and major trade groups from an array of industries, and has for decades defended employers in cases before the board.

He is a member of the conservative Federalist Society, an influential group of lawyers credited with pushing Trump to nominate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch to the high court.

Emanuel said in a statement that it is an honor to be nominated.

Industry groups such as the National Retail Federation and the National Restaurant Association hailed Emanuel's nomination, saying he would help repair damage done to businesses by rulings from the NLRB during the Barack Obama administration.

Trump last week said he intended to nominate fellow Republican Marvin Kaplan, a lawyer with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, to another vacancy on the board. The positions require confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

The NLRB has been controlled by Democrats for nearly a decade and they currently have a 2-1 majority.

When it has no vacancies, the board typically includes three members from the president's party and two from the opposing party. Under Trump, lawyers and business groups expect the board to roll back a series of policy changes adopted during the administration of former President Barack Obama.

They include rules designed to speed the union election process and a 2015 decision that made it easier for companies to be held liable for legal violations by contractors, staffing agencies, and franchisees.

It was not clear when the Senate could vote on Trump's nominees but several lawyers and other experts said the process could stretch into the fall.

Kaplan previously worked for Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives crafting employment-related legislation.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Bill Trott)

WASHINGTON Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, on Tuesday appeared before the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, which has begun interviewing witnesses in its probe of how Russia may have influenced the 2016 election.

BEIJING Newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad said on Wednesday the United States would like to see Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist Liu Xiaobo treated elsewhere for cancer, and that the two countries must work together on human rights.

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Trump pushes US labor board toward Republican control - Reuters