Will Mike Pence Be Trump’s Bridge to Democrats?

Though he has not yet been installed in the Oval Office, Donald Trump has already made life fairly complex for his Republican brethren in Congress. Most recently, in an interview with the New York Times this week, Trump singlehandedly threw the GOP’s Obamacare repeal process into chaos, insisting that a repeal vote would come “probably some time next week” and a replacement “very quickly or simultaneously, very shortly thereafter.” Neither was correct, but especially the replacement timeline: Congressional Republicans  are quietly insisting that it will be weeks before a replacement bill is ready—maybe even months (or years!).  

The only person in the administration who seemed willing to acknowledge this reality is Vice President-elect Mike Pence.  In a press: “The architecture of the replacement of Obamacare will come together, as it should, through the legislative process in the weeks and months ahead.”