House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) met with Vice President Pence and other senior officials at the White House on Monday as they map out a path forward after the disastrous collapse of their healthcare plan.
Ryan also spoke briefly with President Trump after meeting with Pence, chief of staff Reince Priebus and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price to discuss their agenda, according to the Speaker’s office.
The meeting comes days after GOP leaders agreed to shelve the first major legislative initiative of Trump’s presidency, the American Health Care Act, after it ran into fierce resistance from rank-and-file Republicans.
{mosads}The measure’s defeat sparked days of recriminations between the White House and Congress and left many wondering how Trump and Ryan would find progress with other large bills such as tax reform.
Trump’s top advisers have expressed interest in working with Democrats to approve a must-pass government funding bill and a massive infrastructure spending package down the road.
“Absolutely,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday when asked if Trump is serious about working across the aisle, adding that the president has “received a number of calls” since last Friday about collaborating on healthcare.
But Ryan’s meetings Monday are a sign that he’s determined not to be sidelined. The Speaker reportedly cast the healthcare bill’s failure as a learning experience that brought him closer to Trump.
“In a strange way, this really merged our teams — our team in the House with the president’s team — even more closely,” he told donors, according to The Washington Post.
He said the White House now “has a much, much clearer understanding of just the dynamic that we have in the House Republican conference” that poses “challenges” to governing.
It was also a chance for Trump and Ryan to clear the air in person after the president used Twitter to plug a Fox News show whose host called on the Speaker to resign.
Aides for both said the tweet wasn’t mean to be a slight and said the two spoke by phone for an hour on Saturday.