Now that a Texas federal judge has found the Affordable Care Act to be unconstitutional, President Donald Trump should reach out to incoming Democrats to push for healthcare legislation that works for Americans, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday.
"The important thing is 46 Democratic freshmen wrote a letter last week to [Nancy] Pelosi, saying they really came to legislate, not just investigate," Gingrich told Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria" host Maria Bartiromo. "Certainly by the State of the Union, he should have a serious proposal to fix the system in terms of access, in terms of preconditions."
He should also tell Democrats he wants to work with them, Gingrich said, "because health is more important than partisan infighting. Do they really come back and say 'no? We would rather let people not get insurance because we rather try to score points?'"
U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth on Friday agreed with a coalition of Republican states led by Texas that he had to make the ruling after Congress last year removed a provision requiring a tax penalty for not complying with the requirement to buy insurance.
The decision will likely be appealed, but Gingrich said Friday that is O.K.
The decision is almost certain to be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, but that "lawyer talk could go on six months or a year or two years," Gingrich said.
Gingrich also said he thinks it would be "pretty dumb" to shut down the government on Christmas Eve over Trump's call for a border wall.
"I think doing this literally on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, for a lot of different reasons is not very sound," Gingrich said. "I also think ultimately, that the Democrats will give him a lot more money on the wall, because I don't think they want to see the government shut down."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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