President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE on Monday put forward a timeline for a new health care plan to replace ObamaCare, indicating legislation would be brought up for a vote after the election in 2020. "Vote will be taken right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win back the House," he tweeted. ADVERTISEMENT "It will be truly great HealthCare that will work for America," he promised. "Also, Republicans will always support Pre-Existing Conditions. The Republican Party will be known as the Party of Great HealtCare. Meantime, the USA is doing better than ever & is respected again!" Everybody agrees that ObamaCare doesn’t work. Premiums & deductibles are far too high - Really bad HealthCare! Even the Dems want to replace it, but with Medicare for all, which would cause 180 million Americans to lose their beloved private health insurance. The Republicans..... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2019 ....are developing a really great HealthCare Plan with far lower premiums (cost) & deductibles than ObamaCare. In other words it will be far less expensive & much more usable than ObamaCare. Vote will be taken right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win...... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2019 ....back the House. It will be truly great HealthCare that will work for America. Also, Republicans will always support Pre-Existing Conditions. The Republican Party will be known as the Party of Great HealtCare. Meantime, the USA is doing better than ever & is respected again! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2019 The Trump administration last week began a new push to invalidate former President Obama's signature health care law when the Justice Department argued in a new court filing that the entire law should be ruled unconstitutional. White House aides have indicated that the administration is working on replacement legislation to submit to Congress sometime this year.<doc-sep>WASHINGTON — In a trio of tweets Monday night, President Trump simultaneously caved on health care and made the 2020 election a referendum on the issue. “The Republicans,” he said, “are developing a really great HealthCare Plan with far lower premiums (cost) & deductibles than ObamaCare. In other words it will be far less expensive & much more usable than ObamaCare. Vote will be taken right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win......back the House.” Of course, we know Republicans don’t have a plan – at least one that could pass Congress in 2017-2018. And now Democrats are in charge of the House for at least the next year and half. But for the short term, Trump’s decision to punt on health care for the time being relieves some anxiety for congressional Republicans after Trump’s Justice Department said the entire Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, is unconstitutional. Thought bubble for a GOP senator: “Phew, we don’t have to come up with another plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.” But in the long term, at least through the 2020 election, Trump’s tweets allow every Democratic campaign to say, “The president wants the presidential election to be a referendum on health care!” And we saw how that played out in 2018 … Biden’s inevitable campaign no longer seems so inevitable After Friday’s accusation against Joe Biden – and after another one on Monday – there’s a question that should be on every single political reporter’s mind: Is the former vice president really going to run for president in 2020? What seemed inevitable a month ago no longer seems that inevitable right now. Buzzfeed’s Katherine Miller nicely sums up the dilemma for Biden, as well as for the political news media: “Everybody already knows what they think about Joe Biden putting his hands on people, because we’ve all seen this happen in public. We’ve seen Biden kiss people at public events! We’ve all had years to think about it! Does anyone need a photograph of Lucy Flores and Joe Biden to know that, at some point, somewhere, over the last 40 years, someone might have been uncomfortable because the situation wasn’t quite right?” More from Miller: “But the current system still isn’t ready to handle a well-known, gray-area subject like this. As she said on TV over the weekend, Flores didn’t consider it sexual harassment, she just was uncomfortable, and we all know what she means.” Harris reports $12 million for 1st quarter Kamala Harris’ campaign last night said it raised $12 million for the quarter from 218,000 individual contributions — since launching her presidential bid on January 21. To put Harris’ $12 million into perspective: Pete Buttigieg, the only other Dem 2020er to reveal his first quarter numbers so far, said he raised more than $7 million. (He announced his exploratory committee on January 23.) Beto O’Rourke raised $6.1 million in his first 24 hours after launching on March 14. Bernie Sanders raised $5.9 million in his first 24 hours, and appears to be on pace to raise more than $20 million for the quarter after announcing on February 19. The candidates have until April 15 to file their first quarter numbers with the Federal Election Commission. 