Rand Paul, problem child.

The Trump administration spent the Sunday shows insisting that Trumpcare was going to pass in the Senate, that Trump wasn't really endorsing the repeal now, replacement sometime idea from the Senate extremists, and that really, everything is going just fine.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and White House legislative affairs director Marc Short are fighting off a tide of discontent that has been exacerbated in recent days by President Trump’s tweet that the Senate could simply repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it later if it cannot pass the pending measure. Price and Short both argued in television appearances Sunday that President Trump doesn’t actually endorse the staggered approach. They said Trump was working the phones this weekend to urge senators to get on board with the Senate bill.

The problem is that Trump did endorse that approach, and that the maniacs are running with it, despite the fact that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been pretty clear in ruling it out. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) went on Fox News Sunday to say "I want repeal to work, and the way you do it is you separate into two bills and you do it concurrently." Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), the guy who wants everyone to know it was his idea first before Paul stole it, told CNN Sunday that "We should do repeal with a delay," and that he was only giving negotiations another week before he declared it dead. Not that what Sasse has to say about anything makes any difference to anything. The two got a third to help them, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) was on Face the Nation calling for full repeal with a "delayed implementation" and using the time to come up with the replacement. Because everybody really believes they'll come up with a replacement.

Meanwhile, the other side of the debate (not the Democrats, they remain shut out) went on Meet the Press. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) touted the bill that he and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) haven't been able to get any traction on with the rest of their caucus, saying that his bill is designed to be bipartisan. Then, because he's a Republican, he says Democrats aren't serious about working on an Obamacare fix unless they agree to sign on to his bill. "Until a Democrat says they are willing to sign on to the Patient Freedom Act, which allows a blue state to do what they're doing now, but allows a red state to do something different, I'm not sure we're ready for bipartisanship."

McConnell is still pushing, and has asked the Congressional Budget Office to score one of the proposals from the maniac side—Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) idea that insurance companies would be allowed to sell crappy policies on exchanges just as long as they sold one Obamacare-compliant one, too. That's apparently part of McConnell's effort to get the maniacs on board, but now that they've latched on to the repeal now approach, it's not clear that's going to work.

We delayed Trumpcare—for now. But the GOP leadership is hell-bent on denying health insurance, and is working hard to coerce Republican senators. We need three Republicans to stand firm. Call your senator at (202) 224-3121 and tell them “NO DEAL.” Then, tell us how it went.