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15, October 2017
Trump failing to lead, sending matters to Congress to fix 0
US Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, has accused President Donald Trump of failing to lead the nation and instead sending matters to Congress.
In a tweet on Saturday, Sen. Schumer cited Trump’s handling of the Iran nuclear deal, health care and hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico as examples of his failures in recent weeks. Trump on Friday announced he would not continue to certify the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The US president kicked a decision over to Congress on whether to re-impose sanctions that were lifted as part of the nuclear accord.
Trump threatened to terminate the international accord if Congress and American allies failed to amend the agreement. The day before, Trump said he was cutting off subsidies to health insurance companies for low-income patients in the most dramatic action to weaken the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.
“If the Democrats were smart, what they’d do is come and negotiate something where people could really get the kind of health care that they deserve,” Trump told reporters.
The White House is simply “asking the legislative branch to do its job,” Marc Short, Trump’s director of legislative affairs, told POLITICO. “We have great confidence in their ability to get things done.”
Analysts say Trump’s actions are meant to erase Obama’s achievements on domestic and foreign policy fronts.
“It’s not just a strategy,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “What Obama did is illegal and unconstitutional and these are areas that Congress should solve.”
“The president is returning power to the Congress — they should be happy,” he added.
Trump on Thursday also gave notice to Puerto Rico, warning that government assistance could not continue “forever.” He said it was up to Congress to decide how much federal money to appropriate to the island for its recovery.
By putting Congress in charge, experts say, Trump is taking a high-stakes gamble given the inability of the legislative branch to accomplish much in recent years.
Source: Presstv