Trump’s Promise to Preserve Medicare Was a “Fantasy” According to Republicans

Throughout Trump’s presidential campaign, he made several grandiose promises. He was going to build a wall that Mexico paid for, and he was going to make sure Muslims couldn’t enter the country. Most of those promises haven’t panned out, despite Trump being the most successful president since ever, and it looks like Trump is about to fail on yet another pledge.

Trump long claimed that he wouldn’t touch Medicare funding even as he sought to overturn Obamacare. Well, now congressional Republicans are looking to cut Medicare from the national budget. They’re not exactly thrilled with Trump’s proposed budget and are looking to overhaul it thoroughly.

Speaking to Vox, Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma basically admitted that the president’s campaign promises hold little sway over their day-to-day actions and planning:

We have been talking about Medicare and Medicaid reform all the way through. I’m not asking the president to abandon his principles. He is the president of the United States. He doesn’t have to sign something. But we shouldn’t abandon ours either. Just because they have a political construct that they ran on — with all due respect, if you are not willing to tackle Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, you are not ever getting a balanced budget, and to pretend otherwise is a fantasy. I would hope we could craft a more serious proposal than that and the best way to do that is sticking with some of the things we have the votes to do. People have cast those votes [on Medicare] before. I wouldn’t give up any of the places where we have been aggressive in the past.

In other words, Trump can go to hell. It’s impressive how little regard some Republicans have for the president and his “fantasy.” Cole seems to suggest that Trump’s principles just don’t line up with Republicans’ at all. Of course, it could be argued that Trump’s principles—assuming he has any—don’t really line up with anybody’s. And as the Republican party gears up for a difficult budget fight, they seem unwilling to tweak it to fit the president’s campaign promises. There’s not a lot to be gained from acquiescing to the president as his power continues to dwindle, along with his approval ratings.