Trump gives GOP leaders rallying cry, roadmap for change
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump gave Republican congressional leaders a rallying cry and even a roadmap as they try to push through a sweeping and divisive agenda on health care, taxes and more.
In his first address to a joint session of Congress, Trump said largely what GOP leaders were hoping to hear Tuesday night, staying on-message and talking in optimistic tones, even weighing in at one point to settle a brewing dispute over how to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
House Speaker Paul Ryan declared the speech a "home run," pointing to Trump's embrace for the first time of tax credits — a central element in the Republican plan to replace former President Barack Obama's health care law.
Rewriting health care and overhauling the tax code are the twin pillars of the Republican-run Congress' legislative platform this year and GOP lawmakers have been eager for guidance from the president on both counts.
Trump called on Congress to approve a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, something likely to set up a clash with deficit hawks, and also renewed his call for money for a border wall, which could provoke a spending fight with Democrats and even the threat of a government shutdown.
[...] underscoring the distance that still remains between Trump and congressional Republicans, the speech made no mention of overhauling the financially-shaky Medicare or Social Security, the expensive, enormous entitlement programs that Republicans have long attacked.
On health care, far from his blanket statement in January that his plan would ensure "coverage for everybody," Trump on Tuesday embraced an overhaul that would "increase access," the phrase House Republicans have used to describe their more modest goal.