President Donald Trump took the first of what will likely be many victory laps on Wednesday following passage of the $1.4 trillion tax overhaul, saying that in addition to cutting taxes for corporations and many Americans the GOP bill essentially killed Obamacare too.
“The individual mandate is being repealed. When the individual mandate is being repealed that means Obamacare is being repealed because they get their money from the individual mandate,” Trump said during a televised cabinet meeting.
“In this bill not only do we have massive tax cuts and tax reform, we have essentially repealed Obamacare and we will come up with something that will be much better,” he added after the Senate approved the legislation in a party-line vote.
Trump bluntly added that he and his team deliberately didn’t publicize the backdoor Obamacare repeal in order to keep the media from focusing on it.
“We didn’t want to bring it up. I told people specifically be quiet with the fake news media because I don’t want them talking too much about it,” said Trump. “But now that it’s approved, I can say the individual mandate on health care … has been repealed.”
After tortuous negotiations, both the House and Senate passed a unified version of the GOP tax overhaul on Tuesday. A procedural error forced the House to revote on the bill Wedensday but it is expected to pass the chamber again and head to Trump’s desk for his signature.
The bill is Trump’s first significant legislative achievement since becoming president 11 months ago.
Watch above.