the room, in the oval office during meetings, various important meetings, meeting important officials. but in the end, this trump source, a source close to trump, said the president was upset that kushner, his son-in-law, his senior adviser, was not nearby, was not here during what turned out to be a crucial week. and it was a crucial week. it was supposed to be a week that ended with a big win for the white house, another campaign promise kept. in the end, it ended with this huge loss that this young presidency now has to recover from. i should note it was not clear entirely what specific role kushner would have played in all of this, attempts to win over the votes of republican members of the house. he doesn t have experience on capitol hill or in washington. but it seems pretty clear that the president wanted to have one of his closest advisers nearby and is upset that kushner is out in aspen for the past week or so
sara murray is out front at the white house. the president has always called himself the ultimate deal maker. he couldn t get this one done. what is the white house saying tonight? reporter: i think the white house is trying to shift a lilt bit of the blame here. you re absolutely right, he campaigned on this, he insisted that he was the man who could fwetd things done in washington that other people could not. and we know that behind the scenes there was a lot of frustration among the president and his top aides about being unable to coax republicans into agreeing to this deal, but we saw a very disciplined president today not blaming members of his own party. listen to what he said. i think the losers are nancy pelosi and chuck schumer because now they own obamacare, they own it, 100% own it, and this is not a republican health care. this is not anything but a democrat health care. reporter: the reality is, and this was a political defeat for this white house in a week where
a year later there was gosh d f gorbachev signing the agreement he wanted. only 64 days and look what fact, when you have a defeat. you pick up your socks and move on to the next and you get a victory. everyone acknowledges obamacare needs fixing. any alternate universe, is there a possibility that this defeat could possibly open it up that democrats and republicans could work together? i saw a tweet from chuck grassley that said stop laughing, nia these things need to be done in a bipartisan fashion or am i delusional? i think you re delusional. it could happen in secret if there s a way to do that in washington, d.c. the honest truth is people don t want to work together and the republican party is now weakened because of this and they know that trump can t get a deal. the democrats have no incentive to want to work with them because of that. but tax reform is going to be a very difficult haul. not only do you have to deal with your caucuses but the different interest gro
you cut deals. that s exactly the deal making that s been going on for the past week at the white house and the capitol. he couldn t get it done. well, you know, i had this specific conversation with the vice president and that is this, that i m a business lawyer, i work with entrepreneurs like the president and i certainly understand negotiating tactics. but legislation isn t a, you know, that s my final offer. legislation is a process. even this was only going to be a piece of a larger process. certainly hope the president becomes engaged and that we get a bill that can be passed but what we know is that this bill couldn t even pass the senate. so regardless of whether or not it stopped here, it certainly wasn t a bill that was going to his desk. does the president need to learn some lessons how business deals are different than deals in washington? well, i think the president needs to engage in the conversation. not engaged in it enough right now. well, you know, he s been
left it all on the field. there were lots of meetings, yes, at the white house. the president went over the capitol. but when it came to the public push, changing public opinion on this, those two big campaign rallies that he had, we tallied it up. he spent 7 out of 42 minutes talking about health care one. five out of 37 minutes at the other. do you think the white house will regret that? if they don t now, they should regret it because it all goes back to casting forward and how are they going to operate when they re trying to get other very difficult things done. you know, we talk about tax reform and how easy that s going to be. that s going to be extremely difficult to do. and, you know, if there is a positive for president trump to take away from this, if there is one, he learned a lesson early on about legislating in washington and working with 535 free agents is a lot different than trying to negotiate a deal with one person over real