Donald Trump suffered a major legislative reversal on Friday as Republicans were forced to pull their repeal of the Affordable Care Act from the House floor. 
 
 After weeks of contentious negotiations over the American Health Care Act (AHCA), Republicans had to admit defeat as they could not gain sufficient support from their own side for the plan to overhaul US health insurance. 
 
 Why the Republican healthcare bill was doomed: a failed political balancing act Read more 
 
 Speaking afterward in the Oval Office, Trump blamed Democrats for the failure of a bill to repeal the signature achievement of Barack Obama. “If [Democrats] got together with us, and got us a real healthcare bill, I’d be totally OK with that. The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, because they own Obamacare. They 100% own it,” he said. 
 
 Trump refused to bash the House speaker, Paul Ryan, but declined to answer a question about policy changes he would like to see in health reform. Instead, he said he was ready to move on to tax reform, saying: “We’re probably going to start going very strongly on big tax cuts. Tax reform that will be next.” 
 
 He added: “We all learned a lot. We learned a lot about loyalty.” 
 
 
 
 Earlier on Friday, as it became clear that Republican resistance to the bill was hardening, Ryan went to the White House to tell Trump in person that he did not have the votes to pass the bill. 
 
 The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, had insisted the vote would go ahead at 3.30pm ET. “Has the team put everything out there, have we left everything on the field? Absolutely,” he told reporters at his daily briefing. “But at the end of the day this isn’t a dictatorship and we’ve got to expect members to ultimately vote how they will according to what they think.” 
 
 However, Spicer’s imagined 3.30pm deadline slid by, ignored by Republicans on Capitol Hill, and the first reports emerged that Trump had asked for the vote to be pulled. Minutes later House Republicans, short of votes, had withdrawn the health bill. 
 
 At a press conference soon afterward, Ryan admitted: “Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains and, well, we’re feeling those growing pains today. I will not sugarcoat this: this is a disappointing day for us.” 
 
 He said “doing big things is hard” and conceded that after almost a decade of saying no to everything in opposition, the Republicans had failed to come together and agree on something they have opposed for seven years. “We are going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future,” he said. 
 
 Ryan said he had recommended the bill be pulled when he realized the votes were lacking. But he praised Trump’s role in the negotiations, adding: “The president gave his all in this effort; he’s really been fantastic. Still, we’ve got to do better and we will.” 
 
 Asked how Republican members could now go back to their constituents having failed to keep their promise, Ryan replied: “That’s a really good question. I wish I had a better answer for you.” 
 
 
 
 Trump tried to burn down Obamacare. He set his hair on fire instead | Ross Barkan Read more 
 
 Separately, a Washington Post reporter described a call with Trump in which he said the bill would not return any time soon. 
 
 
 
 Ryan also conceded that Republicans would now move on to other priorities – securing the border, rebuilding the military and tax reform. “Now we’re going on to move on with the rest of our agenda because we have big, ambitious plans to improve people’s lives in this country.” 
 
 Although speculation had grown on Friday afternoon that the bill would be pulled, the announcement came as a surprise to Republican members. 
 
 
 
 An emergency meeting of the House Republican Caucus was called shortly before the scheduled vote. As it was announced, the House went to recess, with Democrats shouting in a taunting manner, “Vote, vote, vote”, daring Republicans to bring the bill up. They did not. 
 
 In a short meeting, Ryan announced that the bill was being pulled from the floor in a terse statement to members. 
 
 Many moderates in swing districts were wary of supporting the legislation, which included major cuts to Medicaid and was estimated by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office to lead to 24 million fewer Americans having health insurance over the next 10 years. 
 
 Conservatives also objected to the legislation for keeping too much of the architecture of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), frequently referred to as Obamacare. Although the Republican leadership made a major concession to them on Thursday by removing the federal mandate that health insurance plans cover “essential health benefits” such as maternity care and mental healthcare, this was not enough to win them over. 
 
 As the Nevada Republican Mark Amodei put it, the GOP caucus “didn’t spend a lot talking about a unified Republican vision for what we should do with healthcare in the House”. Paul Gosar, a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, which was instrumental in this setback, pointed a finger at White House staff. 
 
 The result is a major political blow to Paul Ryan, a healthcare policy specialist who led the effort in pushing the AHCA. It also leaves Trump in a vulnerable position. The president ran on a platform of repealing the “disaster” of Obamacare and replacing it with “something terrific”. However, Trump, co-author of The Art of the Deal, failed to accomplish that goal in his first major attempt to negotiate on Capitol Hill. 
 
 Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, called Friday “a great day for our country”, adding: “What happened on the floor was a victory for the American people.” 
 
 
 
 The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said in a statement: “Ultimately, the Trumpcare bill failed because of two traits that have plagued the Trump presidency since he took office: incompetence and broken promises. In my life, I have never seen an administration as incompetent as the one occupying the White House today. 
 
 “They can’t write policy that actually makes sense, they can’t implement the policies they do manage to write, they can’t get their stories straight, and today we’ve learned that they can’t close a deal, and they can’t count votes. 
 
 “So much for The Art of the Deal.” 
 
 Members of the Republican caucus took different lessons from the failure to even bring the AHCA to the vote. 
 
 Louie Gohmert of Texas, an arch-conservative who was opposed to the bill, pointed fingers at House leadership, which he implied had left both rank and file and Trump boxed in with no alternative. 
 
 “The president didn’t really get involved until after they created this bill and he was fighting for it,” Gohmert said. 
 
 Bradley Byrne, a loyal Republican from southern Alabama, expressed his readiness to still vote for the AHCA after it was pulled. He mourned the fact that House Republicans fell just short, in his opinion. “There were 200 plus ... ready to do whatever it takes and ... with that group of people we can do a lot,” said Byrne. He didn’t blame anyone for the setback, praising both Ryan and Trump, who he described as doing a “great job”. 
 
 Republicans wondered whether this doomed any hope of healthcare reform. Gohmert seemed to sympathize with Trump’s desire to move on to tax reform, adding: “If I were president, I wouldn’t deal with healthcare any more, but as a legislator it is a problem and we should pick it back up and do it right.” 
 
 Speaking before the bill was pulled, the North Carolina congressman Mark Walker, chair of the Republican Study Committee, told reporters: “I can’t pretend that this is a win for us. I’m sure our friends on the left, this is a good moment for them. In fact, probably that champagne that wasn’t popped back in November may be utilized this evening.” ||||| poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201703/1681/1155968404_5371823017001_5371796654001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Congress Republicans yank Obamacare repeal bill It's a staggering setback for President Donald Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan. 
 
 Facing a growing rebellion within his own ranks, Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the Republican Obamacare replacement plan from the House floor on Friday just before a scheduled vote. 
 
 The decision is a staggering defeat for Ryan and President Donald Trump in their first attempt to partner on major legislation and fulfill a seven-year Republican promise to repeal Obamacare. And it comes a day after Trump issued an ultimatum to House Republicans to vote for the bill or live with Obamacare. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 GOP lawmakers decided they can, in fact, live with Obamacare, at least for now. 
 
 A Republican leadership aide said Trump and Ryan spoke by phone at 3 p.m. and that the president asked the speaker to pull the bill. Ryan told reporters that his advice to Trump was to cancel the vote. 
 
 But the reality is that Ryan and his leadership team had been bleeding votes all day and were not close to passing the American Health Care Act. The speaker went to the White House and told Trump as much just an hour earlier. 
 
 Republicans were begging Ryan and party leaders to pull the bill to save them from having to vote on an unpopular measure. But Trump badly wanted to move ahead so he would "know who my friends are," he said, according to a Republican lawmaker who met with him. Democrats were unwavering in their opposition, and conservative outside groups despised the bill from the start. 
 
 And while GOP leaders had called Trump "the ulimate closer," he wasn't able to move many votes, especially among hard-line conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus. Trump admitted after the bill was pulled that he was "10 to 15 votes" shy of victory, a stunning margin considering how much effort he and Ryan had put into their lobbying campaign during the last week. 
 
 Ryan also knew, though, that if the bill had come up for a vote, it would have failed by a much larger margin than the whip counts. Once rank-and-file members knew it would fail, they'd reverse course and vote "no" in order to protect themselves politically, which their leaders would bless. That much larger margin of defeat would be an even bigger setback for Trump. In a sense, Ryan protected Trump from his own combative instincts, said GOP insiders. 
 
 "I will not sugarcoat this, this is a disappointing day for us," Ryan said at a press conference following the stunning announcement. "This is a setback, no two ways about it." 
 
 Ryan admitted that the Affordable Care Act, enacted seven years earlier almost to the day, "remains the law of the land... We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future." 
 