2020 Vision: We The Policy Proposers At yesterday’s “We The People” presidential forum in DC, several of the 2020 Dem hopefuls spelled out policy proposals, per NBC’s Ben Kamisar. Julian Castro: felons should be allowed to vote in every state after they serve their time; $15 minimum wage; abolish the Electoral College; make Congress subject to Freedom of Information Act requests (FOIAs). Cory Booker: more policies to stop mass incarceration; increased regulations on tech companies to protect privacy and security; defended the Senate filibuster. Amy Klobuchar: In first 100 days as president, push for DC statehood, rejoin the Paris climate accord and pass comprehensive immigration reform. Also supported passing laws to allow felons to vote after leaving prison, and to have automatic same-day voter registration. Beto O’Rourke: executive order for cabinet secretaries to hold a town hall each month with the public; redistricting reform; new Voting Rights Act; constitutional amendment reversing Citizens United. Elizabeth Warren: get rid of private prisons; overturn Citizens United; equal access to voting; new bill for public housing; more aggressive enforcement to protect voting rights; and pursue her anti-corruption and anti-monopoly policies. More from NBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald, Lauren Egan and Eileen Street at the forum: “Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said he does not support expanding the size of the Supreme Court, as a growing number of progressives have advocated, which would allow a Democratic president to tilt the ideological balance of the court back in their favor.” On the campaign trail today Kamala Harris travels to Nevada, where she keynotes a Battle Born Progress event in Carson City. Tweet of the day An historic election in #Chicago: today the city will elect its first black female mayor — and if @LightfootForChi wins — she would also become the city’s first openly gay mayor. Lightfoot says her election could define the “dawn of a new era in Chicago.” @TODAYshow pic.twitter.com/DwWbFQ3RV1 — Morgan Radford (@MorganRadford) April 2, 2019 Shameless Plugs The Meet the Press: First Read newsletter isn’t the only thing in the NBC News Political Unit that’s getting an upgrade. Check out this week’s new changes to our blog. And we’re cooking up some changes to Chuck’s podcast, too, so stay tuned. Want even more NBC News top stories in your inbox every morning? Sign up for the Morning Rundown newsletter here. Data Download: The number of the day is … 48 percent. Forty--eight percent. That’s the share of regular viewers of Fox News who say — based on what they’ve heard about the conclusion of Robert Mueller’s report — that the special counsel’s investigation has cleared Trump of wrongdoing. That’s compared with 29 percent of Americans overall who say Trump has been cleared. About one-in-five (22 percent) of those who regularly watch broadcast news to stay informed say the same, along with just 15 percent of regular MSNBC viewers.<doc-sep>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats mocked President Donald Trump on Tuesday for pushing back his promise of sweeping healthcare reform until after the 2020 election, and said they were happy to make it a central campaign issue. Trump had pledged in recent days to use court action to end Obamacare, the signature law of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, and said his Republican Party would push over the next few months for a better healthcare plan at lower cost for most Americans. But Republican leaders in Congress quickly shied away from the issue and pushed him to reconsider. In a series of late-night tweets on Monday, Trump did just that, saying there would be no vote on any healthcare legislation until after next year’s election. Democrats gleefully jumped on the delay, saying it showed Trump and his party had no idea what to do with healthcare beyond repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. “Last night the president tweeted that they will come up with their plan in 2021. Translation: they have no healthcare plan,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said. “They are for repeal, they have no replace.” Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, said he told Trump on Monday the party was not about to restart work on comprehensive healthcare legislation, noting Republicans were unable to pass a plan when they controlled both chambers of Congress in the first two years of the Trump presidency. “I made it clear to him we were not going to be doing that in the Senate,” McConnell told reporters. Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in November elections after campaigning heavily on strengthening Obamacare. FIRST VOTE Trump said on Tuesday he and Republicans would draw up a new healthcare plan ahead of the 2020 election and implement it soon afterward. “I think we’re going to have a great healthcare package ... If we get back the House and on the assumption we keep the Senate and we keep the presidency – which I hope are two good assumptions – we’re going to have a phenomenal healthcare,” Trump told reporters. He said a Republican plan would mean most Americans pay lower premiums and deductibles for their healthcare than they currently pay under Obamacare, revisiting a promise he made during the 2016 campaign. Trump told House Republicans in a speech on Tuesday night that they should campaign on a pledge to make healthcare the first vote in Congress after the 2020 election. He said