President Trump: ‘I’ll Negotiate With the Democrats If We Can Come Up With a Fantastic Health Care Bill’

In the wake of yet another failed effort by Senate Republicans to repeal and replace Obamacare, President Donald Trump said he’d be willing to work with Democrats on a health care bill.

Speaking to Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends in an interview that will air Thursday morning, Trump said that his party will try again with a revised health care bill “a few months from now.” But until that happens, he is open to working with Democrats on the legislation.

“We’ll vote it — it’s block grants. It’s going to be great health care,” Trump began. “But in the meantime, I have that little period of time, I’ll negotiate with the Democrats if we can come up with a fantastic health care bill, that’s okay with me. Good for both parties. Bipartisan.”

Regarding the recently-shelved Graham-Cassidy health care bill, Trump insisted that enough votes could be wrangled — but not before the Friday deadline.

“We have the votes to get it done. You can’t do it when somebody is in the hospital,” Trump said. “You know, when you have 52 votes and you need 51, it’s you know, it’s very hard to get, because you always have somebody — and in some cases, they want to grandstand.

“A lot of bad things happen. But we have the votes,” Trump added. “But we don’t have the time, because it’s Friday. I mean literally Friday, it ends at a certain time on Friday. So we’ll bring it into a few months from now.”

Trump has recently shown a willingness to work across the party lines with other legislation, at times to the dismay of his fellow Republicans. He teamed up with Democrat leaders to reach a budget deal earlier this month. Then, after sending hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants protected under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) into panic by rescinding the Obama-era policy later that month, the President seemed to have a change of heart.

“Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military?” Trump asked on Twitter at the time. He agreed to work with the Democrats to protect DACA recipients a day earlier during a dinner with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.