Limbaugh to McConnell on Obamacare Repeal: ‘Where Is the Leadership Effort?’

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Jeff Poor

Wednesday on his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for his failure to repeal Obamacare as Republicans have control of the White House, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.

Limbaugh’s criticism echoed that of President Donald Trump reacting to McConnell’s statement that Trump had “excessive expectations” when it came to the law’s repeal.

Partial transcript as follows (courtesy of RushLimbaugh.com):

LIMBAUGH: Okay. Here’s Senator McConnell. This is in Florence, Kentucky. He was addressing the Rotary Club.

MCCONNELL: I know everybody saying, “You’ve been there, haven’t done anything,” which, uhhhh, I find extremely irritating.

LIMBAUGH: Right.

MCCONNELL: Part of the reason I think that the storyline is that we haven’t done much is because, in part, the president and others have set these early timelines about things need to be done by a certain point. Now, our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before.

LIMBAUGH: Oh, here we go!

MCCONNELL: Part of the reason I think people feel like we’re under — underperforming is because too many kind of artificial deadlines unrelated to the reality or complexity of legislating may not have been fully understood.

LIMBAUGH: There you go. He also said that the expectations were too high. But so you see here, “Well, the president set these early timelines. He’s a new president who has not been in this line of work before. Part of the reason I think people feel that we’re underperforming, too me artificial…” No, no, no. Senator, it doesn’t matter that Trump is president. It doesn’t matter! For seven years, Republicans everywhere have been promising — except for Kasich (snorts) — to repeal and replace Obamacare. And with every election victory, another excuse was offered.

When you get the House back? “Well, we can’t really do it ’til we get the Senate.” (chuckling) So Republican voters gave you the Senate, and then after that the excuse was, “Well, Obama’s still gonna veto it. We really can’t do anything.” We started getting the idea you don’t want to replace Obamacare. You don’t want to repeal it or replace it because the excuses for not doing so were rapid fire. I mean, it didn’t take long after each victory for another excuse to be launched.

“Well, we need the Senate.”

Gave you the Senate.

“Weeeeell, we don’t have the White House.”

Gave you the White House.

Now it’s, “We don’t have 60 votes in the Senate.”

It’s nothing to do with artificial timelines or the president not being in this line of work. I don’t know how this is gonna fly. I don’t know how the Rotary Club in Florence, Kentucky, took this. But I’ll tell you, I’ve had a thought. As I said, I know Senator McConnell and I’ve spoken to him. He’s been very helpful over the course of recent years. There have been phone calls not on the air, but about legislation, about Senate procedure and so forth. He’s been educational in that regard. But I’ll tell you, something I can’t overlook.

You talk about Senate procedure?

You talk about leadership?

Okay, we’ve got Collins and Murkowski. Where is the effort to turn them? Where is the effort to go get…? Okay, if you’ve got 52 Republicans and, say, six of them are not really on board with the other 46, where’s the leadership effort to go to them and do what you can to get ’em on team, get ’em on board? Or do you just sit there, “Well, Collins, she’s never going to vote for it. No way.” Why have leadership? Maybe there are efforts to turn them; I don’t know. But it just doesn’t seem like there are. I mean, when you boil it all down, it just seems inescapable that the Senate and the House majority do not want to repeal Obamacare. That’s what’s obvious.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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