one of the major reasons Democrats won control of the House last year was because Republicans did not have a healthcare plan to put forward to voters. “Republicans should not run away from healthcare. You can’t do it. You’re going to get clobbered,” Trump said. While Trump’s delay gives Republicans more time to knit together an alternative to Obamacare, it all but guarantees a 2020 battle over the divisive issue. FILE PHOTO: U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) delivers remarks at a National Portrait Gallery Women's History Month reception in Washington, U.S., March 28, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas “Don’t let President Trump fool you, America. Republicans are not the party of healthcare. They are the party that wants to end your healthcare,” Schumer said at a rally on Tuesday. “We Democrats will not stop fighting tooth and nail to protect America’s healthcare, today, tomorrow, and on in through 2021.” Trump and his fellow Republicans vowed in the 2016 presidential election to “repeal and replace” Obamacare but failed to do so during their first two years in power, despite control of both the Senate and the House. Several of the leading candidates for the Democratic 2020 presidential nomination, including a number of current U.S. senators, have already made healthcare a major part of their campaign message. Trump accuses Democrats of seeking “a socialist takeover of American healthcare,” and is certain to take that argument onto the 2020 campaign trail. “I see what the Democrats are doing. It’s a disaster what they’re planning and everyone knows it,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.<doc-sep>President Trump said in a series of tweets Monday night Republicans were developing a "really great" replacement for the Affordable Care Act, but it would not happen until after the 2020 elections. Vote will be taken right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win … back the House.” Details: Trump did not give any details of the Republican plan, but he tweeted it would be "truly great HealthCare that will work for America." "Republicans will always support Pre-Existing Conditions," he said. The big picture: Trump's Twitter declaration comes after the Justice Department said last week the courts should strike down the entire Affordable Care Act — not just its protections for pre-existing conditions. It announced the move in a legal filing, part of a lawsuit challenging the law's individual insurance mandate. Between the lines: Axios' Jonathan Swan reported this week Trump privately thought the lawsuit would probably fail in court. "Trump has asked Republicans to come up with a replacement plan, even though nobody thinks they've got a chance of passing anything through this divided Congress," Swan said. Several Republicans have backed away from ACA replacement plans. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested Thursday he would not be lead an appeal of the healthcare act. "I am focusing on stopping the ‘Democrats’ Medicare for none’ scheme," he told Politico. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) wrote to to Attorney General Bill Barr Monday urging him to reconsider the Justice Department's decision. Go deeper: Trump goes it alone<doc-sep>
President Trump in a series of tweets late Monday announced that the Republican health care plan replacing ObamaCare will be ready for a vote after the 2020 election and predicted that the GOP will regain control of the House. “The Republicans are developing a really great HealthCare Plan with far lower premiums (cost) & deductibles than ObamaCare. In other words it will be far less expensive & much more usable than ObamaCare,” Trump wrote. “Vote will be taken right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win back the House.” In another tweet, he reiterated comments he made last week that Republicans will be known for health care. “It will be truly great HealthCare that will work for America. Also, Republicans will always support Pre-Existing Conditions. The Republican Party will be known as the Party of Great HealtCare,” he said in the posting, adding: “Meantime, the USA is doing better than ever & is respected again!” In a third, Trump trashed the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. “Everybody agrees that ObamaCare doesn’t work. Premiums & deductibles are far too high – Really bad HealthCare!,” he said. “Even the Dems want to replace it, but with Medicare for all, which would cause 180 million Americans to lose their beloved private health insurance.” Trump has ramped up his assault on ObamaCare after his administration came out in support of a decision by a Texas judge last December that the entire law should be tossed. The Department of Justice in a legal filing last week said it would support federal Judge Reed O’Connor’s ruling that the health care plan signed into law in 2010 is unconstitutional during the appeals process. The following day, Trump boasted that “the Republican Party will soon be known as the party of healthcare.” If ObamaCare is struck down, it would culminate years of attempts by Republicans to scuttle it, including as recently as 2017, when Sen. John McCain cast the deciding vote not to repeal the health care plan. Health care emerged as the top issue during the 2016 midterm elections, when Democrats won control of the House.