Trump's happy fun Rose Garden times over for now as Yates testifies and Trumpcare goes to Senate

Is it just me or does Trump look more like Steve Bannon every day.  All he needs are the pockmarks.

By Laura Clawson  

Monday May 08, 2017 · 6:46 AM PDT

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The White House was so very happy last week, with jubilant House Republicans trooping into the Rose Garden with Donald Trump to celebrate that their bill to strip healthcare access from 24 million Americans had passed one entire chamber of commerce. But now Trumpcare goes to the Senate, where Republicans are not eager to embrace such a flaming poo-bag of a bill, and the White House is dealing with other problems, namely that former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Russia Monday afternoon.

So, according to Politico, the “health care victory lap is already grinding to a halt.” 

Let’s pause for a moment to consider that by failing so spectacularly to pass their bill the first times they tried, Republicans managed to turn a foregone conclusion (after all, they’d voted dozens of times to repeal Obamacare back when President Obama was there to veto it) into a “victory” according to themselves and the media. And then let’s turn our eyes to the current, completely predictable, status of that bill:

"First of all, the House bill is not going to come before us,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a moderate who is emerging as a powerful voice in the health care fight, told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. "The Senate is starting from scratch. We're going to draft our own bill. And I'm convinced that we're going to take the time to do it right.”

Over the weekend, Trump tweeted confidence that “Republican Senators will not let the American people down,” but:

The White House is hopeful for a vote in the Senate by the end of June but also wary of placing deadlines for fear of appearing heavy-handed, a senior administration official said.

And with Yates’ testimony bringing the question of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia back into the media spotlight, the White House may not be in a position to apply much pressure, public or private, to the Senate.