 Ryan insisted Trump was not at fault for the failure. 
 
 "The president gave his all in this effort," Ryan added. "He's been fantastic." 
 
 The Freedom Caucus — the group that took down Speaker John Boehner — remained unwilling to compromise with Trump and Ryan, believing that their bill didn't do nearly enough to unwind Obamacare. 
 
 "Some of the members of that caucus were voting with us, but not enough were," Ryan said. "I met with their chairman today, and he made it clear that the votes weren't going to be there from their team. And that was sufficient to provide the balance of votes to have this not pass." 
 
 Democrats, for their part, were doing cartwheels in the Capitol. They've bloodied Trump, bashed Ryan, and showed that even in a GOP-run Washington, they still matter big time. 
 
 “Today is a great day for our country," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "It's a victory. What happened on the floor is a victory for the American people — for our seniors, for people with disabilities, for our children, for our veterans." 
 
 On the other side of the aisle, the internal GOP finger-pointing has already begun, showing the long-term damage inside the Republican Conference from this fight. 
 
 Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), who helped craft the Republican health care legislation, was livid after the decision to pull the bill. 
 
 "The architects of Obamacare, they own this damn thing," the Texas Republican said. "There were people who were not interested in solving the problem. They win today." 
 
 Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), a member of the Freedom Caucus, said the bill's demise was a "good day for America." 
 
 Despite Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows' central role in defeating the bill and thus leaving Obamacare as the law of the land, the North Carolina Republican insisted he still wanted to repeal the Democratic health care law. 
 
 "I remain wholeheartedly committed to following through on this promise," Meadows said in a statement. "President Trump is committed to repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a system that works for American families, and I look forward to working with him to do just that." 
 
 Trump has staked his early presidency on repealing and replacing Obamacare, embracing his image as a dealmaker and closer throughout the process. House leaders were happy to oblige as well, referring to Trump as “the ultimate closer” as he met with reluctant House members. 
 
 “He’s left everything on the field when it comes to this bill,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Friday afternoon, describing Trump as working tirelessly to get the bill across the finish line. He added, “You can’t force someone to vote a certain way.” 
 
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 As Ryan and his allies scrambled to convince wary colleagues to back their health care plan, they watched as conservative and moderates in their caucus began to declare their opposition. As defections mounted, Ryan traveled to the White House to reveal to Trump his faltering whip count – and to discuss whether to pull the bill. But the administration seemed intent on proceeding as planned. 
 
 “We want the vote," a senior administration official said as Ryan made his way up Pennsylvania Avenue. "If they want to go against the president, they should do it on live TV." 
 
 Ultimately, though, Ryan prevailed. Moderate Republicans such as Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock and Ohio Rep. David Joyce disclosed their opposition even as Ryan was meeting with Trump. It became clear early Friday afternoon that the bill was poised for defeat, as members on the fence broke against it. 
 
 The bill met sharp resistance from both ends of the Republican caucus, as hard-line conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus contended it failed to do away with Obamacare’s core components and moderates argued that its curbs on Medicaid could harm vulnerable constituents. Ultimately, those competing pressures proved irreconcilable. 
 
 Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), a moderate who came out against the bill two days ago, insisted that Friday's debacle was actually not a big deal and said it’s time to “move on." 
 
 "There are a lot of people in this building who talk and say everything is catastrophic and cataclysmic, well we know that’s not the case," Dent said. "If you want to do health care reform, do it on a bipartisan basis…. We have to sit down and regroup.” 
 
 Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) warned it wasn’t the end of Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare. 
 
 “The game is not over, so it’s not a win or loss," he said. ”We’re gonna get back together after we get a weekend’s rest, we’re going to assess where we are. The votes were razor thin, from what I understand, so we’re close to where we need to be."
– A House vote on the American Health Care Act was canceled just before it was scheduled to happen, avoiding what the AP says would have been a "humiliating defeat" for President Trump and GOP leaders while still being—according to Politico—a "staggering defeat" for Trump and Paul Ryan. On Thursday, Trump had demanded a vote on the Republican replacement for ObamaCare despite it appearing primed to fail. On Friday, CNN reports Trump called Ryan and asked him to pull the bill without a vote. Sean Spicer says Trump "left everything on the field" trying to make a deal to get the AHCA approved. Hospital and insurer stocks saw an immediate improvement with the news there would be no vote, according to Reuters.