Although it hasn’t made much news outside of Washington, two Republican
senators—Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Bill Cassidy, of
Louisiana—have lately been busy putting together yet another piece of
draft legislation that would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
Earlier this week, John McCain, who helped to torpedo the previous G.O.P. repeal effort, back in July, indicated that he might support the
Cassidy-Graham bill. Some influential Democrats were getting very
concerned. “In my view, no one no one should think a partisan ACA repeal
isn’t potentially very real,” Andy Slavitt, who helped oversee
implementation of the A.C.A. during the latter years of the Obama
Administration, warned on Wednesday.

But then Donald Trump intervened. On Friday morning, as Hurricane Irma continued on its path of devastation toward South Florida, the Cable-News-Watcher-in-Chief carved a bit of time out of his viewing
schedule to take a fresh dig, via Twitter, at his Republican colleagues
in Congress. “Republicans, sorry, but I’ve been hearing about Repeal &
Replace for 7 years, didn’t happen!” he wrote in a pair of tweets. “Even
worse, the Senate Filibuster Rule will . . . never allow the Republicans
to pass even great legislation. 8 Dems control – will rarely get 60 (vs.
51) votes. It is a Repub Death Wish!” In a third tweet, Trump added,
“Republicans must start the Tax Reform/Tax Cut legislation ASAP. Don’t
wait until the end of September. Needed now more than ever. Hurry!”

While this little barrage didn’t amount to an explicit instruction for
Cassidy, Graham, and other Republicans to give up on their repeal
crusade, it came close. Conservative commentators, who are still
digesting Trump’s recent entreaties to the Democrats, interpreted it that way. “I have a hard time reading this as anything other than ‘Guys,
you’ll never repeal Obamacare and the fact that you keep trying and
failing is making you look bad. It’s over,’ ” Ben Howe wrote, at Red State. Howe went on, “It’s looking more and more like the next few years
may very well be a Republican president enacting a Democrat agenda
without Republican input.”

That was taking things way too far. The White House and the Treasury
Department are still working closely with Hill Republicans on the
tax-reform proposal that Trump wants Congress to concentrate on. As I noted on Thursday, the bill they produce will almost certainly be highly
partisan, highly regressive—more goodies for rich people and
corporations—and highly toxic to Democrats. And, even if Trump has given
up on Congress repealing the A.C.A., his Administration is still
actively undermining it in other ways. On Thursday, Vox’s Sarah Kliff reported that federal funding for Obamacare outreach groups, which
encourage vulnerable people to sign up for private insurance or
Medicaid, ran out last weekend and has yet to be renewed by the
Administration.

Practically all across the federal government, Trump appointees are
pursuing a conservative agenda that came straight out of right-wing
think tanks. Take labor regulation: since January, the federal
government has backed away from a rule mandating the payment of overtime
rates, slashed funding for research into occupational safety, sought to
make it harder for workers to sue their employers, and relaxed federal
guidelines on when workers in the gig economy should be considered
full-time employees. Behind the Trump Administration’s blustery façade,
there remains a concerted effort to roll back many of the rules and
regulations that were put in place over the past four or five decades.
Until, and unless, this changes, any suggestion of Trump pivoting to the
Democrats is misleading.

That doesn’t rule out, however, that Trump and Democratic leaders might
coöperate on specific issues where they have mutual interests, such as
immigration, infrastructure spending, and getting rid of the debt
ceiling altogether. The latter possibility came up during the
President’s meetings with “Chuck and Nancy” earlier this week. Indeed, the Washington Post reported that Trump and Schumer reached a
“gentleman’s agreement” to work on eliminating the ceiling.

How far will this rapprochement go? Nobody knows. And, to repeat myself,
some healthy skepticism is in order. But Trump’s words and actions this
week have spooked many Republicans, especially conservative House
Republicans. Also on Friday, ninety of them voted against a bill that
emerged from the Oval Office deal with Pelosi and Schumer. It included a
substantial relief package for areas affected by Hurricane Harvey, and a temporary raise in the debt ceiling with no spending restraints attached
to it. (The bill passed easily, despite the no votes.) “It’s kind of
like: Where am I right now? What is going on?” Ryan Costello, a
Pennsylvania Republican who voted for the bill, told the Wall Street
Journal. “If it wasn’t so serious, it would be kind of funny.”