President Donald Trump on Tuesday ducked responsibility after it became clear that neither “repeal and replace” nor a straight repeal of Obamacare had the votes to pass the Senate.
“We’re not going to own it. I’m not going to own it,” he said. “I can tell you the Republicans are not going to own it.”
But that’s very different from what he said about leadership and responsibility nearly four years ago:
By late in the day, the apparent disconnect with Trump’s words on Tuesday and his 2013 tweet were drawing plenty of attention. It made headlines on the websites of newspapers around the world, from The Washington Post to the Independent in London.
On CNN, Anderson Cooper compared Trump’s comments about how he’s “not going to own it” to former President Harry S. Truman’s famous “the buck stops here” sign.
“He’s not going to own it, he says now, but four years ago as a citizen he said something very different indeed,” Cooper said, referring to the tweet. “What a difference four years can make.”
The resurfaced quote also drew a new round of attention on Twitter: