WASHINGTON (AP) — Abdul El-Sayed has proposed “TrumpCare,” a golden insurance card providing universal healthcare, dangling the president’s name on the ambitious Democratic plan.
James Talarico has suggested Donald Trump could become a man of history like Lyndon B. Johnson, who was seen as a master of congressional dealmaking.
And even Hakeem Jeffries, in line to become the House speaker in January, has left the door open to working with the other side of the aisle “wherever and whenever possible” to deliver for the American people.
Democrats who swept into power by riding voter backlash to Trump are now pitching ways to collaborate with the president, playing to his vanity and his love of making deals to propel their own agenda.
The offers coming from the Democrats carry both practical and political applications — a strategy to show that the party is serious about the hard work of legislating and also an acknowledgment that Trump’s signature is needed for new laws.
Trump himself has said he doesn’t want to spend the final two years of his presidency simply vetoing bills from the Democrats in control of Congress. It was only a few short years ago, during his first term, that Trump stunned Republicans by cutting deals with the Democratic leaders he called “Chuck and Nancy” — Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Democrats appeal to Trump’s vanity
Before the next Congress begins in January, Democrats are trying to entice Trump with the prospect of timeless glory to a president fixated on making his mark on Washington.
All he has to do, they say, is work with them to deliver sweeping policies like Medicare for All.
“Donald, this is on the table. Guarantee healthcare for every American, from cradle to grave,” El-Sayed, who won the U.S. Senate race in Michigan after Trump branded him a terrorist sympathizer, wrote on social media.
He attached mock-ups of a gold-colored card, with Trump’s name and signature far more prominent than the small text reading “Medicare for All.”
Universal healthcare has long been anathema to Republicans, although Congress — and even the Republican president himself — will face pressure to deal with rising costs.
About 6 in 10 voters nationally said the federal government should play a bigger role in helping Americans get healthcare than it does now, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 midterm voters.
READ MORE: Trump’s Justice Department faces a new era of scrutiny under a Democratic-led Congress
The costs of expanding Medicare to cover more people would depend on the scope, and Democrats have considered plans that include dropping the eligibility age to below 65 or including children and young people. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2022 that various so-called single-payer options could increase federal subsidies for health care from $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion by 2030, while the total out-of-pocket costs for patients would decline.
Trump’s willingness to slog through extended negotiations with Democrats is an open question, and his past promises of dealmaking have been hit and miss. He reiterated Thursday he is willing to work with Democrats.
“I’m going to be vetoing a lot of things that they’re going to send me initially that are bad for the country, and I think eventually they’re going to call in, they’re going to say, ‘Let’s make a deal,’ and we’ll be able to make deals on healthcare, on drug prices,” the president told commentator Stephen A. Smith in an interview.
Trump’s choice of Stephen Miller as his new White House chief of staff may foreclose some of those opportunities, however. Jeffries described Miller as a “stone-cold racist” and said he has “zero interest” in working with him.
The pitches from Democrats keep coming
The pitches from some of Democrats’ most high-profile new arrivals in Washington will help shape the party’s approach for the rest of Trump’s presidency.
Talarico, the Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas, described the ways that Johnson is memorialized on Capitol Hill and remembered for shaping civil rights and social services as a senator and president.
“If President Trump wants the same plaques and portraits and busts as LBJ, we can help make that a reality,” Talarico said Thursday at the What’s Next conference in Denver, where many Democrats gathered to plot their way forward.
READ MORE: Democrats are weighing impeachment of RFK Jr. while courting his supporters
Talarico made his pitch to Democrats as much as to Trump. After getting the fulsome repudiation of Trump they’ve been seeking for a decade, the party’s base voters may not be eager to see their newly elected leaders standing with him for a bipartisan signing ceremony at the White House Rose Garden that he paved over to create a patio resembling his Mar-a-Lago resort.
However, Talarico said Americans are counting on bold changes before the next president takes office after Trump’s second term ends.
“Some of these reforms may not pass until 2029, but the American people cannot wait two years for change,” he said. “So we must work with President Trump.”
The eagerness to work with Trump is notable from El-Sayed and Talarico, who were among the president’s most frequent targets as he hop-scotched the country for Republicans ahead of the midterms. He singled them out for especially personal attacks, questioning El-Sayed’s loyalty to the United States and labeling the Texan as “Talafreako.”
Cooper reported from Phoenix.
