Health Care Poses A Test Of Trump's Work With The Senate

Trump's team also failed to score major wins in last month's wrap-up spending bill, as lawmakers blocked funding for his border wall, leading the president to lash out on Twitter and ponder vetoing the measure. After a shaky start, the White House hopes the Senate debate will allow Trump to turn the page on health care and get a fresh start on rewriting the tax code, a plan to rebuild roads and bridges, and his promise to strengthen the military — none of which will prove easy to accomplish. On taxes, a working group of four top lawmakers is meeting weekly in hopes of coming up with a unified GOP tax plan for a vote this fall. While health care is still unfinished, Trump took pride on Friday in signing a bill to make it easier to fire workers at the much-criticized Department of Veterans Affairs. House GOP leaders say Trump was a big asset in getting the health care bill passed, despite a fight with the hard-right Freedom Caucus that stalled the measure. When Trump suggested on Twitter in late May that Republicans should change the Senate rules to a simple majority vote to speed up the process, McConnell told the president to leave Senate business to him, according to three people familiar with the conversation. Behind the scenes, several members of Trump's team have been active in discussions with Senate leaders, including chief of staff Reince Priebus; legislative director Marc Short; domestic policy chief Andrew Bremberg, who's a former aide to McConnell; Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price; and Seema Verma, who oversees Medicare and Medicaid.