Trump slams Senate Majority Leader for Obamacare repeal failure

The US President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell again for the failure to repeal Obamacare.

"Can you believe that Mitch McConnell, who has screamed Repeal and Replace for seven years, couldn't get it done." Trump tweeted in the morning.

"Must Repeal and Replace ObamaCare!" he wrote on Twitter, though with no more details of his further plan.

Republicans have pledged to repeal Obamacare since 2010. This is also a key campaign promise for Trump, Xinhua reported.

McConnell on Monday said Trump had "excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process."

"Our new president had of course not been in this line of work before," he said.

Republican lawmakers' work in the first 200 days of Trump's presidency has been unfairly criticised partly because "artificial deadlines, unrelated to the reality of the complexity of legislating, may not have been fully understood," the Kentucky Republican said.

Trump hit back on Twitter on Wednesday after reportedly speaking with McConnell by phone about these remarks: "Senator Mitch McConnell said I had 'excessive expectations,' but I don't think so.

After seven years of hearing Repeal & Replace, why not done?" he tweeted.

Despite the public sparring, Trump and the Senate Majority Leader are in frequent contact, usually by phone calls, to discuss legislative strategy, according to local media reports.

McConnell has been a steadfast backer of Trump's agenda in Congress. In April, he helped changing the Senate rules so that Democrats couldn't block the confirmation of Trump's Supreme Court pick Neil Gorsuch.

The US Congress is currently out on its August recess and Trump has been on a 17-day working vacation since Friday at his private golf club in Bedminster, the state of New Jersey.

--IANS

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